Day 174 - Inner Golf

A Monday drive up to Royal Mid Surrey, through Twickenham and along the 316 into London...in the morning at 08:00?  We must be mad to even consider it... But hey, it's August and schools are still on holiday so the journey was an absolute breeze. Leaving at 7:00 to be safe got me there for 07:30 with plenty of time to spare. Had a wander around, purchased a logo golf ball for my collection and soon it was time to join the team for coffee.

What an amazing oasis this is: 36 holes of golf right in the middle of a busy suburb, right near Kew Gardens. I had never been there before and was a bit disappointed to hear that hollow tining meant that we would be playing the, shorter, inner course. As it turned out, it was a fun test of golf: not much use for the driver and accuracy was at a premium. The absence of fairway watering led to the occasional hard lie, but it was the same for everyone.

My partner Keith and I got off to a flying start:  birdie, nett birdie to start and we were two up.  After that, it was a depressing repeat of the previous day's match as they hauled us in and won it on the last. We left a few putts short, which was our downfall, but had a most pleasant game with former colleague, Gavin, and his partner for the day, Alan (whom I called Paul for the first 9 holes...).

One of the features of the Club is the smart new Clubhouse. The original had been there since 1892 and was destroyed in a major fire in 2001.  All the trophies, records and a fine set of historical photographs were lost in the disaster and the Club has done its best to replace them. It is though a real shame to see all those gaps on the Honours Boards...