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.