The Hacker: Prize-giving for the snakes and ladders has its ups and downs

We've just completed our winter league, and it didn't end in harmony. Alas, the prize-giving supper, always a raucous affair, was tinged with sadness.

I was unable to be present because I had to make a speech in Tunbridge Wells (don't ask), but I'm told there were rumblings of disquiet from several quarters.

Regrets were inevitable because it was the last appearance of Andy as our Chief Snake. For reasons far too complicated to go into, our winter league is called the Snakes and Ladders, and the leader of the 144 hardy souls who take part in the contest that stretches over 20 winter Sundays goes by the name of Chief Snake. His power is absolute and his adjudication on the many disputes that arise is final, despite owing little to the rules of golf and even less to human rights.

Andy's choice as his successor is Bob, a man whose rumbustious style is well suited to continuing the reign of terror and clamping down on the number of young banditswho are causing rumblings in the competition.

I was proud to hold the post for six years in the 1980s, and when I relinquished it because of illness and fatigue – they were sick and tired of me – I decreed that future Chief Snakes should serve for no longer than three years because it is such a demanding role. The heaviest responsibility is the conducting of the raffle held each Sunday at 1pm, when the stories of the morning's exertions are wittily and wickedly discussed, with any underperformers being mercilessly mocked.

If the standard of this pitiless diatribe ever fell, people would go home early and the club would suffer a grievous loss of bar takings. Andy's cruel brilliance ensured that this never happened.

Another weighty task is to select the recipients of the wooden spoon. In any normal competition it would go to the pair with the worst results, but the Chief Snake retains the right to award it as he sees fit.

This year there were several struggling candidates who had won only one or two matches but Andy shocked everyone by giving it to Peter and Roger, who had won three.

Andy had shared a room with Roger on our trip to St Andrews just a few days previously, and there is much conjecture about the reasons why he should heap such ignominy on him.

Peter plays off a handicap of four and didn't deserve the shame. Known as Porky for his unhealthy appetite for bacon sandwiches, he responded to the insult in dashing style by winning the Easter Cup. He did so in appalling conditions. The course was lashed by a north wind as evil as anyone can recall, and yet he scored 36 Stableford points.

Very few came anywherenear that score, certainly not me. I lost five balls and played the wrong ball on another hole as I scrambled to a pathetic 11 points.

When I confessed my score in the bar the following lunchtime, the immediate past captain leapt to his feet, punched the air and howled with delight. He had scored 12 and had thought he was the lowest. My wretched golfing life can't be in vain if I possess the power to make my fellow golfers so happy.