tee1up golf weekend 2005

2nd June to the 5th 2005

This years golf weekend came round very quickly for me probably because I spent five days on holiday with the kids camping before hand. I had just enjoyed five days in the sun with the kids and the weather for the rest of the week down in Cornwall was looking very changeable. This year we started with Woodbury park again my third visit to this course and probably the one course I was looking forward to playing and scoring well round, my only problem would be if my game wasn’t up to it. The weather when we arrived was cloudy with a hint of sunshine and looked like it was going to be dry all the way round which luckily it was. Standing on the first tee with my playing a partners Colin Gavin and Jason I felt very confident that I was going to have a good game as I had promised myself to leave the driver in the bag for the duration of the weekend due to a vicious hook. Sure enough I thought my plan had worked I hit my first shot reasonably well with a three wood but it proved to be a rare occurrence for the rest of the round. My only highlight of the round was a birdie on a long par three which made up for all the duck hooks and lost balls of the tees on previous holes. Having said that I did manage to scramble and post a reasonable score for the eighteen which is important when you have players in your group who play to or better than there handicaps on every round.

This year as with the pervious three years we were staying at the Hotel Penarvor in Bude for the three nights and our next round were to be at Bude another one of my favourite courses in Cornwall. To my disappointment I was greeted on arrival by the club secretary asking me if we would like to pre-order sandwiches as we hadn’t left enough time between the morning and afternoon tee times. As I had picked this up when booking the holiday the previous year I had it confirmed from the hotel of the actual tee times. Bude had us going off 30 minutes before the expected tee booked and the club secretary was surprised that we asked for the tees knowing that the course is about four and half hours long, which in its self begs to ask why they accepted the booking knowing full well we would get round. Needless to say we weren’t going to win the argument they believed that the hotel had made the mistake and had taken another society booking on our time which would it write off the afternoon round. This really upset me as I was so careful not to have the same situation as last year were we were walking off the course and back on again straight away for another eighteen. And to top it all they decide not to push the other society off on our tee time but held the back while the tee was empty. We eventually got off after them and only managed nine holes because of the slow play.

That evening I felt totally dejected about the cock up in tee times but on a plus note I did manage to score 32 points in the morning round and my golf hadn’t been that bad all day at Bude. That evening I downed a few pints and along with the bottle of wine over lunch the problems of the day were put behind me.

Saturday we had a new course to look forward to Roserrow which is very close to St Endoc and 50 minutes drive from the hotel. I had heard mediocre reports on this course and didn’t know what to expect from it but on first glance it looked in lovely condition and very hilly. I felt tired from the previous day but decided to walk the course although many in the group had opted for the buggies to get them round. The wind was blowing very hard making some of the long holes into par fives and seemed that it changed direction on every hole straight into you face making it a real test and hard walking. I thought I played quite well but for some reason my score of 25 points didn’t hold my thoughts up and by lunch time I was totally exhausted. Because of the amount of time it took to get round and eat the lunch supplied by the course we decided to just play 9 in the afternoon even so I found myself in the pro shop negotiating a price for a hire of a buggie for 9 holes and boy was I glad of it as my back was killing me. That evening at dinner myself and Andy were presented with a bottle of wine and I also received a crib board from the other players as a thank you for organising the weekends events. In the bar afterwards  I could hardly keep my eyes open and if it hadn’t been for the fact that the others would have immediately set about changing my appearance I think I would have falling asleep, which is just as well as on the previous two night Phil Small was there target.   Check out the adventures of Phil Small.

Then next morning it was pissing it down outside and according to the weather forecast wasn’t expected to get any better for the rest of the day,  I was expecting to see some glum faces after the round at StEndoc. What I didn’t expected was to be disappointed before we even got there and all because of an oversight on my part on the requirements for handicap certificates. I have to say that I am a perfectionist when it comes to organising events and I was very disappointed with myself for missing the handicap requirement. StEndoc insist on seeing official club handicaps from all players before paying and as they had rung to see if we still were coming I thought I would ask if they would make an exception due to the weather but the answer was a firm no. In sheer panic and with the help of Kim the hotel we rang several clubs on the way home and we managed to secure a round at StMellion on the old course. The weather on arrival was dreadful and the courses were very quite which as fortunate for use as we got upgraded to the Nicholas course at no extra cost. So on the tee were 14 players all dressed to the nines in wet weather gear holding brollies discussing the foolishness of the round we were about to play. I managed three holes before I ripped my back on one of the swings and knew that I wasn’t going to play much again that day this gave the excuse to walk off after nine holes and retire to the bar for a well earned bear and sandwich while the others were left to battle out the first place for the weekend.

The weekend was won by our own steady Eddie Colin Giles aka Mr 36, his total score for the six rounds which included two team scores was 281. Second was Andy Clark with 277 and third Jason Gregg with 273.

Other positions fourth went to Dave Mudd a golf weekend virgin on 259 fifth Stewart Rennie on 254 and Alan Garvey received the weekend booby prize on 187. For those of you that are interested I scored 214 points that included the four points scored at StMellion.

Just a quick not to all the player on the weekend despite my golf being crap as always I had a great laugh with you all and at the end of the day that is what counts.

 

See you all next year

Kevin Burnett-Whalley

PS you can see more pictures on the Gallery pages