Day 134 - Lady Captain's Day

Ouch...

Definitely Off Games today with my left hand doing its own Michelin Man impression after yesterday's fall.

Have been grateful for all the advice: rest, ice, raise arm, ibuprofen gel, exercise by squeezing tennis ball - and have spent the afternoon watching the tennis doing all of these in the hopes that they will assist a speedy recovery.

Today must be the hottest day of the year: Wimbledon talking of 41degC court-side (that's 106F) and the talk is of even higher temperatures tomorrow.  This meant that my fellow Lady Captain had chosen a scorcher for her Captain's Day: very different from a few weeks ago - see http://burhillcaptain2015.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/day-119-captains-day.html

It was fun to meet Diana and her family, and to see all the hard work she had put in to make the day a success. I thought that the Pimm's was a particularly fine idea - though at my Captain's Day, hot soup would have been the order of the day had we but planned a bit better!

Thence home to watch Andy Murray and his first round match; as ever, it involved a couple of scares, but he came through. Six more rounds to go....

P.S. Hope that you aware that we get an extra second's sleep tonight!

Day 133 - Beware the Injured Golfer

Up bright and early to play a Vets match at Worplesdon. Glorious day outside, everything fine and dandy...until calamity struck: water and bathroom tiles do not mix.... and I slipped and fell heavily. I knew something wasn't quite right with my left wrist, but it seemed to move ok, so decided not to let anyone down and headed off to the golf club.

Worplesdon was looking splendid and the course was in excellent condition. At least we were playing St Andrews Greensomes (both players drive after which players alternate with one taking the second shots on the odd and the other on the even holes), so I wouldn't have to play a full round.

My partner Andrew and I lost the first hole and all looked a bit bleak. We won the second however, using our shot, and then halved every hole until the half way point. Up to then I had been driving very well (but always within myself to protect my left hand) and indeed this carried on. By the time we got to the 15th hole, we had recorded a score of just two over par (with 3 birdies), as indeed had our opponents... but as they were giving us 5 shots this meant that we had won by 5&3!  Beware the injured golfer indeed...

After lunch, my left hand started to look increasingly swollen, so my next stop was the Accident & Emergency department of St Peters (back there again....). A series of XRays followed, which thankfully showed that nothing had been broken. The hand though is looking seriously inflated, so I am not sure when I shall next get a golf glove on it...

The evening was dedicated to a cultural pursuit: a lecture on the works of Inigo Jones and his buildings. This was given by a certain Dr Laurence Shafe, who clearly knew so much on the subject that he struggled to fit his talk into the time allotted...  Now where is the Ibuprofen gel?

Day 132 - Junior Golf

Today was the occasion of the Men vs Juniors Club match. Due to an overlap with the June Stableford, it had been decided to limit the competition to four pairs, so it was always going to be close.

The format was 4Ball Better Ball and my partner was playing off 19. As Captain, I was paired against the Junior Captain (Lizzie, who plays off +3) and Junior Vice Captain (Malcolm off 5) - giving them a combined handicap of 2 against our 29.  I think it is fair to say that Jonny and I approached the first tee with a degree of trepidation...

But we needn't have worried: the handciap system is there for a reason... We received a fair amount of shots and put them to good use. Despite the fact that Lizzie and Malcom played very nicely (including birdies on 6, 7, 12, 14 and 16), we too managed to play very tidily. By the time we came off the 16th, our better ball score was around +4 which meant that we were actually 2 holes up with two to play.

At this point though the Junior showed their mettle and Lizzie holed an excellent 20' putt on the last, to win the hole and halve the match.  Back in the Clubhouse, we soon discovered that the other two matches which had finished had been split, one win either way, so that all depended on the final group. That too turned out to be All Square, meaning that the match itself was tied. This was the first time in 5 years that the Men had not lost, so we could walk away with some satisfaction.

Lizzie and her team tried to persuade us to settle the match with a play-off on the 18th of the New, but we were far too old and wise to fall for that one!  Now, let's see how Paul Csey is getting on...?

Day 131 - Peachy Day

Summer seems to have arrived: another glorious day for golf, with the courses in splendid condition. Today was the date for the 4th Captain and Pro Challenge. We played on the New Course against Ian and Brian, both of whom are good, steady players.  We had to give them 10 shots so it was always going to be tough...

Mike and I started off unusually well: we have in the past lost the first one or two holes and have had to claw our way back. This time, in contrast, we got off to a very solid start and soon found ourselves three holes up, two at the turn.

All went well until the 12th when the Captain missed a short putt then we had balls behind trees, hit into the rough, found the water on 15 and then disappeared into the trees on 17 to mean that we lost the match 3&1.  Not our finest performance!

After lunch, my son contacted me asking if I wanted to play another 18, given the fine weather. We compromised and managed another 10 holes before heading back home to provide some assistance in the preparations for our dinner this evening.

To accompany the blueberry cheesecake dessert, I made first use in ages of our ice cream maker: it produced a very passable peach ice cream.

We sat outside until well gone 11 o'clock: a first for this year: an early English summer at its best!

Day 130 - Effingham and Cheeseandham

Friday and one of the few days in the year when both the courses at the Club were unavailable this morning due to a large corporate golf day (today it was Berkeley Homes' turn...). There was though an upside to this inconvenience as the Head Pro had arranged for members to be granted courtesy rounds at a number of other local golf courses.  I had put my hand up for a morning start at Effingham Golf Club.

This is why I found myself on the tee there just before 9 o'clock this morning. I had arranged a fourball with fellow members Chris, Brian and Jon.  In time honoured fashion, the balls were thrown in the air and it turned out to be Captain & Former Captain vs the rest.  We ended up having a great game. By the time we got to the Half-way Hut (excellent sausage sandwiches!) the game was evenly poised.  After that Chris and I established a three hole lead only for it to be reined in gradually until we halved the match on the final green.  Excellent stuff!

By then the sun had truly come out and it was time for beer and sandwiches on the terrace.  And there we stayed for quite a while, enjoying the pleasant weather and good company.  Back home to prepare dinner: discovered that we had a somewhat depleted refrigerator.

As a result, I was set a Masterchef type challenge: Produce a supper from these ingredients!  Well, I did and it was delicious: took this recipe and adapted it for what we had - http://www.food.com/recipe/ham-and-cheese-crepes-190683

Day 129 - 32 years

My last golf-free day for a while (playing that is: I have been following Paul Casey's first round at The Travelers - looking good so far!). This will mostly be spent up in London at a monthly Board Meeting. London is hot and full of Google Maps-toting tourists: not a good combination!

Today is our Wedding Anniversary (32 years, thanks for asking!) and we are going to celebrate this with dinner and then a play. We ate tonight at the Archduke, underneath the train tracks from Waterloo to Charing Cross.  This location was a bit if a throw-back as we first frequented it when I worked in Shell Centre, on the South Bank, in the early 1980s. At the time, it received seed funding from Shell, in a bid to boost local businesses in what was then a pretty dreary part of London. They must be doing something right though as it's still going, offering very much the same sort of fare as all those years ago. And the whole area is buzzing!

It was only a short walk to the National Theatre, where we had tickets to see the Beaux Stratagem. I was a little apprehensive about this production as the last period piece we had seen there had been largely incomprehensible and quite hard work.

I needn't have worried! The language was easily understood and the production kept moving space with a mixture of humour, music and song. As always at the National, the sets were excellent and the cast as good as ever - and so numerous! Very enjoyable - and all the more so as we managed to stroll gently and walk straight into our train home. Now I get to see the new hob...

Day 128 - Very Intelligent Golf

Morning spent doing errands and then to Burhill for lunchtime. First job was to assist a member with PayPal problems and then I met with Jamie, the head man at Intelligent Golf. He had spent the previous hour and a half in discussion with BGL about some of the issues that need resolving: basically, the Club is running two separate systems (IG for the Golf and ESP for the membership/catering side of things) and that is never a good place to be - just think about the fact that members' dates of birth need to be kept in both....

Without a link being built between the two, members stand no chance of tracking their MDC card spend on IG and the Club stands no chance of keeping members' email addresses up to date in ESP.  Watch this space... but it won't be quick!

Rather than sit down with Jamie, I opted instead to play a 9 hole round with him: and what a great decision! The Old Course was quiet (and its greens quick!) so we meandered through the front half, chatting on the way. Early on, we discovered that we were both Tesla aficionados so the conversation flowed easily. I shared with him some of the ways that we are using IG ("you guys are pushing the limits!") and he talked through some of their ideas for the future.  I hope that we can work closely together to the benefit of both.

A quick trip to a possible wedding venue for 2016 (that's for my daughter, not us!) and then back to Burhill for a Club Committee Meeting. The first with the new acting General Manager, so it took a bit longer than usual, but the discussion was good and I think we all agreed that it was a step in the right direction.