England Golf grand medal final - Northampton County Golf Club.

Well this was supposedly going to be a triumphal blog entry about how I conquer all, however it was not to be.

The day started well as I drove the 15 miles from my hotel in Market Harborough to the course, I had driven down the night before so as to be fresh for the competition. Hotels in Northampton were hard to come by and expensive due to the Grand Prix being help nearby by, a Travelodge in Northampton was charging £190 a room!

The course looked in great condition and so after a bacon barm, some time on the range and putting green I was ready for the off.

I started well with a lovely straight drive and got a bogey 6 on the first where my chip which ran right off the back of the green gave an early indication of how the greens would be playing. A nice par 5 on the second was followed by a bogey 4 on the third where I three putted from the back of the green, I left the first way short, scared with how fast the greens were. sadly this trend continued throughout the round. A bogey 5 on the 4th and I was off to a nice steady start.

We had been held up by the group in front on both the 2nd and 3rd holes, but as we had spent time on the 3rd looking for a ball, we were a little behind when we reached the 5th tee. Here were were met by a marshall who told up we need to speed up to catch, as we were lagging behind. This did not go down well and I put my first drive deep into trees followed by a 2nd which found deep rough. I hit a decent recovery and we set off up the fairway, only to be followed by the marshall, this caused us all to rush our shots and also got me really upset by his actions, the hole ended up a disaster with me taking 13 shots, both my playing partners took double figures on the hole as well.

It took a couple of holes for me to calm down and then I settled into playing decent golf again, although the greens still continued to puzzle me and several times I was on the fringe in regulation only to take 3 putts.

I did manage a couple more pars along the way  but it should have been several more. I did slip up on the 16th were a poorly hit approach found a greenside bunker and I took 3 to get out followed by another 3 putt for a 9,

My final score was 105 for a net scored of 90, and although that looks bad I really didn't play badly at all, apart from the 13 and the 9, I didn't have a score greater than 6 on any other hole, I did however play the par threes poorly. I ended up 40th out of 60, some players didn't have the same problems and the winning score was a net 73 against a SSS of 75, CSS was 76, so I will get a 0.1 increase to my handicap.

All in all, apart from the incident with the marshall, I did have a lovely day, and although I think I will struggle to win the medal at Ellesmere this season I would love another chance to try and qualifiy for this again.