Day 354 - Friday Fun

Another early start this morning as I had been selected for the Rest of the World team, this time playing in the Vets Nations Cup side.  The format of this competition is different from the main Men's game: we played a Greensomes game off the Yellow Tees so it should have been - and was - a bit easier to score well than of late.

My partner-in-crime today was Wayne, a very useful 18 handicapper, originally from South Africa. This was great as I was able to tap him up a bit for some ideas in preparation for our November trip out there.  And our opponents, playing for the Irish, were their Captain Mark and Geoff.

And what an exciting game we had: Geoff holed a great putt on 9, our first hole, and then Mark holed a long one on 11 and it just went on like that: we had birdies on 14 and 6 (great approach and then an outrageous putt respectively), whilst our opponents had back-to-back net eagles and then a birdie on holes 3 and 4.... tough stuff....

In the end, as is so often the way, despite all of this, it was the simple bread-and-butter putts that cost us: we overhit 17, missed a 4-footer on 7 and then failed to sink something a bit less than that on our final hole to halve the match... ouch!

A companionable sandwich and a beer for lunch followed after which it was time to think about the evening meal: I wandered around Waitrose and decided on lamb shanks with a celeriac mash: perfect winter food!

Disco time?

While that was cooking, I decided to have some fun with my new Philips Hue lights: I downloaded an App (Ambify) which changes the colours of the bulbs in time with any music you play off your iPhone: daft but fun and good value for £2.99 - especially when Kathryn's away....

Some very entertaining golf at the Waste management Open in Phoenix closed the evening: gorgeous weather and great skills on show. The par-3 16th hole, with raucous crowds cheering and booing every player is not something you'd want to see every week, but it has its place here!