Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

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...

Weather today was good no rain, no wind, course lookin excellent, another week or so and the new bunkers should be in play. Two injured or unwell players didn't make it so get well soon to John and Stevie B. The fairway definition is much better however between the fairway and the thick rough the edges have been cut with two opposingly cut 1metre wide strips. These make the actual fairways very narrow in places, players are also not sure if these strips are still fairway, I believe not but we could do with some clarification from the club as we currently have pick and place in action, does that include these strips? A good day for birdies with 10 in total, hole 14 in its new configuration, giving away seven pars from the 14 players. Martin L putted in from off the green in the dip on hole 2 for a great birdie. Peter C and Paul making birdies on the 17th, Peter C's was further than Paul's. Although Tony managed to win on Monday by parking in the low handicap parking slot it ...

Course looking fabulous today with the ropes taken away from all the filled in bunkers, many of these no longer GUR. Much more definition to the course. The weather was again kind to us with no wind and no rain. All looking good for some high Stableford scores. It was the first weekend for the Winter League with many of the group taking part. I played with James today and he was playing faultlessly unfortunately the 17th and 18th were not kind to him, a poor chip on 17th and an overhit second to 18th put him into second place overall. James managed to par 11 of the holes and carded a gross 78. Well done James. Steve Brewerton recovering well from the trees, especially on 12 where he first nearly lost it in the trees off the tee, then hit the second out to the side, third again into the trees to the right of the green, a great chip shot onto the green with a possibility of a 5 but missed the putt to take a 6. Some good front nine scores with several on 19 points, similarly on the back n...