Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

First Swindle game since the end of November due to competitions and our Christmas Golf and Meal.  This was the penultimate game of the year and it did not get off to a great start with fog at the course causing a half hour delay. The early starters did not get off before 8am and resulted in Paul having to leave after the 14th or risk damage to important parts of his body, family do taking precedence. He played the 18th on the walk in and pared it, nobody there to see it, such a shame. On a positive note he didn't finish last although apparently Martin was feeling unwell but carried on to finish his round. Excellent win by Roger G today, that's two in a row and two points clear of second place. Not the highest of scores today with only four making 30 points or more. Conditions were difficult what with the early fog and the wet ground. A few stories from the course today Richard "Roger not only played very well today. He was well behaved we had to wait until 18th. Before he...

Today was the Earlybirds Christmas golf and meal. We had a good turnout with 14 players, 11 of which enjoyed an excellent three course meal, mince pies and a coffee to finish. The weather started foggy, this delayed our start and made spotting our golf balls difficult until the seventh hole. On the positive side we had no rain or wind. It turned into a very pleasant day for all. Judging by the scores many struggled out there. Excellent gross of 84 for Steve Reynolds looking like he may win but struggled on the last three holes and let Roger Gibbs in for the win. Both score 33 points but Roger wins on count back. This is Roger's first Earlybirds Major. Roger was ecstatic about that but not looking forward to organising next year, that all changed when Hollie turned up and he managed to book next year's in about 2 minutes! Next year is booked for 12th December, more details to follow..... Not much news from the golf course, I had the longest drive until the last group when allege...

The weather was not kind to us today and we had a number of dropouts. It rained for most of our round, which no doubt affected our scores. Today we were joined by Brian, it was good to see Brian and Emma again, we hope Brian enjoyed his golf and the changes to the course. Excellent round by James today with a gross 79, 34 points and four birdies. Richard has now moved to the top of the Player Of The Year table on 26 points but it's still all to play for with two weekends to play with eleven players able to win, although some of those will need two wins. Richard also leads the money list. On the course we now have a robot cutting the fairway on the 8th. Appeared to be doing a good job. Being much lighter than a tractor, it should damage the fairway less. Cutting nice straight lines In action Reports from the course James "Peter was very happy when he out drove me on the 4th. He even took a picture of it which he might be able to send you. But to be fair to him he did say in was...

Despite a poor forecast for the Saturday golf it actually turned out fairly good a bit of rain affecting the last three of our groups at the end of their rounds. I new feature on the 18th fairway is new weather station mounted on a tripod. Sited there so they can see when it gets stolen. It all looks very technical. Despite rumours, it is not capable of automatically closing the course at the first sign of rain. More work on the course cutting the high hedge on the 12th fairway, it looks much better. Some good scores this week and some not so good. It was a winter league match so those with a 34 or above did well, especially Andy who scored a magnificent 39 points. Well done Andy with a fine win, so good that Steve wrote a song about. Andy The Hero Close run for second place with Paul, Roger G and Martin all scoring 34 points. Martin clinching it on the last with Paul hoping Martin would get a six and not a five. Roger played a very steady game today and Paul missed a load of putts....

Weather was great today, no rain and no wind and the greens were soft. Course looking great with grass cut in the newly filled in old bunkers. Much thinning out of the ground on the left of the 1st fairway. Three members of the group attended the Course Improvement Plan presentation put on by the club to respond to the comments made by members. This was a good turn out with around 60 members attending. The club provided wine, cheese and biscuits with the meeting lasting two hours. Each hole was discussed and with the 1st hole taking 20 minutes it looked like it was going to be a long night, things did however speed up. There was much discussion about the resiting of various bunkers and tree removal, it appeared to centre on the average golfer hitting their drives 260yds! It would appear that bunkers had been moved to that distance and any tree that then impeded the line of site to the green would be removed. Hopefully the resistance from members will be taken into account. ...

Course playing well with some deep rough where the old bunkers were. It was expected that the new bunkers would be in play by the end of the month but the greenkeepers say the turf around the top is not rooted well enough yet so they will hold off having them in play for now. Many greens suffering from pitch marks that are now diseased leaving small brown patches. Well done to Peter Creighton with the best gross today and a superb 39 points 7 points ahead of second place. Peter was in my group and certainly deserved the win. A lot of zero an ones on the score card today, especially mine (Paul), I only had three points after 5 holes and both Roger S and myself took 7 holes to amass 5 points. In fact 45% of our holes played today yielded a zero or one points score. Reports from the course Duncan "Stevie B on the 12 t ee shot into the deep rough on the left. Tops a provisional about 40 yards. Finds the first ball, hacks it out over the hedge. Stuffs the approach into the greenside bu...