Club Championship 28th July 2012

was Club Championship day, sadly not too many entrants in the Ladies Competition, I guess not a lot fancy the prospect of playing 36 holes in one day, I was dubious myself but gave it a go anyway. For the morning round I was pulling my own trolley but one of the other members had offered to caddy for me in the afternoon so that would be a great help.

We started off at 9.15 going out after the men, as it was the Championship, the course had been set up to be as hard as possible, the green were mown as short as possible to make them run very fast, the pins were set in the worst positions, generally at the bottom of slopes or close to bunkers.

Off my handicap, I try to bogey each hole, knowing I can afford a few doubles and hope to get a few pars to balance off the bad holes. Play was slow going in the morning, the guys were in three balls while we were in two balls so we tend to have to wait a lot, but I played OK over the first nine, I did start with 3 doubles but steadied things with 3 bogeys, followed by another 2 doubles but parred the 9^th for a score of 49. On the back nine it started well with a bogey on the 10^th, a hole I cannot reach in two so a 5 feels like a par, sadly I followed that with 2 doubles and a triple but a bogey then 2 pars brought things back on to finish with triples on the par 5 17^th and par 3 18^th, the latter being caused by my tee shot landing on the fringe but bouncing sideways and running back down the steep bang that guards the green.

Still I had a 99, net 76 which was not too disappointing and kept me in the hunt.

Because of the slow morning round, we did not have the expected 1 hour break between rounds and so after a quick sandwich, cup of tea and a change of clothes we were back on the 1^st tee within 30 minutes of finishing the first round.

Now with a caddy and enjoying the experience of just walking and playing shots, I started the second round very well a bogey on the first despite 3 putting, was followed by holing a long put for par on the 2^nd, a bogey on the 3^rd, then another good put for par on the 4^th. A double on the 5^th where I visited 2 ditches was followed by another par on the 6^th. I undid some of the good work with doubles on 7 and 8, and bogeyed the 9^th again due to 3 putting, but I ended up taking 46 on the front nine, the best nine holes of the day so far and I was hopeful of a good second round score.

The final nine started badly with double, triple, double, a nice bogey on the stroke index 1 13^th, but I took 4 from just short of the green for another double on the 14^th, I bogied the 15^th but another 3 putt gave another double on the 16^th. The penultimate hole of the day is a very long par 5, but 3 good shots put with about 30 yds short of the green, the 17^th green is set in a bowl with a steep bank at the front leading down to it. Approaches can be a bit of a lottery as if you hit the bank as the ball can shoot off the bank or sometimes pull up short. Sadly mine puued up so a nice sand wedge finished on the front fringe and again I took another 4 shots to put the ball into the hole for another triple.

So onto the final hole a par 3 over a valley with a steep bank leading up to the green, bunkers left and right and the clubhouse just at the back which is out of bounds. The pin was towards the back and close to the right hand bunker and due to the tee positon behind a large tree. Due to the better front nine I was still looking at a reasonable score in the mid 70s and I hit a lovely tee shot which started out on the pin but unfortunately faded and finished in the right hand bunker. I don’t mind bunkers even though I don’t always get out first time, so I wasn’t unduly worried when after my first attempt, the ball stayed in the bunker, unfortunately the 2^nd and 3^rd attempts to get out failed too, I did get out with the fourth only to overshoot the green and end up out of bounds on the clubhouse flags. So back to the bunker, and finally out another 3 shots to get the ball in the hole for a disastrous 10!, I was distraught, I ended the back nine with a 58 for a 104 net 81, to keep it going only for almost 2 rounds to finish with a 8 and a 10 on the last two holes had me close to tears and convinced I had blown my chance of winning.

Fifteen minutes later however, I was in tears, when I found out that I had actually won the best net score. Fortunately for me everyone found the course tough and my score was the lowest, so I won the Florence Burton Cup and get my name on the honours board in the lounge.

Playing 2 rounds wasn’t as bad as I expected and having a caddy certainly helped at lot.