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...