Day 148 - Tournament Preparation

Tuesday sees us chilling out in Virginia Beach. A lazy jet-lagged morning start to the day, with a delicious breakfast of fresh eggs from Jackson's 30+ chickens. The variety of sizes and colours is amazing...

Then it was time for our first golf of the holiday. We headed to Scott's home course of Heron Ridge. We had played here before and soon began to remember many of the holes. Quite different from Burhill but an excellent preparation for the rounds to come. 

I managed to start the round of with a birdie and soon established an early lead in our skins/bits game but by the end there wasn't much in it, with Scott's brilliant short game and Andrew's length off the tee coming into play. I think I ended up plus $1, but we did cash in on the snake game as AJ managed to three putt a few more times than he should have.

The rest of the afternoon passed by most pleasantly as we sat outside sampling the various local beers, listening to music and watching Sadie chasing the insects. Then it was Pimms time... we had brought a couple of bottles with us and were glad to share the joys of an England summer with our Virginian friends.  We shall sleep well tonight!

Day 147 - A Long Journey

Today was always going to be a long day. We left the house just after 8 and battled with the normal Monday traffic. The car’s sat nav was so insistent that the M25 between junctions 9 and 8 was dire and that we should avoid it entirely, that we did as we were told. Instead, we meandered through Byfleet and Weybridge before joining the motorway was orange. Who knows whether we did the right thing? -  but we got there on time.

Remember the days when Heathrow Terminal 5 was a byword for chaos and confusion? Those time are long gone now: we sailed through check-n, security and then the lounge. Having boarded our flight early we had every reason to be optimistic for a swift departure. Unfortunately, there were climate change protesters on the run way so that was not to be. Eventually, we left.

The plane was an A380, the one with two decks, and despite that was full: why does everyone else want to go to Washington DC on a Monday morning?  The 8-hour flight passed quickly enough, fuelled by lots of in-flight entertainment and one of the new BA specially-ordered meals (good value!).  Immigration and customs were a breeze and we were soon on our way in our rather scruffy Buick Regale.

Our destination today was Virginia Beach, some 3h55mins away according to the maps. In fact it took us an hour or more longer because of the very traffic exiting DC.  This must be a regular feature as an enormous complex of extra toll lanes has gone live since our last visit. At one point we bit the bullet and enjoyed serenely passing the stationary traffic to our right.

We arrived at the Taylors in good time and had a great evening of catching up, pizzas, beer and learning all about the complexities of the choices offered by the latest Lego catalogue from Jackson. And we met Sadie too: a cute little Chorkie (a cross between a Chihuahua and a Yorkshire Terrier!).

Day 146 - Preparations

Due to a bit of a mix-up, I wasn't sure whether or not I had a match this morning. Having heard nothing, I assumed not and so made other plans for the day. I am about to go away for a week with my son, so dedicated the day to a mixture of preparations for our trip as well as spending some time with Mrs L whom we are going to abandon...

Preparations were all that which you expect: selection of team shirts, washing and ironing, cleaning of golf clubs and packing of bags. Every year that we go away, we manage to pack even more efficiently it seems: we shall after all have a washing machine available once we get there.

For our day out, Kathryn and I drove down to Guildford and explored the towpath along the Wey for what proved to be a most entertaining walk.  We walked down in the direction of Shalford until we found a bridge across the river and then headed back towards town.

This is definitely an area to which we shall return - we quite fancy walking all along the river to Godalming and then maybe taking the train back.  It was all very peaceful, with only the sound of the occasional barge chugging by...

Thence home again to watch the final from Wimbledon, which ended up being depressingly one-sided (wish it had been a Murray-Djokovic match-up!) and then the golf from Gullane. The weather at the latter looked better than when I played the course...

Day 145 - Another Challenging Day

It was another gorgeous day today and an early morning start beckoned: we had agreed to meet up at the Club with today Captain & Pro challengers for coffee at 0745.  When I arrived at Burhill, it was clear that we were not the only ones who had decided that today would be a fine day for golf...  I guess that the combination of fine weather, no competitions, afternoon sport to watch etc. had spurred many players into action.

The fact that the 1st tee of the Old was reserved for two Club matches will have aggravated things, but we are blessed with four tees t start off from, so it should be ok, right? Wrong... As usual, one of these was reserved for the first hour of play for 2-balls and, unusually, this too had a bit of a backlog. Once we had extracted a four-ball who had not bothered to check from which tee they were allowed to begin their round, we still had 3 pairs ahead of us when we arrived. Clearly there are some deadlines coming up in some of the matchplay events!  I was asked if, as Captain, I expected to be given priority but these days have long passed...

Eventually, we teed off at around 08:30 (meaning that the Ladies' groups who had the tee reserved from that time were delayed by 10 minutes - sorry!) and after that the pace of play was excellent with the course moving quickly around. The match itself followed a familiar course: we really must stop winning the first hole and establishing an early lead!  Again, our opponents hauled us in with a series of excellent up & downs, and by holing some crucial putts.  We played better than we had done the previous time, but still ended up with the same result: a loss by 3&1.  Next time we play two former captains so we had better get some practice in!

The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to watching the Ashes Activity from Cardiff. Somewhat contrary to expectations, it was the Australians who found themselves more than challenged by a very disciplined England team.  Now why didn't I accept that bet from Brian on an England Ashes victory...?

Day 144 - Vets Invitational Day

One of the nicer events we play every year is the Vets Invitational Day: this is when every Club against whom we play friendly matches receives an invitation to enter a three-man team into a Stableford Competition.  These players are then mixed up and a Burhill member accompanies each group to make up a four-ball. At the lunch that follows, there are prizes awarded to the winning teams from the visitors and the home players also have their own team competition. In addition, there are also prizes for the best individual performances.

The weather today was just ideal for golf: blue skies, a few clouds, warm temperatures and a slight breeze. The course too was in splendid nick: no excuses at all for everyone not to record some outstanding scores...or so you would think!

Terry Milson from West Hill
receiving the winner's salver

I was the only non-Scot in my four ball and, once I had got over this inadequacy, we proved to have a very pleasant game. We were one of the lower handicapped groupings which gave us the privilege of starting off from the third tee with nobody else in front. We took full advantage of this, finishing our round in about 3 and a half hours. Sadly though the scoring was not stellar: in my case, the problem was a combination of over-familiarity with the Old Course's bunkers and the inability to hole some crucial putts...plus, of course, my feeling so sorry for one of our group who lost a pink plastic tee on the 17th hole....

A fine lunch followed after which it was time to go home to catch up with the day's sport. Should we watch the tennis or the cricket? In the end, the latter was on the big screen with the tennis on the laptop as the tension generated by watching Murray's game against Federer was simply too much for Mrs L.... This turned out to be a wise choice!

Day 143 - Golf Widower

Many years ago, I can remember watching a television play starring Maureen Lipman. The opening scene showed her and her husband in bed: he was boring her with the story of his golfing day: "On the third, I took a 7 iron for my approach and it bounced into a bunker" etc.  She had no interest whatsoever but eventually decided to take up the game to see what it was all about. You can probably guess the final scene.. they were in bed together, but this time it was the husband who was bored with wife's story of her round... "I hit a great drive on the short par 4th..." etc.

I felt a bit like that today. Mrs L left the house at 9:30 for a match against Roehampton and didn't reappear until gone 6 pm. And I had had to cancel my inaugural appearance in the Surrey Captains' Team against Kent due to my dodgy wrist...

Fortunately, there was lots to do at home: I had my accounts to catch up on (I still use an ancient version of Quicken...), then there was the Friday email to draft and I still had the minutes to write from the last Club Committee meeting.  As far as distractions were concerned, there were lots: the second day of the Ashes at Cardiff, the opening round of the D\Scottish Open at Gullane and of course the latest tennis from Wimbledon.

Clearly multi-tasking was in order...

Finally, I was on dinner duty: I took advantage of the Fish van being in Cobham today and purchased a couple of fresh swordfish steaks. These were perfect for some Tequila-lime fish tacos... followed by some home made raspberry ice cream.  Yum....

Day 142 - Barker Shield

After the exertions of yesterday, offers of a game today were politely rejected... especially as there was some cracking daytime television on offer: first day of the 2015 Ashes Series, Andy Murray vs Vasel Pospisil (if I spelled that correctly..) in the Wimbledon Quarter Finals plus the new government's Summer Budget...

Winner Ron White receiving Shield from Brian Prevost

But first something much more rewarding.

I had been invited to go to the Club at lunchtime to present the prizes for the winners of the Barker Shield. This is a competition only open to those aged 75 and over - and there were also prizes for the over 80s as well.

I think it's great that this section of the Club has their own competition - though I get the sense that the social interaction was just as important as the golf.

As I aid at the time, many of the participants have a ways to go... when were on holiday in our house in Sarasota last year, a resident in the adjacent country club scored a hole in one... aged 103!  We can all live in hope...

Celebrations over, my attentions turned to the afternoon's TV: England cricket at 43 for 3... but ended up 343 for 7, Murray won in 3 straight sets and Osborne produced a number of rabbits out of his hat - all very entertaining!