Episode 11 is dedicated to the Doubles Scramble match, with Hina and Minami vs. Haruka and Ayaka. As you might’ve guessed, Hina initially tries to win the game by herself, though this quickly fall apart when Haruka tells her that she has to use Minami’s tee shots for at least three of the nine holes. I don’t know if that’s a real rule or not, a quick Google search didn’t confirm anything. Either way, it’s a means to force Hina into cooperating with her much less experienced teammate.
Speaking of Minami, her performance this game is certainly all over the place. This far into the show, I think her big weakness is that she has a very bad sense of judgment. She still miscalculates her swings and she has a habit of getting too confident after things start to go her way. Minami does pull off a couple plays that manage to impress Hina, particularly when it comes to recovery shots, but every success is mixed in with a screwup. Suffice to say, Minami’s golfing skills, or lack thereof, drives Hina insane for most of the episode. It gets so inconsistent that the episode actually has to give Hina and Minami a bit of plot armor, most notably when Haruka almost sets her and Ayaka up for an eagle and the wind “coincidentally” intervenes in Hina and Minami’s favor.
What keeps Hina from bonking Minami with a golf club is the two actually managing to form a rapport with each other. The disparity in skill level aside, the two do share some common ground in that they’re very passionate about golf and they attribute Haruka as their inspiration for getting into the sport. And while Hina is much better at golf than Minami, It also helps that Minami doesn’t judge Hina for her competitiveness. It can be argued that Hina takes golf a bit too seriously but rather than tell Hina that, Minami instead treats it as another way to approach to golf. She doesn’t say Hina’s way of playing golf is wrong or bad, just a neat alternative to how she likes to play the sport. It’s these factors combined that make Hina somewhat able to tolerate Minami’s shenanigans. You certainly see it pay off as the game progresses, with Hina growing comfortable enough to provide Minami some pointers and the two managing to play well enough that they come to a draw with Haruka and Ayaka for most of the game.
I was leaning towards Hina and Minami winning the game as the scoreboard got neck in neck though I’m fine with the two losing in the end. It certainly saves the show the trouble of deciding if Haruka would actually honor Hina’s request of cutting ties with Minami and Ayaka. Funnily enough, we find out that Haruka does plan on returning to tournament play. She just happened to have missed the deadline for the current year so that’s partly why she’s been “inactive”. It’s a bit of a copout that Haruka would more or less do what Hina wants her to do no matter what but I do buy that Haruka never truly lost her competitive spirit. While we’re on the subject, we finally learn Haruka’s backstory. No drama or anything, she simply got burnout from trying to win all the time so her missing the deadline for the tournaments gave her an excuse to unwind and rekindle her love for golf. I suppose it’s anticlimactic but it’s still very relatable and it fits the general tone of the show.
After Hina leaves, HAM decides that they may as well check out a beach near the golf course. I briefly did expect the show to set up an obligatory beach episode, if only because that’s about the only bit of fanservice this show hasn’t done. But as it turns out, this scene is a diegetic segue into the ED. The girls are even wearing the exact same outfits as they do for that sequence. While it has no bearing on the plot, making the ED part of the canon is a neat touch, especially with the show coming to a close.
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