Day 105 - Aleless in Cobham

When I put the 2015 calendar together, as Vice Captain, I was keen that we organize a competition on the day immediately following the EuroPro tournament.  To play the course as it was laid out for the final day, with the pins all in appropriately tricky positions and the greens rolling at the same pace as the pros experienced: what more could anyone want?  Accordingly, the May Medal was scheduled for today, the 31st May.

To make the event even more attractive, we also nominated this May Medal as being the one to be sponsored by Fuller's London Pride, entitling the winner not only to receive a case of beer but also to play in an England Golf competition to find the National Handicap Golfer of the Year.  For both these reasons, we had a very full field with just under 140 participants.

I played in my usual Captain's slot at 08:42. The practice green gave us all pause for thought as it was rolling very fast...

As things turned out, I needn't have worried about the putting as that club in the bag was performing well (27 putts in the whole round was very satisfying) but should instead have focussed on some of the other sticks in the bag. I leaked shot after shot and ending up recording a net 80. Not very good really but probably a fair reflection of how I played. 

No free beer for the Lawrence household tonight...

Day 104 - Much better weather...

Out of the house by 07:30 again this morning. This time the destination was Malden Golf Club for a friendly game.  This is one of the many matches we have against other clubs in the area: I am trying to find the right mix between playing in as many as I can, whilst also ensuring that others also get the opportunity to represent Burhill.

The weather was very kind - particularly after yesterday- and their course in pretty good shape. It had co-hosted the Surrey Amateur Championship Qualifying Round the previous day, so were treated to the same pins as they had played. My partner for the day, Alistair, and I were pitted against Malden's Captain and President: the same match as last year...but not the same result....

We were giving them shots, which they used most judiciously; this, combined with their stellar short game, meant that we did really well only to be 1 hole down going on to the 18th tee. A glimmer of hope then...which was quickly extinguished as they managed a 4 net 3 on the last to slam the door firmly in our face. Fortunately, some of the other matches went our way and the overall result was an honourable 3 1/2 - 3 1/2 draw.  Everything to play for in the return match in September!

Lunch was a bit later than planned and it wasn't until close to 3 o'clock that we sat down to eat.  This was a bit of an issue for me as I was due back at Burhill by 4, in order to be able assist in the prize giving for the EuroPro tour event there.

This meant that I had to creep away before the dessert course, but I did get back to the Club in time to see the final pairs completing their last holes.  And quite gripping it was too, with everything going down to the final few putts.

All credit to the winner, Danny Wright, whose score totalled -9 versus par over the three rounds: excellent golf in the conditions.
All credit too to the green-keeping staff as the course looked splendid, in particular the greens: and we get to play a competition ourselves on them tomorrow (in the rain...)

Day 103 - Antipodean Golf

About this time last year, Bryan and I purchased a round at the New Zealand Golf Club in a Charity Auction. The voucher was valid until 1st June, so it was with some relief that we managed to coalesce around a date of 29th May.  We invited Kevin and Chris along from Burhill to make up a foursome.  And when I looked at the terms of the round we had bought, it looked like we might actually be playing Foursomes, as it was a Friday.

Fortunately, the course was empty (maybe everybody else had looked more closely at the weather forecast...) and we were allowed to play as a four-ball.  All went well for the first 6 holes or so until the heavens opened, the wind got up, temperatures plummetted and we were treated to five minutes of hail as well. It was foul. Had it been our home course, I do not believe we would have hesitated for a moment: we would have headed back to the bar.

Sir Arther Conan Doyle
was a member at NZGC

But it wasn't, so we didn't.  Half an hour or so later, it was much more pleasant though and we even finished on hole 18 in almost benign conditions.  The highlight of the day (certainly at that point) was the warm shower that followed  as well as the delicious steak & kidney pies for lunch (a snip at £6/head!).

The Club itself is a bit quirky: membership (at least originally) is restricted to those with home addresses 25/50? miles away and the whole atmosphere is very much of a rather antiquated London Men's Club. The changing room lockers are particularly quirky: all previous owners' names are simply inked through on their departure. From the look of the scuffed nature of the paint, everybody else had also been intrigued by the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the top of one such of these doors...

Back home for a swift change and the back out again for a pre-theatre dinner and thence to the Richmond Theatre for a performance of "10 Little Indians" by Agatha Christie, retitled "And Then There Were None".  Not too cerebral, but a very pleasant evening.

Day 102 - Dwr Cymru

Early start this morning: car collected me from home at 0530 to head off for an Ofwat Board Meeting in Cardiff.  There were no trains early enough to get me there for the 0830 start time, but traffic on all motorways behaved perfectly and I was there in plenty of time.

A good meeting with an interesting presentation from both Severn Trent and Welsh Water (otherwise known as Dwr Cymru) leading up to lunch.  This was my first time in the centre of Cardiff for many years, and I could see the Millennium Stadium from the window of the conference room... but no opportunity to visit!

The trip back involved two changes, at Reading and Guildford, but all worked well (nice when that happens!) which got me home at a reasonable time.  Was hoping to get to see some of the snappily named Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Hosted by the Rory Foundation but when I discovered that the eponymous local hero had managed to record a score of +9 in his first round, somehow I lost interest...

Day 101 - Refocussing my life

No golf today: the body needs a chance to recuperate and there are lots of things to do around the house. I think I made some progress, but there is still a pile of pares in my To Do box so we can't be there yet!  One of the reasons that I was a bit slower today can be put down to my new spectacles.  Finally, I have given in: after years of perching my glasses on the end of my nose when reading, I have taken the plunge and purchased some vari-focal lenses.

I went into Leightons in Cobham to have them fitted this morning and was given a long litany of things not to do: don't drive for a day, don't move your head too quickly, don't forget to point your nose where you are looking, don't look too quickly down when descending stairs, yadda, yadda, yadda.

It is certainly true that they take a bit of getting used to ("only" two weeks, said the nice lady in the opticians) but they certainly make reading things and looking at my laptop keyboard a lot easier. Now I am worried that when I put my lenses in my brain will get really confused!

Back to the Club tonight for dinner: this week we are hosting the EuroPro event at Burhill and today is the occasion of the ProAm. As part of the celebrations, there is a gala dinner for all of the participants and the Club too gets to host a table. Diana, as Lady Captain, and I were invited along as guests.  Al was great only it was rather embarrassing to see the Burhill Juniors win 3 out of the 4 prizes...

Day 100 - Cheers!

18th hole back to the Club House

Our Disorganised Golfers Group were super organised today!  We were aware that Burhill was going to be busy: the New Course had a practice day for the upcoming EuroPro event and the Ladies had a competition on the Old Course. Accordingly, we (I) had done a bit of pre-planning and had arranged to take advantage of the aforementioned Surrey Country Card scheme to procure ourselves a tee time at the North Hants. Golf Club (which just to confuse everyone, is not in Northants.!).

North Hants is a typical Surrey parkland course - heather, trees, bunkers and a South West Trains line down the side of the course all sound very familiar. One of the special things about this course is though that it is where Justin Rose learned to  play the game. They even have a special Justin Rose Room with details of his first US Open Championship win, but we were unable to see it as there was a group in there for the next hour....This gave us more time in the sunshine on the terrace for another drink - and I made sure that we toasted my first 100 days as Captain!

Home for dinner: my turn at the stove. I again turned to the Lindsey Bareham suppers recipes in The Times and came across a spring lamb, with spring onions and fresh herbs... and delicious it was too! Definitely a keeper and so easy too: cradle to grave in 45 minutes...

Day 99 - Jubilee Goblets

Doesn't she look young...

Remember 1977? That was the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, as well as being remembered for many other things: Star Wars was the top grossing film, Apple was incorporated, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated, Virginia Wade won Wimbledon and Messrs Botham and Willis performed some heroics at Headingley. 

Also in 1977, the Burhill Jubilee Goblets Mixed Foursomes competition was first staged. And we held it again today, for the 39th time. 

Whilst the England cricket team's performance today was perhaps not quite in the same league as that mentioned above, it proved to be a very exciting day at Lords. At the time of the start of the prize giving, there was still one New Zealand wicket standing and it was great to hear the loud cheer when that too fell, giving a result that looked very far from being possible when England were 30 for 4 on day 1!

The weather smiled on us and we had a good game this afternoon. As is traditional, I partnered the Lady Captain and, after seven holes, we were really doing rather well. It wasn't to last though: Burhill's Old Course bunkers were our undoing.  I am though looking forward to playing together with Diana, when we take on the top six pairs in the competition over the rest of the year to see who the ultimate winners are. 

Day 98 - Raspberry Pi

After all the exhaustion of yesterday - physical and mental - today was time for some peace and quiet. A bit of admin required first: entering all the cards from yesterday's Invitational into Intelligent Golf (and yes, there were quite a few who had made scoring errors, but fortunately none amongst the prizes!).

Back home for lunch and a lazy afternoon in front of the cricket: England vs New Zealand. And what a treat that was: we saw Alistair Cook bat right through the day and, even more impressively, young Ben Stokes score the fastest hundred ever seen at Lords.  Tomorrow will tell whether both of these scores together are enough to turn the final day into a win or a draw, but it was great entertainment today.

The rest of the time was spent working on son #1's Christmas present of a year ago: a Raspberry Pi.  This is very reasonably priced computer, the size of a cigarette packet. For those of my generation, it's an extraordinary piece of kit. I am old enough to remember the Sinclair Scientific Calculator, with Reverse Polish logic, which is now to be seen in a museum.

The Raspberry Pi is the same sort of size as this but must have literally billions more oomph as far as processing power is concerned: it runs off an 8Gb SD card, whereas our first PC had 40 Mb of memory...   I must stop here as I am starting to show my age....

Day 97 - Member Guest

Big Day today: reintroducing the Men's Invitational into the golfing calendar was one of the things that I set out to do in my year as Captain. It was great to see the positive response from the membership - had we had the space, I am sure that we could have accommodated many more players. As it was, we had a 96-man field and they were all treated to a great day today.

We met at the Club for bacon rolls and coffee at around 08:00, by which time the sun was shining and all of us dressed in sweaters started making plans for something cooler to wear. Tee off was a shotgun start at 09:15 and we were off. 

By the time we finished, some 4+ hours later, it had definitely clouded over and the temperature was a bit cooler than when we started... a bit like our golf!  My partner for the day, Duncan from Royal Wimbledon, and I had a great time though it was apparent by the time we heard some of the scores coming in that we would not be on the winner's podium on this occasion.

As well as the pairs competition, we also had a number of others: longest drive, straightest drive and closest to the pin on all the par 3s.  Some of these were simply fantastic - a drive of over 315 yards won the former and two of the par threes were won by shots closer than a foot in length.

Whilst these were all great, they paled into insignificance compared to the better ball Stableford competition where the winners shot a staggering score of 49 points, recording a gross score of some 5 under par.  They were streets ahead of the next closest pair and were therefore very deserving winners of the impressively large new trophy purchased for the occasion.

The food on offer from the Club was first class: an excellent seafood starter was followed by a guinea fowl on some delicious root vegetable mash with a chocolate torte and pistachio ice cream to finish.  No wonder we were glad to go out and play another 9 holes later in the afternoon in an effort to work off some of those extra calories...

Day 96 - Nap Time

An amazingly rapid visit to the Ashworth Hospital started the day; no parking problems, no traffic and I was seen 45 minutes early and back home by 09:30.  The NHS at its very best!

This left plenty of time to do some chores - mow the lawn etc..... not! 

The whole morning ended up being spent trying hard to reconstitute a full field for tomorrow's Invitational (Member/Guest event, States-side).  There were a number of last minute drop outs and changes of players. I suppose it's inevitable in a field of 96 but a lot of work was required... and we got there. At least by the end of the day, we have 48 pairs signed up for what should be a cracking day tomorrow.  And, yes, the lawn did get done.

In the afternoon, Kathryn and I had our first foray into this year's Flitch Salver - the competition at Burhill that is open only to married couples.  We had a delightful game with our opponents, Jo and George, in near perfect conditions with no wind to speak of and the course playing really well.  We also gelled together nicely (important in Foursomes), but I am afraid that our opponents didn't, which meant that we have won a round in the competition for the first time in many years.

We almost didn't start on time though: I had been asked to be at Burhill early to have a photograph taken, but when we got there, try as hard as we could, we just were unable to locate said photographer. Everyone in the building was looking for him - after all his car was still there.... And eventually, that is where we found him: he had been at the course since 04:30 taking publicity snaps and had decided to opt for a power nap!

We stayed for dinner at the Green restaurant, where my son joined us: food was excellent but no ambience as we were the only ones there. A shame on a Friday night...

Day 95 - Knocked Out

Stewart hard at work in the garage

Stuck at home all morning... but glad to be there. Today was the day that the wall charger for the new car gets fitted in the garage - an important part of the process. The team from EDF Energy arrived bright and early at 08:00 so it was an early start for everyone.

It turned out to be a lengthy affair: the charger had to be fitted to the wall, as did the new distribution board.  Then the new smart meter for the three phase supply was to be installed (and it only just fitted into the space provided... phew....).

Lastly, all the wires needed connecting and the engineers did a great job of tidying everything up so that it looks really professional. 

All we need now is a car: the delivery of which is now scheduled for June 11th... and I am counting the days down!

Even before this was finished, it was time for me to head back to the Club for my third round match in the Mid-Week Knockout. When we fixed up the match, I was to give my opponent, Andy, some 4 shots but he has had such a purple patch recently that he now found himself giving me 2 instead: quite a turnaround!  As things turned out, I probably would have needed 1 more shot to beat him...

The match went to the 17th but his driving off the tee was just too good for me: continually approaching the green some 50 yards behind your opponent is not a recipe for success.  The match was a good one though, with each of us alternating good holes with poorer ones. At the end, the better player won, which is after all what is supposed to happen....

Day 94 - Handbags at Dawn

Arrived back home in the early hours of the morning, courtesy of two of the tour members' valiant wives who shuttled us back from Gatwick: another year over and great fun it was too. Can heartily recommend every curse we played and each restaurant we dined at - references available on request.

Our winner had a great day too: not only did he get his name on the Cup for the first time in 13 years, but he also heard the news that his son had secured a place at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Drinks all around!

We once saw the Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre, starring (now Dame) Judi Dench.

All the pre-show publicity was about how she would utter the famous "handbag" line, but it is a different quotation from that play which comes to mind today: "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness".

For I received a call this morning from the Burhill Group to inform me that the General Manager at Burhill, with whom I had been working closely for the past year, had decided to leave his position, citing personal reasons as being the cause of his departure.  This comes on top of the recent dismissal of the Director of Golf and leaves the organisation in a precarious state. This can only mean more work for the captains and Committees as we seek to support the interim appointee in his efforts to get a handle on things.

Any change of this nature is unsettling and the timing is particularly unfortunate: the season is about to get into gear and the previous GM had devoted a lot of time getting things into the shape he wanted them. One had sensed that a corner had been turned.

We had a Club Committee meeting tonight and were introduced to Mike O'Connell who is taking the helm as an interim with immediate effect. he has a long history with the Burhill Group and before that with American Golf so he certainly knows the business.  My role will be to help ensure that he knows Burhill too as fast as possible.

Ah well, at least it will be interesting and stop me getting bored!

Day 92 - Tour Day 3

I am not sure what we have done to deserve it, but we have just had another day of fine weather for the time of year! The wind was gentle, we had sun for most of the round and only got our wets out for the final couple of holes,  Aren't we lucky!

We had started the morning off with a private tour of the Glenmorangie distillery. Having done a number of such things in the past, I was a but sceptical, but it was very interesting and impressive to see the recent investment by the new shareholder, Louis Vuitton. The latter appear to have stimulated a growth in new flavours: sherry, port and even chocolate, all with fancy brands to match.

From the distillery, we headed further north to the town of Brora, to play our third round of the tour. We arrived in plenty of time for a lazy lunch and then headed out. The course is not over-long but has some splendid views of the sea and the hills around. There were very few playing on the course so it was a case of millionaires' golf.

At one point, the tournament's leader looked in trouble: the wheels had certainly come of his trolley and the same risked being true of his game for a while. In the end, he pulled things back together and goes into the final day with an 8 point lead...

Day 93 - Tour Day Final

Our last round was to be at Nairn Golf Club. This was on the way back to Aberdeen Airport so all very efficient. We arrived at the course to be greeted by sunshine as predicted and gusting winds,  the latter contrary to the previous night's weather forecast.

The first 9 holes are played pretty much straight into the wind, so this should on paper have been the tougher part of the course. Yet, at the turn both the overall leader and he who was closest on his heels played their better golf. That being said, by the time we had reached the last few holes the weather had definitely turned for the worse: driving rain and a temperature in the low single digits. 

We were very glad to get back to the clubhouse! The warm shower was also a real treat. Then up to the lounge for the final calculations and verifications. We had a new name in the Cup this year, with Roland Morley victorious, whilst I retained the Scratch Salver. 

Another great tour over and thoughts are already turning to the 2016 edition...  But first we need to get home: BA have canceled our flights (winds at Heathrow?). After many phone calls and countless attempts to get through to airlines, we have secured seats on an EasyJet flight to Gatwick. Fingers crossed that we get home tonight...

Day 91 - Tour Day 2

After a good night's rest, we were treated to a great breakfast (I made the mistake of asking for a Full English...) and an opportunity for a walk down to the beach or a gentle start to the morning catching up the news etc. I chose the latter.

We then headed off to Dornoch, stopping to check out the local pottery workshop and an emergency visit to Asda (one of our tourers had forgotten a vital piece of clothing...). thence to Dornoch for lunch and our second day of golf.

Royal Dornoch Golf Club is a splendid championship course, wending its way along the seafront between acres of gorse, at first with the wind and then back to the clubhouse into it. We were blessed with some fine weather, with no rain at all for the whole 18 holes!  The sun even came out so for a brief spell we were in short sleeve shirts, but by 7 pm the temperature had dropped considerably and it was back to wooly hats and multi-layered outfits.

The course itself was splendid: some beautiful views and some stunning holes. The greens were a lot trickier than the previous day: much larger and many with run-off areas to confound the less accurate golfer.  Scores were much more grouped today, though yesterday's leader was less successful meaning that the overall competition is tighter than it looked yesterday evening...

Dinner was at the Links Hotel: a simple menu with few choices, but all delicious. Definitely a place to return to at a later date and a great recommendation for anyone heading up this way.

Day 90 - Tour Day 1

A very early start this morning: alarm set for 0420 to ensure that am at a friend's house for the 0500 minibus to take us off to Luton Airport (cue references to Leonard Rossiter and Lorraine Chase). We have a flight to Inverness booked and it is a joy to see both the traffic-free M25 and the empty EasyJet check-in desks, which make the journey very easy. And the plane was on time, so all good... but what is that fresh snow doing on the hills around the airport?

Alternative transport

Wind blowing...hard!

We collect our hire car, avoiding the temptation to take one of the vintage vehicles on show, and head off to our next port of call, the Glenmorangie House hotel (thanks, Ronnie, for the pronunciation guide - that's GlenMORangie, not GlenmoRANgie...). This is a charming country house hotel with only 6 rooms: all very comfortable with a very well stocked whisky bar on offer as well. And just as importantly, a working WiFi as the mobile phone coverage in the area is dire!


Our first round of the Tour is at Tain, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year. It is a classic Old Tom Morris links, which very much plays as two halves: one downwind and one right into the howling gale that was there to greet us. During the round, we appeared to have every sort of weather: hail, rain, wind and sun. This combination did for most of the party who managed a meagre 24-26 points, though one of us shone through with a stunning 38 Stableford points, giving him a healthy lead after Day 1.

Day 89 - Twilight

One of the treats of membership at Burhill is the opportunity to play some early evening golf. This clearly only works in the summer months when it is guaranteed to be light enough... and should be warmer too.

In particular, once a month, the Social Committee organise a Twilight Golf and Supper evening. The format is always the same: 9 holes of Golf followed by a themed meal. 

The golf is played as Mixed Greensomes (so both players drive, then choose the better of the two after which shots are alternated into the hole.) And the first shots are off the yellow tees, so there are no excuses at all...

This evening's meal was French themed and the food was delicious. Chicken Chasseur followed by a Tarte Tatin is hard to beat!  We could have done without the reverberations from below, where some lucky 18 year-old was celebrating his or her birthday, but this didn't spoil the enjoyment and it was a fun evening.

I wasn't able to play the golf but was ably deputised by my 7-handicap son. We then swapped over again at the meal so that I was also there for the Prize Giving.   Afterwards it was straight home to bed for an early start the next morning...

Day 88 - No Slope

The golf handicapping system in the UK is administered by the Council of Golf Unions, commonly called CONGU. Most of the rest of the world operates under a different American system, under the USGA.  There are a number of differences between the two models. One of them is that in the UK, only scores that are recorded in competitions qualify for handicap purposes, whereas under the USGA version every score played is logged and the best 10 of the last 20 are used for the calculation.

Another major difference is that, under the USGA system, every tee position on every course has a separately calculated difficulty rating, whereas in the UK there is essentially no difference at all between a handicap gained on an easy or more difficult course.  The system the US uses compares how the courses play for scratch and bogey golfers and then draws a line between them, called a "slope" - hence the Slope System.

This Slope system uses a whole range of measurements for its calculation, including: size of greens, length of carry, tree cover and even psychological factors. I have read the (inch-thick) manual and it is remarkably sophisticated.  The UK plan to adopt the same system as the rest of the world by 2020, as it will takes this long to get the 2,500+ courses properly mapped.

Being in possession of a US handicap in addition to my UK one, I have always been interested in the two systems and was very pleased when invited to attend a training seminar for course evaluators which was held at Burhill today.

Unfortunately, it was not to be: I wasn't feeling 100% today and instead spent the morning under medical supervision.  I shall have to sign up for the next course...

Day 87 - Senior Golfers' Society

You have probably never heard of the Senior Golfers' Society, and there is no reason why you should have. They have their own website which tells you a little about their history, but not a great deal about their present. Indeed it is one of the slimmest website I have ever seen, with everything of interest hidden behind a password protected log-in screen.

If I understand it correctly, it is a Society to which you have to be invited to join and, even then, your application is put into a secret ballot and, if you haven't been successful after 6 years, your request to join is politely denied.

And why would you even want to join them: the answer is because they have a golf fixture list to die for, playing matches essentially every weekday from April to August at some, if not all, of the top clubs in the country. One proviso though: all matches are foursomes as this is the only format they play.

Why all of this history lesson? Because I played today in the Away leg of our annual fixture with said Society.  The location was Woking Golf Club, which they use as their "home" course. This is a cracking heathland course, one of the three Ws with West Hill and Worplesden, and it is always a treat to play there. All the more so today, when we had our first day for eons with only a mild breeze as opposed to the tornadoes of recent weeks.

The format was 36 holes of foursomes, with a splendid lunch to break up play and fuel everyone for their afternoon rounds. My morning partner and I struggled to cope with the large greens and, before we knew what had happened, we found ourselves 5 holes down.  We managed gradually to claw our way back to only 1 down on the 18th, needing to win that to halve the match...  We thought we had achieved this, but one of our opponents produced his first long putt of the day and snuffed out that flicker of expectation.

The round in the afternoon also got off to a poor start, though this time we only found ourselves 2 down. Here too we managed to reel the opposition in, standing on the 18th tee again 1 down, but this time the golfing gods were with us: their second shot disappeared into the laurel bushes behind the green. This meant that we halved the match and indeed overall the result was also halved 5-5.  Everything to play for in the return match at Burhill in July!

Day 86 - La Table

There is something wonderful about looking at your diary in the morning and the first entry for the day says "Lunch".

So it was today. Together with a few of my predecessors as Captain, we had invited our former Director of Golf to join us over luncheon. Because of circumstances at the time of his departure, there had not been an earlier occasionto say a proper thank you to him for his contribution to the members of the Club and this was it.

I had chosen The French Table in Surbiton as the venue - not only for the food but also because they could offer us a large round table. For me, this is an essential prerequisite for an event of this type. Otherwise it is impossible for any form of table-wide conversation and dialogue tends to be much more bilateral in nature.

We had a very pleasant lunch and the food was truly excellent: it is no surprise that you need to book a long time in advance.  The menu was relatively simple yet I could have chosen anything on it and not been disappointed.  As it was I had a rabbit terrine, followed by cod and chorizo, served with a delicious risotto. Yum!

Thence back home for a quick pit stop and then to the Club again: tonight we had a Men's Committee meeting. This was made all the more interesting by the fact that one of the overhead lights was on the blink, so we turned it off and, by the time we had finished, found ourselves sitting in the dark... (jokes about mushrooms follow).

Day 85 - All the Time in the World

Last day when I needed to stay home to see the tidying up of our new cabling into the house. First thing this morning, there looked a lot to be done and I was quite concerned. By lunchtime however a couple of hi-vis-jacketed workers had completed their task and had done a great job. My scepticism proved to be totally unfounded as they took great care to relay cobblestones and brick paving as well as re-grouting tiles and relaying them (flatter than when they removed them!).

I shall be writing a letter of thanks to Basil, the CEO of UKPN, to thank him for his organisation's work (and no, I had not contacted him in advance so was not receiving any type of VIP service... shame on you for even thinking so!).

All of this meant that I was stuck at home on what turned out to be one of the nicest days of the year: gentle winds, blue skies and warm temperatures would have made entering the month's Stableford competition a real pleasure. On the other hand, there are some pretty intensive golfing days to come, so a day's rest is probably no bad thing.

Instead, I spent the morning making use of Mr Google's services, looking for a UK provider of golf course clocks.

Let me explain: the Burhill Members' Fund has run up a surplus and the Committee have agreed that we should table some ideas for this to be spent on. One possibility is that we install a set of proper clocks on the first tees of both courses, with a view to helping with punctuality and pace of play.

My first port of call was to contact Omega and Rolex to see if they could help, but this drew a blank as they reserve their large clocks for sponsored tournament use only - or at least that is what they told me! After some inspired detective work, I managed to track down a UK company who have just started acting as agents for a North American exporter and I am now waiting to see what sort of costings emerge...

Day 84 - M&Ms

Today was the second day of the Spring Meeting. After the medals of yesterday, today was the turn of the Frank Harrison Trophy, a foursomes medal competition. That's Alternate Shot, for my transatlantic readers.

I was partnered with another Martin, and we also were aware that there was a team of two Brians out there (or more accurately, a Bryan and a Brian). It was therefore with some amusement that I noted that my playing partner had marked our ball with an red M&M: indeed I was wearing a bright red short, but sadly he was not in yellow...

Such amusement carried on until the 8th hole when we nicely placed: a combination of some good up and downs, as well as few judiciously holed putts meant that we were very much in contention.  Not so after the 9th, when a catalogue of errors determined that we left the green with the dreaded snowman on the card.  Things improved only briefly and our final undoing was the visit of the drinks trolley on the 16th: the Heineken did not Reach The Parts That Other Beers Cannot Reach...

All of which meant that we had a fun round, but did not trouble the scorers. Others fared much better though and it was fun to be able to keep a bit of tension in the air with a three-way finish for second to be announced at the Prize Giving which followed the competition; the winners' spot was however uncontested and it was great to see a member who has just passed his three-score-year-and-ten milestone get his name (again) onto the Honours Boards, with the aid of his younger, more garishly-dressed, partner.

A few drinks later, home via Waitrose. I was on dinner duty and enjoyed cooking whilst watch Murray v Nadal on the laptop. Great to see the aggression from the Scot - yet to lose a match since he got married, according to the commentator!

After dinner it was back to the Players: it is always particular fun to watch a tournament where you yourself have played the course. We drove up to Ponte Vedra from our home in Sarasota, FL, a couple of years ago and played the Sawgrass course, where the PGA Tour is competing today. And, yes, I did manage to par the 17th...

Day 83 - Spring Meeting

After three days away from a golf course, I was looking forward to today: the Gold and Spring Medals, on the first day of the Spring Meeting.  The former is played off the tips of the golf course: the Black tees which measures just short of 7,000 yards - not easy, and all the less so when the wind blows (again!).  The field for this competition tends unsurprisingly to be made up of the better players: I forewent this opportunity and played instead with the bulk of members in the Spring Medal, that is on the same New Course but instead off the White tees, some 400 yards shorter.

The course may have been shorter, but the wind was no less of a factor... I started off scruffily, leaking a few shots until we got to the 5th which I managed to birdie, then sandy-parred the 6th and the 7th and started to dream... all of which was fine until a triple bogey on the 15th and a disastrous 7 on the final par 3...: the joys of medal stroke play!

We made good time, getting around in a shade over 4 hours so that we were back in the Clubhouse before 1 o'clock, yet it wasn't until almost 5 pm that I eventually headed home. The sun came out, the temperature rose: the opportunity to sit outside on the terrace and shoot the breeze and solve a few of the world's problems was too good to miss.

But get home eventually I did. And was very pleased to see that work had clearly been carried out on repairing the trenches from the day before: not all finished, but definitely a step in the right direction.
 
Everyone else at home was still feeling the after-effects of the Election Night, so a lazy evening watching the golf from Sawgrass was just what the doctored ordered...

Day 82 - Connections 2

Like many others in the nation I suspect, I rushed back from the pub on the Thursday evening to catch the 10 o'clock news and hear the exit polls being announced. Well that was it: I was staying up to find out what was going to happen!

Inevitably there was the usual flurry of early announcers, all from safe Labour North-East constituencies with names beginning with Sunderland: how is it that they can count their results in a couple of hours and others take so much longer? 

After that there were a couple of hours of punditry, with those whose party affiliations were not served by the accuracy of the exit polls writing them off and offering to eat various bits of clothing if they were correct (and shall we see Alistair Campbell consume his kilt?), whilst the others tried hard to conceal their glee with protestaions that we they need to wait for the real results etc.

Finally, some real votes came in and it was soon very evident that not only were the exit polls accurate but indeed that the movement towards the Conservatives (either a last-minute one or else one obscured by the many opinion polls) was much larger than anticipated. By 04:00, the sense of direction was clear and time for bed: the contractors were due back at 08:00 the following morning and there was only one person in the house who was going to be up for them.

Up again just after 7 o'clock to hear that indeed the tide was definitely moving in a blue, rather than red, direction and also to offer cups of tea to the engineers who were there to connect our new supplies.  This was done during the course of the morning which meant that for almost 3 hours I was in the house with no power: that means no broadband, no TV and no radio...thanks goodness for 4G phones!

Radio and TV back on and more post-election analysis mixed some vicarious pleasure at the sight of seeing Ed Balls lose his seat of Morley & Outwood (the expression on the winner's face was a hoot!).  To finish it off, I see that we now have the UK being characterised as being Marge Simpson - yellow top, blue body with bits of red too...

A lazy snoozy bath and then off to the Club for a Missing Links Dinner: this time there were 20 of us and we had splendid dinner in the fantastic setting of the large table in the downstairs lounge. And we didn't discuss politics at all... much....

Day 81 - Connections 1

A day when I had to remain at home all morning: we had a visit scheduled from UK Power Networks to start the process of installing a three-phase power supply into the house. This is to allow me to recharge my new yet-to-be-delivered car without all the lights going out in the rest of the property. No, not really, but it will make recharging simpler and quicker.

I didn't really have any idea of the amount of work that was required: the first stage involved digging a trench that seems suitable to lay a new sewer pipe rather than an electric cable, but what do I know! The contractors have now left for the day and we have one side of the driveway blocked off with the sort of signs that are guaranteed to make tempers rise when to be found on a busy road.

Stage 2 is tomorrow: more of that anon.

What was good about being home for the day, is that it meant that I could offer my brother a coffee as he was passing en route home from Kingston. And also provide his dog, Fern, with a bowl of water and the chance to frolic around in the garden. Though, given the fact that she a greyhound, she would really have appreciated a rather larger running area!

Day 80 - JumbleBee

No golf today - and just as well as it was raining and blowing and generally looking miserable...

I had planned an admin day, but first I had promised to take Kathryn to the local station. Which I did. Once home, the phone went and I was back in the car to pick her up: no trains running into Waterloo for the foreseeable future. We ended up driving to Wimbledon to allow her to continue her journey to the V&A using the Underground instead.  The whole episode brought back memories of my commuting life and the joys of arriving at a London terminus only to be confronted by a series of "delayed" or "cancelled" trains notice. Oh, happy days!

At dinner last night, I had been asked if I had regretted taking early retirement: this was yet another reminder as to why I had been able to respond so emphatically with the "No" that I had...

The afternoon was spent working on Jumblebee: this is an on-line silent auction site which I have planned to use to generate some funds for our Captains' Charity. I have set up a web page at http://www.jumblebee.co.uk/Burhill2015 and will launch it in the next few days: I hope that it will reach as many members as possible and not be too poor an imitation of the "real" charity auctions that we have had in previous years.

I have detected a bit of push-back from members of the golf club about there being too much pressure for charitable donations and hope that this solution will tackle that issue...

Day 79 - Ballot Monkeys

Five days golf in a row and the body is starting to tire... but I do have three days off the recuperate before the Spring Meeting at the weekend!  We had our regular Tuesday group today: 6 people playing and all returned to the Clubhouse at the end of the 18 holes looking and feeling thoroughly windswept!

The weather bore no resemblance to the previous day's Spring sunshine, instead we were buffeted around by winds approaching 40 mph. This led to trolleys being blown over, hats scurrying down the fairways and par 5s either being reachable in 2 shots or else in 4+, depending which way the wind was blowing.  Scores were as a result more modest than normal, but still only 1 point separated the two teams.

We spent the rest of the afternoon analysing the likely outcome of the General Election later this week. I am not sure that we shed any great light on the issues, but then I feel pretty much the same way about the wall-to-wall radio discussions that currently pollute the airwaves.  Classic FM is providing a welcome refuge on the car radio...

I shared that we were enjoying the recent Channel 4 series, Ballot Monkeys, which had had me giggling the previous evening: right up top date, probably unfair, but some of the jibes hit me just in the right place. Written by Andy Hamilton and starring Ben Miller and Hugh Dennis, amongst others it seems to have struck a chord.

Managed to catch this evening episode after an entertaining dinner out with friends at the Old Plough in Stoke d'Abernon. Could not believe it: walked in there at 8 pm to find every table (apart from ours!) occupied and the place buzzing... on a Tuesday night!

Day 78 - Organised Chaos

Today was Bank Holiday Monday - the public holiday in the UK that was introduced in 1978 as, in my words, a mixture between our own Labor Day and a recognition that many parts of the country have their own festivities on the first of May. 

When I was up at Oxford, this was the day when you were supposed to get up early, or rather stay up all night, go listen to the singing from Magdalen Tower, throw yourself into the river off the bridge there and then go watch Morris dancers and the such like parading though the streets.

You will not be surprised that we eschewed all of that this year and instead repaired to Burhill for what I like to denote as Organised Chaos: the Centenary Foursomes competition, where teams of eight occupy each tee and play as 4 teams of 2, in foursomes format (that is hitting the ball alternately). 

If the players are not quite sure what is going on, this can turn into a very slow form of mayhem.  Fortunately today, everyone was on the ball and things moved very smoothly.  The 96 of us who played were all on time for the BBQ lunch which followed the competition and, for as long as the sun stayed out, it was all very springlike and pleasant.

As ever, there were some very respectable scores and it was a real treat to be able to hand a prize out to Mrs Lawrence and her partner for their stellar performance over the Back 9.  Unfortunately, my partner and I were just pipped at the post on count-back and I shall go to bed ruing that poor tee shot on 6....

Day 77 - Matchplay

Well, my previous day's forebodings proved to be not totally unfounded: yesterday's boxing started late and this meant that anyone who stayed up to watch had a short night, a very short night!  Not a problem unless you also had a tee-time at 0830 the next morning.  Which my partner did.  A rushed coffee and a takeaway bacon sarnie ingested, the game started and we were very ragged for the first 7 holes.  Our opposition, John and David, cruised into a three hole lead and all was looking a bit uphill.

Matchplay is, IMHO, the purest form of golf and, as we all know, this means that the game isn't over until it's over.  Mike and I finally got our act together, playing the final 12 holes in one over par, and steadily we hauled back the opposition until by the time we were on the 18th tee, the match was all square. This is the third time we have played these Captain & Pro Challenge matches and also the third time that we have been level going into the final hole: great fun!

On this occasion, we managed to make a par on the last, which proved to be enough and we came away the victors by 1 up.  All had enjoyed it: the course had been empty for us (had everyone watched the boxing?) and the rain held off, so what mnore could you have wanted on a Sunday morning, apart from the pints of Youngs and Amstel that followed that is...

Most of the evening was spent watching the World Matchplay: as I type this, Rory has just seen his 4 shot hole lead reduce to 2 and very nearly to 1 (see above comments on it not being over until the last hole). I am not sure that I shall last until the end of this match, but I do believe that our Northern Irish world No.1 will add another trophy to his shelf tonight...

Day 76 - Lucky Tees

Another Saturday, another competition. Today was the turn of the Ron Bennett Centenary Trophy, a medal in the Old Course. I started off loosely but managed to hold it together.

On the second fairway,  I was on litter pick-up duty and came across small bag of tees with a message on them: Martin's Magic Tees. Guaranteed Lots of Holes in One. 

Was this an omen? Well, the answer was yes and no. I forgot to use the tees at the par threes, but still managed to score well.

No holes in one, it must be admitted, but I did manage a 2 on 16 to help me finish on 78, that is 8 over par. Not good enough to win the competition but still very respectable. A handicap cut follows and I am now playing off 9.1, my lowest ever.

I couldn't hang around for the end to see who actually won as I had to get myself to Twickenham. This was for the European Rugby Final and my son had somehow managed to secure free tickets, not only for us two but for a whole host of his friends. We bumped into familiar faces from King's, Durham and EY during the afternoon.

I left them all to it at the end of an exciting game of rugby. It was time for me to head home to get some rest before tomorrow's Captain and Pro game..though I am hearing worrying messages that my partner plans to watch the boxing tonight. It is scheduled to start at 0500 UK time...

Day 75 - Zingy

Whilst I was working at EDF Energy, one of the marketing initiatives we launched that most caught consumers' attention was the launch of a series of TV adverts using the character Zingy to seek to improve customer confidence in the brand.

Although Management were a bit cautious at first, the whole thing took off and soon we were fielding requests for Zingy memorabilia and being sent photos of Zingy parties and Zingy cakes etc.  At the time, it was a first for an Energy company but I have recently seen SSE using a live orang-utan in their commercials so nothing is sacred!

My reasons for thinking of Zingy today were that it was the occasion of my annual get together with former EDF Energy colleagues. They came to Burhill and took advantage of one of the lunch+golf vouchers that we had been sent at the time of our membership renewals. This did mean that we were a bit tardy in teeing off, but we had an excellent game of "Wolf", which kept everyone's interest until the last hole.

Then home in time for a quick supper: this time I tuned to The Times's daily "Dinner Tonight" columns, which is always worth a look. On the menu was Rosemary Roasted Cod with Herby Green Couscous. Ready in under 30 mins, no gluten, no washing up and delicious...