Day 294 - Soup Time

As I drove into the Club this morning, I bumped into three DOGS just as they prepared to head off top the first tee. "Martin - we need a 4th!", they shouted at me.  I wasn't tempted though... Not only was the weather looking a bit icky, but it was time for a break... Instead, I paid a visit to the Pro Shop and placed some Christmas present orders and afterwards returned to the Clubhouse to check my pigeonhole for mail.

Jobs done, there was time for a bit more Christmas shopping, this time in a precinct in West Byfleet. As ever, the best thing I found would have made a great gift for me!

After lunch, I had a couple of hours of Ofwat work to do: slaving over a hot iPad...  Then it was time to get into the car and drive up to the new Costco which has opened recently in Sunbury.  Much closer than the alternatives in Croydon, Aldershot or Reading, this was our first visit to the new store. We were very impressed.  Lots of clean lines, plenty of room, loads of staff and not too many people there either - ideal!

As ever, wandering around a store like Costco, you discover all kinds of things that you didn't reaslise you needed, your shopping cart fills up and before you know where you are, you have managed to knock up a bill of nigh on £500... frightening....

Another upside of visiting Costco is the chance to taste all the samples that are on offer: I had sticky toffee pudding, tuna on bagel and a piece of Lindt chocolate... so when it came time to prepare dinner, all plans for anything substantial went out of the window. Instead, a home-made leek and carrot soup beckoned and IMHO, it was delish....

Day 293 - Rule 19.5a

When I received the invitation to form a three ball in the Monday Stableford, it would be the first time that I had ever taken part in such a competition - and it turned out that my playing partners, Jan-Willem and David, were also Monday Stableford Virgins.  We had been due to play with Peter, but he dropped out with a chipped tooth (hope all is well!)

On the first Monday of the month, this competition is held, allowing anyone aged 55+ to play off the Yellow tees and everyone else the normal White tees.  One of our number is a few months short of the threshold, so Whites it was for us. 

We started well: a par on the long opening hole is always welcome, played the second decently but had a bit of drama on the third. David was on the green but a long way way from the pin. He chose not to ask any of the balls on the green to be marked and instead took on his lengthy putt. It was always going to move right to left... but not that much...: unfortunately, his ball hit another on the green leaving him 25 ft short and with a 2 stroke penalty (see Rule 19.5a).  That he then holed his next attempt was small comfort, as was the fact that on every subsequent hole he was always asked if he wanted all balls marked, even if they were behind him....

The round continued, with all going swimmingly until the turn: maybe we were going to have some good scores today?  Err, no... the second nine posed more problems and too many balls found there way into bunkers, rough grass and the suchlike. But, the sun came out, and we had a most pleasant round AND it was on a Monday morning.  Could be worse...

Day 292 - A busy day

A nice gentle start to the morning allowed me to make a plate of porridge, with blueberries and raisins, to ensure that I was well fed before starting out for this morning's competition: it was going to be another blustery day and I would need fuelling. Is trolled upstairs to check my tee time... panic stations!!  I ALWAYS play at 0842.. but somehow this morning I was slated to tee tee off at the earlier time of 0824...

Shower...change....rush... and yes, I was on the tee at the allotted time but it was not the leisurely walk, plus time to swing a club and practise a few putts that I prefer.  my partners for the day were Rick and Dan and they were much more organised than I was.  They did though ask me to tee off first (Mr Captain, over to you...) and no, the first shot did not find the fairway.... It all went from bad to worse when on the 3rd, I missed what must have been the shortest putt ever, as my mind wandered... focus, boy!

Fortunately, I got my act together in the second half so that my score at the end of the day was vaguely respectable, helped by a stunning birdie on the treacherous par-3 12th: a great tee shot to within 3 feet!  I now started to regret the fact that  had not put my money into the 2s competition....

Throughout the day, we played into howling gales, making holes 2 and 13 a real slog, but allowing 15 to be a relatively simple hot onto the green. We were staggered to get back and find that someone had beaten their handicap by 7 shots... wow...!

After playing, I was invited to join some friends for lunch: Paul, a former playing member at the Club, was in town on a business trip and was reconnecting with the Burhill social scene. We had a very pleasant meal (thanks, Karel, for the recommendation: the cod with chorizo was delicious!) accompanied by a glass or two of Rioja, topped of with a "cleansing ale" (a new concept to me!).

Lizzie Prior was unavailable so Sarah stood in and collected lots of silverware!

Afterwards, I was on duty again: it was the AGM and Awards for the Club's Junior section. Despite being told that it was due to start at 4 pm, when I got there - I thought a few minutes early... - everyone was waiting...  Peter, the Juniors' organiser, did a fine job MCing proceedings and it was both inspiring to hear of all the teams' successes and humbling to hear quite how good some of these younsgters are!

Day 291 - Farewell Tour

It was breezy when we left the house this morning, windy by the time we got out onto the tee and by the time we were out there in the middle of the round, it was blowing a hooley!  It was not going  to be easy out there...

And nor was it!  Today I was playing my final Captain & Pro Challenge match with Mike, our ex-Head Pro, before he leaves for California later in the month. In the final weeks leading up to his departure, Mike has been seeking to play a number of the courses here that he has no played before. Playing the "I'm a Pro" card seems to work quite well though: Birkdale last month, Muirfield on Monday and Queenwood to come later in the week, just to name a few. Not bad...  and good that he managed to find time to come back to Burhill to play today.

Our opponents today were Brian and John, whose combined handicap of 31 meant that we were going to be giving them 11 shots. That, combined with the equalizing force that was Storm Desmond, reinforced my view that we were in for a tough time.  We did well to par the 1st, but Brian hled a good putt for the 5 and a half and then they birdied the 2nd from 30 feet... hmm...

Double or Quits
from the hazard

At the turn we were 3 holes down and then, shortly thereafter, we were on the 11th tee with a 4 holes deficit.  We then started playing better, and they slightly worse, so that we managed to draw back to level standing on the 17th tee: Game on!

A weak drive by the Captain followed by an errant three wood put yours truly into the trees. Given that we were giving a shot, there was no mileage in taking the drop so we decided to give it a go...unsuccessfully....  Then on the 18th, neither player's drive found the fairway and the opponents' approach to 4 foot (with a shot) slammed the door shut... A shame, as we had done well to get back from 4 down, but great fun.

Day 289 - Tesselations

No golf today: a while back I had booked tickets for an art exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery for Mrs L and myself. I had spotted what turned out to be the first ever UK exhibition of some of the work of MC Escher.  I have always enjoyed his work, in part I suspect because of my mathematical background.

We must have seen most, if not all, of the pieces on show as they were ll on loan from a museum in Den Haag, where we used to live (and can indeed remember going to an Escher museum with les enfants).  That being said, I was particularly struck with some of his earlier pieces when, as a young man, he lived in Italy. The attention to detail and meticulous representations in pencil sketches, lithographs and woodcuts were fantastic - quite how long he must have taken to produce them, I have no idea.

In the 1930s, as he left Italy behind and moved back to Holland, via Switzerland and Belgium, his style became more akin to the works we know today: lots of fish, birds, lizards and staircases all morphing into each other and fooling the eye with strange perspectives.

After the war, he further refined his techniques and ended up in discussion with some of the famous mathematicians of the day who were looking into the mathematics of symmetry and tessellations. One of these was Sir Roger Penrose, whom I can remember giving me a lecture when I was a callow undergraduate at Oxford.

All in all a great day out and if you can stand the South Circular, well worth a visit - and the café's good too!

In the evening, we had a meeting of the Club Handicap Committee: this was to discuss the impending Annual Handicap Reviews to ensure all on the same page, as well as to think a little about the introduction of the new rules planned for 1st March 2016... watch this space...

Day 288 - Last of the year...

Another fine winter's day and a great opportunity for Mrs Lawrence and I to spend some time out on the golf course together: nothing too serious but a fun walk around the first half of the Old Course in very clement weather.  We took the opportunity to practise a few shots and very much enjoyed the time out together.  A lunch in the Green afterwards closed off a very enjoyable morning.

At this point, we went our separate ways: Kathryn had a coffee meeting with three lady friends to discuss plans for our November vacation together and I had a date with a lawn mower... The past few days of 10°+ temperatures has clearly stimulated the grass into some late season growth: I was inspired by the sight of the green-keepers hard at work earlier in the day.

Next job was to get the dinner going: I have a Committee Meeting at the Club and want to get something on the table before I leave. 

On the menu for tonight are stuffed courgettes (a Mrs Beeton recipe), mashed potatoes (à la Nick Nairn) and apple and onion pork chops (courtesy of Martha Stewart) - so no prizes for consistency!

Food on the table and delicious it was too.  Then, back to Burhill for our Club Committee.  We had a good meeting - the last of the year - and now the Club will have to survive for the next 8 weeks without us seeing each other again...

Day 287 - 1st Day of Advent

When we were children, we had advent calendars with small windows to open every day until Christmas Eve, then when we lived in Switzerland I can remember Kathryn making each child their own calendar, each with pockets filled with a small gift to increase the tension... Earlier this week, my daughter presented her mother with a Lindt calendar, each small door hiding an eponymous chocolate, and I have even seen whisky calendars for sale - a different shot to enjoy every day.  However you celebrate it, it is clear that the count down to Christmas has begun.

5 years ago today I see from my Facebook reminder that we were all under snow: how very different it was today!  Yes there was a breeze, gusty at times, but it was mild and even at one point sunny too.  All of which made for a very enjoyable day's disorganised golf today.  On this occasion there were 8 of us who met up at the club at 10:00.

One of the best innovations of late at Burhill has been the hiring so new course marshals.  Today it was Max who earned his money and our thanks!  He directed us away from the first tee on the Old, warning us that ahead of us would have been three four-balls from a society who had started late and were clearly struggling. Instead we set off from the 9th tee and cantered around.  I was in the first team, with the VC, Des and Chris. 

We started off slowly, amassing only 39 points on the first 9 we played, but a second half of 46 gave us a very respectable score. That we managed this was largely due to the brilliance of one of our players, Des: so much that we ran out of superlatives as yet another long putt was drained!  This score proved enough to win the match and we all enjoyed a very convivial drink, fuelled with stilton-covered chips and the requisite banter.

Afterwards, I had a meeting with Matthew the General Manager to prepare for tomorrow's Club Committee meeting and then tried to go home but got sidetracked into chatting with some of the Ladies who had been playing their own team competition that morning.

Kathryn was attending the Ladies Prizegiving in the early evening so that I got a chance to catch up on some of the many Masterchef episodes cluttering up our Sky+ box and then when she came home we set about booking flights fir next November - how's that for planning!