Thursday, 2 April 2015

Day 46 - Goldfinger

If the match at Hankley had a James Bond connection, then so did today's!  The Club had a friendly Vets match at home to Stoke Park, with the return fixture scheduled for the 19th August. Stoke Park is one of the UK's better known golf clubs, designed by Harry Colt, and the scene of a number of films, including Layer Cake and Goldfinger.

The latter includes a classic golfing segment with both Bond and his nemesis Goldfinger trying to out-cheat each other in a skulduggery-filled few holes of match play. Needless to say, our man wins...  If I am correct, in the book, the scene is set not at Stoke Park but at Royal St George's, but that's a story for another day.

Our own match was much more convivial, with neither killer bowler hats nor gold bars in sight. Instead, my partner Roger and I had a great tussle. I am not quite sure how, as we were not playing that badly, but we found ourselves down 3 after 8 holes. At this point my partner discovered something special, holing a long putt for a birdie and then repeating the feat for a nett birdie on the next hole. By the time we got to 16, we were only one down, with my own birdie there levelling the match. We won 17, halved 18 and the rest is history, as they say.

Overall the match was halved 3-3 and a splendid Burhill carvery lunch meant that it wasn't until nigh on 4 pm that I managed to get to Waitrose where I had the pleasure of spending £250 on wine for prizes for the Good Friday competition. I was quite taken with some of the wines I picked up, so here's hoping that we do well tomorrow!

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