Day 50 - Spring Sunshine

Easter Monday and the first Social event on the Burhill calendar.  Today was the occasion of the Arthur Scott Trophy and the turn-out was excellent: we had almost 100 participants, which is a record for the Club for a Mixed Foursomes event, at least in the recent past.

We were also blessed with some wonderful Easter sunshine: there were even a few players spotted wearing shorts, a first for 2015!  My partner for the day was the Lady Captain, and our playing partners were my wife and son.  Diana and I were ahead after the first 9 holes, but this didn't last, and soon we were left behind.  Kathryn and Andrew did well, managing to secure a third place (on count-back) for their efforts.

Supper was served as soon as we were back in the Clubhouse: an excellent gammon, accompanied by salad and potatoes, with brownies to follow. My first prize-giving ceremony passed off well: no mistakes and I didn't forget any of my lines (though I was told off for not removing my sunglasses off the top of my head for the photographs: memo to self!).  The atmosphere was very good and this bodes well for the rest of the 2015 Social golf calendar...

And if Masters fever has not yet gripped you, may I recommend you watch the new Nike commercial - great stuff! 

You can find an article which includes the link here...

Day 49 - Eggcellent Sunday

For more years than I can remember, Easter Sunday has seen us in Lavenham, Suffolk, visiting my parents' home together with various permutations of brothers and younger cousins. This year was no different: we even had two brothers and families, plus a Kiwi second cousin, and greyhound Fern, all of whom joined in the festivities.

We had painted eggs the previous evening (duck eggs are best because they are white!) and these, together with a large number of chocolate brethren were to be hunted in the garden after breakfast.  We have had sunny Easters, rainy ones and even a few years ago a White Easter. This year was mild whenever the sun came out, less so when it hadn't, but nevertheless a good time was had by all.

There was even time for a pre-prandial pint at the Swan in the village - scene of both children's christenings - which set us up for a lazy afternoon of Heineken Rugby, family photos and a splendid Easter tea.  We shall make our way back to Cobham this evening, replete and sated and in need of at least 18 holes to walk off all the great food consumed!

I was pleased to see that the Club flag was flying today in Norfolk, West Virginia, as a good friend of ours was due to play in an Easter competition there and he shared the fact that he would do so wearing his Burhill cap in our honour: we hope Scott plays well and look forward to hearing about his hole in one...

Day 48 - Hospital Cases

Today was the first Medal of the new season: the Hospital Cup, open to both Man and Ladies, and where all the entry fees are donated to Walton Hospital.  This year there was a special bonus in that the best two Men and two Ladies (subject to a handicap filter) will be asked to form a team representing Burhill in a competition being run by England Golf. This is the Club Team Championship - see here for more details.

I had the "Captain's Slot" at 08:40 and got there in time... just...  My playing partners were Peter and Jan-Willem and we had a very convivial round: we were a bit slow out of the blocks, then hunted for a ball on a couple of holes so were forced, according to one of my partners, to jog around the rest of the course.  In fact, we played our 18 holes in a tad under 4 hours, which is not bad given the breezy conditions and the fact that it was medal scoring.  None of us will have troubled the leader board, but our game was played in good humour and I enjoyed the company.

We had an interesting discussion on one hole about whether or not a player who had hooked their ball into the boondocks could "declare it lost" and opt to play their provisional ball.  For those, like me, for whom the rules of golf are a fascination, there is an explanation of how this works here.

I had to rush off afterwards as we always head to my mother's for Easter and, after a very clear run, we arrived in Suffolk ready for a good dinner and an evening playing cards: Newmarket, Sevens, the Racing Game were all on the agenda. It was great to see my brother, family and cousins: all we were missing was my Dad who used to enjoy these occasions so much...

Day 47 - Excellent Friday

Today was Good Friday, a holiday here in the UK, and the first day of the Easter break celebrations at the Golf Club. As Men's Captain, I get to choose the format of the team competition on this day. 

I had long ago decided to opt for a Texas Scramble, as this is a version of the game we do not play very often: basically, in teams of 4, everyone drives off and then you choose the person's shot you want to play, after which the three others take their second shots. This is repeated until you reach the green, when all may putt.

The kicker is that you must use everyone's drive a minimum of 4 times over the 18 holes.  This calls for some interesting tactics as you do not want to put anyone under too much pressure, particularly the higher handicapper.

We were very fortunate with the weather: despite the earlier forecast of torrential rain, we had only a brief shower to contend with.  Our team played pretty well, or so we thought until we got back to the Clubhouse to find that one four-ball had managed to shoot 11 under par, gross.  Ouch...

The atmosphere in the bar afterwards was great: people appeared to have enjoyed the day and that, as Captain, is all you want... though it would have been nice to have finished, say, in third place?  Maybe next year...

Day 46 - Goldfinger

If the match at Hankley had a James Bond connection, then so did today's!  The Club had a friendly Vets match at home to Stoke Park, with the return fixture scheduled for the 19th August. Stoke Park is one of the UK's better known golf clubs, designed by Harry Colt, and the scene of a number of films, including Layer Cake and Goldfinger.

The latter includes a classic golfing segment with both Bond and his nemesis Goldfinger trying to out-cheat each other in a skulduggery-filled few holes of match play. Needless to say, our man wins...  If I am correct, in the book, the scene is set not at Stoke Park but at Royal St George's, but that's a story for another day.

Our own match was much more convivial, with neither killer bowler hats nor gold bars in sight. Instead, my partner Roger and I had a great tussle. I am not quite sure how, as we were not playing that badly, but we found ourselves down 3 after 8 holes. At this point my partner discovered something special, holing a long putt for a birdie and then repeating the feat for a nett birdie on the next hole. By the time we got to 16, we were only one down, with my own birdie there levelling the match. We won 17, halved 18 and the rest is history, as they say.

Overall the match was halved 3-3 and a splendid Burhill carvery lunch meant that it wasn't until nigh on 4 pm that I managed to get to Waitrose where I had the pleasure of spending £250 on wine for prizes for the Good Friday competition. I was quite taken with some of the wines I picked up, so here's hoping that we do well tomorrow!

Day 45 - Poisson d'avril

Woke up to the news that a friend of mine had broken his leg playing tennis and that Tiger Woods had announced his retirement from golf ...but both of them turned out to be April Fool's jokes. This got me thinking how, when we lived in Belgium as children, the equivalent thing to do there on 1st April as to stick a paper fish onto someone's back without them noticing - hence I suppose the translation of an April Fool's prank into a poisson d'avril.

What was no joke this morning was getting up at 06:30 to be at the Club for an 07:30 briefing: I had signed up to spend a couple of hours as a starter for the second round of the EuropPro Qualifying tournament. Once armed with my instructions and my metal case with radio and general paraphernalia, I headed off to the New Course.  The sun was shining and the gale force winds of the day before had abated somewhat but it was still decidedly parky!  I was mighty glad of my two sweaters...

I discovered that two entrants had shot first round scores of 70 (2 under par) the previous day in what must have been seriously difficult conditions, and off the back tees making the course over 7,000 yards. And this is just a qualifying tournament....

I very much enjoyed my morning: all the players were very friendly and appreciative of the facilities. They all praised the course in general and the greens in particular and I must admit I thought everything looked splendid. I shall look at the results on-line tonight to see the names of the 37 players who made it through to the next round.

Day 44 - There She Blows!

It had been apparent for some time that our regular Tuesday golf game was going to be an issue.  The New Course at the Club was hosting Day 1 of a Qualifying tournament for aspiring golfers who fancied their chances on the PGA EuroPro tour (this is a UK/NI feeder tour into the Challenge Tour, which itself leads into the man European Tour) and the Old Course would see the normal Tuesday Ladies Competition.

So we needed a Plan B.  We are fortunate that the Burhill Group, the owners of Burhill Golf Club, own a number of other courses around the country, so I had made plans for us to secure a tee time at Hoebridge Golf Centre, less than 10 miles away from home. Hoebridge is a Pay and Play establishment which has an 18 hole course as well a shorter 9 hole course and a further 18 hole Par 3 course.  We were to play on the main course.

The four of us met up at Hoebridge: three of us had played there before but like me, only many years ago. I remembered taking my son and his then-young friends to play n the Par 3 course on numerous occasions, when they were just taking up the game.  What had not been there was the new pirate-themed Adventure Golf facilities - an upmarket mini-golf concept that the Burhill Group have been looking to commercialize on a wider scale at some of their other facilities and also at third party establishments.

The day we had chosen proved to be a bright and breezy one - very breezy!  On the way there, the radio was full of news of flight and ferry delays and major bridge closures and there had been gale force winds on the coasts the previous day. Whilst on the course, we even witnessed a fully grown tree toppling over in the wind: fortunately nobody was in the vicinity.  We also bumped into a small group of Burhill Ladies who had had the same idea as us, but they packed it in after 4 windy holes proved too much for them!

All of this made our golf game a challenging one: at times we were taking 3 clubs extra and we had a fun game.  My partner and I ran into a pair who were playing better, in particular Mark who holed a number of critical putts when he had to. The pirate theme carried over from the mini-golf into the golf match, and he was soon being accused of being Dead-eye Dick, Roger the Cabin Boy and worse.  We knew that he had had a sneaky practice session on the range before the game started, but maybe he had also joined the numerous half-term families on the Adventure Golf too?