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I think golf is one of the most boring games ever invented but I did know that it's the lowest score that wins the hole. As to the "won by x & y" that at least tells us that the winner wins by more than one hole. I'll probably have to abandon this puzzle: I can't cold-solve enough clues to get a proper foothold on it. And it looks as though answers to the Holes clues have to be entered jumbled which just adds to the problems. I do like to be able to enter answers in the grid.

All Hole answers have 2 letters in common. When you have identified these 2 letters it should be obvious what they represent and should be entered in light appropriately. Other letters of the answer stay in word order, so, if you have solved 1 and 10 you have a start on the grid. Also there are only 2 nine letter answers to 'holes' and this limits where they appear.

I wouldn't read too much in to the honour stats for this particular fictitious game Meursalt. Xanthippe obviously didn't want either player to race ahead to far so as to keep the round going as long as possible. Although I don't play the game my understanding is that the round would normally stop once one player can't be beaten, so in this case, as you have already in effect noted, all 18 holes wouldn't actually have been played.

Escuan, as Crosswhit has noted, for a player to win by 1, all 18 holes must be played. In fact a player might also win by 2 after playing all 18 holes. The only other possibility after 18 holes is a tie. All other scores can only be made when less than 18 holes are played. As Xanthippe probably intended solvers to play all 18 holes, this narrows down quite considerably your possible results. I wouldn't say so-and-so winning by 1 is completely out of the question - Xanthippe may have made an error with his terminology.

There was a comment early on in this thread which offered advice on the treatment of the 'Hole' entries; in effect, to think about things which might be found at beginning and end of each hole.

Also, Escuan, you may have noticed that Course clues provide all the 5- and 6-letter answers. If you can solve the last two 6-letter answers, then find the bottom right 5-letter entry from about halfway down the Course clues, then you're in...

Meursault - I think the use of the phrase "score at the deciding point" in the preamble is the way Xanthippe gets round the fact that scores are given for 18 holes but the match could have been over earlier.

Yes Gem, "Xanthippe won 4 & 3" also suggests the possibility that the match may be concluded early. My suggestion is that a setter would tend not to end the match early : an early finish would leave the solver not needing to correctly identify the extra words for the holes not played.

Though, arguing against myself, Xanthippe leaves the solver not needing to use the thematic phrase. I didn't spend any time looking at that...

I delayed myself by turning the third course clue into a coarse clue by imagining that the 'line' was 'arc'...

Thank you all for your illuminating hints. I am not usually as stupid as this but a load of medication is making me decidedly woozy. I'll have another crack at the puzzle now.

escuan, that doesn't sound much fun - hope you're OK.

It's definitely worth persevering. I thought it was a really nice puzzle (and I hate golf). The jumbles held me up for a bit, but there are definitely some nice, neat logical pathways to resolve them.