The Millennium Putter

Having turned up on time, aka half an hour late, for Saturday's competition I was in a two-ball at the back with Phil McDonnell (who also turned up on time, half an hour after our draw was actually made). This was actually very relaxing, a good preparation for Captain's Day on Sunday. The course was in excellent condition and importantly the trailer was ready and waiting at the 12th tee (and thanks to Bruce Douglas and Bill Robinson for that). The downside was that my handicap continued an inexorable rise, by 0.1, towards 18 and there were a fair number of birdies - John Porteous in particular had 5.
Dick Little starting off wearing his Mexican bandit's hat. Can't think why.

Interesting comment from a couple of visitors who played at the end of the day, who were members of Royal St Georges (where the Open is being played this year). They described the course as excellent, not only for its location but also its condition.

What shall we do today?

Almost half the UK population (and reportedly one third of the world's) watched the Royal wedding; what were the others doing? I went to the golf club in the afternoon (to drop off Captain's Day prizes and book a tee time for someone) to find the car park nearly full. Paul said they had been busy all day (almost all men).

I, however, admit to watching some of it.

Easter Weekend

I’ve mentioned a couple of “starts of the season” before – first white tee competition, the Ponteland friendly – and the Easter weekend saw another three or four.

There was the 32nd Sparrows and Swallows match, first played in 1979. You’d expect the Sparrows, having played throughout the winter, to be victorious, and (as I was reminded by Bill Robinson) in earlier years they had been; indeed all the past captains playing for the Sparrows had led winning teams....a pity they didn’t win their games this year... This year, however, Lord Walton had a very creditable three at the first which set the scene for an easy 4 – 1 victory to the Swallows. I have three defences: Lord Walton is really a Sparrow now (and incidentally I hope I can play half as well if I reach his age); if you look at the Swallows team most of them played regularly throughout winter as well; and the mist was so bad that any local knowledge was irrelevant.A few Sparrows were also at the previous night’s event, which can’t have helped – the Brass Monkeys closing meal and presentation. Trevor Thompson was the year’s winner after an impressive start to the season: I was almost last and winner of the monkey thanks to an unimpressive start but clawed my way up to third from bottom. Food, drink and prizes flowed.

A third event was the first medal competition of the year, the Britten Cup. A medal is hard. Every shot counts, which I suppose is why there are so many of them. My round was OK but two 8’s don’t help. I remember a weekly Sunday newspaper article “Keep a 6 off your card” in the 1970’s; I didn’t play then and I remember it seemed so easy on paper. There were some excellent rounds even given the good conditions: congratulations to Dan Taylor and Dick Little with net 62’s. Handicap reductions to follow, no doubt.

Over 100 people played in the competition reflecting fine weather, Easter, and the fact that new members actually want to play. It will be good if we can keep this number and more entering competitions, as long as they don’t all want birdie money. Having said that, it took just over 3 and a half hours to get round so as always we need to watch the pace of play (I have always wondered why we play 3-balls rather than 4; apparently it’s an R&A recommendation to avoid slow play, but I’m not sure they are experts at club golf).

Also on Saturday was the Ladies Coffee morning to raise funds for Nicky’s charity for the year (Admiral Nurses, part of Dementia UK); as always it seemed well supported and raised a few hundred pounds.

I also spent a bit of time planning my second attempt at a Captain’s Day the following Sunday. At least I thought, the weather can’t be worse than the first one. Especially as it’s a Royal Wedding weekend. But here was the long range forecast on my phone. Hopefully it’s as accurate as most long range forecasts..

Sand Play

The papers were full of comments about the 16 taken by Kevin Na on a par 4 in the Texas Open. Not good – but little did I think we’d come close in the greensomes this weekend. Close; not 16 – but two 10s. Both due to bunkers. It took us 4 to get out of one on the 3rd, 5 on the 13th. The good news was that there was no point apologising to each other after the first few sand shots; also that the charity bunker payment is restricted to £1 a round. Bill Robson – for he was my partner – blamed the sand, and as it can’t answer back I’m happy to agree. We debated in the clubhouse whether to remove those bunkers but instead will take the slightly more expensive but constructive solution of getting new sand for the course’s bunkers. But they’d better not do that again. Elsewhere on the course, people were playing normal rounds of golf and in particular Tony Cawthorne and Bill Brook had a near-flawless round (was that normal?) giving them a net 55 and first prize. This should have set up Tony to do well in the Daily Mail Foursomes match with Ian Brown against Eyemouth on Sunday but unfortunately things didn’t work out quite as well. Daily Mail Foursomes – after it was all over.

Ponteland Friendly

It’s Spring, it must be the Masters, the traditional start to the golfing season. Except in a little corner of NE England, where another start is the friendly match between Bamburgh and Ponteland, at Bamburgh. This year we had a lovely day, calm and warm.

As always, team selection is critical. I played with Keith Whitfield, a good choice: a combination of me having 8 shots and Keith being able to putt meant that we won a tight match (tight after being three up after three, which made all the difference). Dan Taylor had volunteered to photograph the day and gave us periodic updates on the other matches: we seemed to be doing OK but as Rory McIlroy found out later in the day, a lot can happen on a golf course.

I’m not sure why we hardly ever use the seats by the 18th green to watch people coming in; it’s a great place to have a drink, look at the view and see how people play the 18th. But today we all gathered there although the conversations seemed more interesting than the play. We did well at first – winning three and drawing one of the first four matches but then lost the next two. Fortunately we had a couple of bankers for the last two groups and accordingly won. We play for a trophy (pictured in my September post) that unfortunately was stolen – along with a couple of others – at a break in at the clubhouse earlier in the week. We haven’t had time to see if its recovered or to think about how to replace it, so with the help of a marker pen and a side plate I created a china “salver” which Malcolm Sym, the Ponteland captain, kindly handed back to me. He was polite about the day – although I suspect there’ll be some critical comment about our handicapping in the bus going back... The “salver” now sits proudly in an otherwise empty (and windowless) trophy cabinet.

One unusual feature of the day was the inclusion of Ponteland’s vice chairman in their team – unusual because she’s a she. Nicky Rose played, significantly lowering our average handicap, in the mixed group with Mike Robinson. I was pretty relaxed about this, (although it did cause comment at Ponteland) because the key was that as hosts we should welcome our guests. Golf clubs were one of the last Government’s targets when they introduced the new equality legislation and we have to combine common sense, the need to have good golf competitions and a respect for legal requirements.

The Drybrough Cup, the Saturday competition, was by the way notable for a full entry, my return to acceptable golf (36 points), a lot of birdies (by other people) and what must be a record number of disqualifications – all for not filling in cards properly. It’s a shame they didn’t: there’s a clear description of what to do by the start sheet and technicalities shouldn’t get in the way of the score. But.. golf is a game of technicalities.

Seniors' Open

Open days are good for most clubs; they bring in visitors; if the day goes well it increases the club’s reputation; the participants may come back during the year; and most importantly the days are usually profitable. The downsides are that they require a lot of organising beforehand and on the day and the course is not available for members for most of the day (unless they join in). We have six in a year at the moment (as well as the pro-am) and yesterday saw the first of the year, the first of two Seniors’ opens. Somewhat depressingly a “Senior” includes people of my age (I thought I was barely middle aged) but I didn’t play, I turned up to help.

In fact there wasn’t much to do: Mike Robinson and Keith Whitfield have the process down to a fine art. Mike is polite and helpful; Keith provides the insults and the players think he is joking. We noticed a surprising degree of similarity in the scores of the two teams in each group – over a quarter were within two points. We discussed the reasons for people being influenced by each other; by example; a competitive urge; by following a similar rhythm; and even chemically. This was before discussing where the apostrophe should go in "seniors open" (and then checking the posters for other Northumbrian clubs to see who had got it right). You can tell we didn’t have too much to do.

The weather was good inside the clubhouse although it continued to be a bit windy outside - the players came in looking pretty battered, although most said they had enjoyed it and praised the course. And more importantly booked next year.

There was an exciting conclusion to the day: the clubhouse leaders on 43 points had been there for most of the day, had been joined by two others with 43 (but lower back 9s) during the afternoon but then the last team also came in with 43 and a higher back 9 score. That meant that unusually I could present the prize to the winners (who have normally gone home by the end of the day). Congratulations to Messrs (P) O'Hara and Graham.

The wind still blows

It was very windy today - but sunny, the course looked great and was busy: lots of visitors, quite a few members but a good pace of play. Good quote from Dan Taylor about the conditions. "It's not brave, it's stupid".

The start of Summer

Saturday was busy as the summer season started. It just didn't feel like summer - morning rain and strong winds all day, although in the afternoon the course and surrounds looked good as the sun came out.

We had a team in the inter-county foursomes - unfortunately not for long; Close House beat us.

We had the first 2011 competition off white tees, the first that counted for handicap purposes. It's always a bit of a shock to see the difference 20 or so yards makes on the first tee: it's not a big distance - except psychologically.

And I had to get a team of 16 for the Ponteland match the following week - we had 7 people at the start of the day, 18 at the end, so that was successful although it did mean I had to make a selection. Was that diversion of attention the reason I played so badly I came last - both in the Brass Monkeys, an expensive move, and in the competition (I think the first time I've done that)? Potentially, but really I think it was just bad golf.

The afternoon players had the best of the weather, with the top three (Nick Whitton who spent much of the round saying he was playing badly, John Porteus and Mark Dawson) playing then.

A day to reflect..

An interesting day today looking at plans for the new clubhouse.