Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

First Swindle game for a month, the course is looking much better, the fairways have been cut and the greens are much faster. The latter causing many a missed putt. The weather was cold and windy, no doubt, adding to our problems, James had problems resitting his ball on the 14th as the wind kept blowing it away. James had a great run from the 9th to the 12th with three birdies and one par on his way to a narrow win from Richard beating him by one point. All the ropes are now gone, Duncan was pleased, and I am sure we are all looking forward to moving onto the white tees soon. Good to see Peter Laurence back after his op and manging to get two birdies today so it clearly hasn't affected his game. The first Major of the season, the John James Cup, is coming up in a few weeks time I am sure we are all looking forward to that. The average gross score today was 93.50 and the average Stableford score was 27.64. Best gross of the day was from James Miller with 80. There were 0 Eagles ...

Weather was kind to us today with no rain and little wind, it looks like we are heading for some dry and warmer weather in the coming days. This is the last Swindle game for a few weeks as we have the Yellow ball, 3 clubs and a putter and the rescheduled Captains drive in competitions over consecutive weeks. The course is still quite muddy and this is reflected in the scores today. A winning score of 32 points from Coenraad winning on countback from Martin Lythgoe. A good recovery from Martin after a poor Saturday last weekend. News from the course Paul had a close shot into the second with his third shot landing an inch from the hole. He managed to sink the difficult putt for a par. The average gross score today was 91.33 and the average Stableford score was 28.53. Best gross of the day was from Steve Reynolds with 84. There were 0 Eagles or better today. There were 7 birdies today. Duncan Miller with 2 on holes 12 and 15. Coenraad Fourie with 1 on hole 9. Martin Lythgoe with 1 o...

A cold start to the day with frost on the greens for the early starters, the sun came out later making it a great day for some great golf. The great golf came from Steve Reynolds today with a fabulous 37 points to win by 8 shots. This must be one of the largest winning margins we have ever had, well done Steve. A great start to the year moving Steve to the top of both the money and points lists. A fine second for Jason on 29 points tied with two others, Martin Deery and Coenraad, Jason taking it on count back. Many a missed putt by both Jason and Martin. Dan Smith taking the front nine despite injuring his back on the fourth hole,  he sounded like Monica Seles on almost every shot with various grunts and groans. Most of us struggled in the rough with mud on golf balls and on fairways riddled with worm casts, it looked in places like the worms were taking over the golf course.  One more swindle game next week followed by four weekends of club competitions. The average gross sco...

Second game of the year and a good turn out of 14 players. A blustery day today and wet under foot but no rain and the Sun came out, the Sun making it difficult to spot the flight of some shots particularly on the second and fourth holes. Scores were quite mediocre today with the winners in the low 30s and the best gross being James with 84. Roger Gibbs played a solid round with six pinkies in a row on the front nine and was looking set for at least a second place, however Lucky TonyE was having none of it and produced a great back nine to take second. Roger getting a consolation front nine for his efforts. Our winner this week was Jock Hunter who had a very solid round, Jock couldn't stay afterwards as he was hosting an early Burns night that evening and therefore missed out on all the congratulations. A few rules queries today. 1) What is the rule if you knock the ball of the tee at the start of your backswing? 2) What can you do about a plugged ball? 3) Are you required to mark ...

Weather was kind to us today with only a few spots of rain about half way around, course being quite soggy in places . On the course they have now opened all the new bunkers and cut down all the trees and bushes around the lake adjacent to the 10th green. It looks much better from the 18th tee and now you should be able to see if a sliced tee shot goes into the water or not. This is the first swindle game of the year with the first two being cancelled due to the course being closed with frozen greens. I am sure everybody is pleased to be back playing golf after the long lay off.  Excellent round by Steve Reynolds to take first place with twelve pars a gross of 79 and Stableford of 36 points, a great start to the year for Steve after a poor 2025. Dan also had a poor year in 2025 and a back 9 win today will hopefully mean a better year this year. In fact Dan also won the back 9 on his first game last year. Second place goes to Andy with a score of 34 points, Dan, Paul and Jason all b...

Today was the last swindle game of the year so it brings a close to the competitions we run during the year. Player of the year Race to de Bar Gross Eclectic Stableford Eclectic Many people today said it was cold but not for Steve Reynolds, he was on fire with a very impressive 77 gross and 39 points beating second place Richard by 10 points. Probably some of the lowest Stableford scores of the year. Another year of golf comes to an end and it's time to announce the winners of both the Player of The Year and the Race to De Bar. Player of the year     The winner of Player of The Year is Richard Hyne well done Richard winning by four points from Jason and Jock. Race to de Bar The winner of Race to De Bar is Richard Hyne well done Richard winning £60 net. That is Richard's first win of either competition a rise from 10th and 15th places from last year. Gross Eclectic Won by James Miller with 59, four shots ahead of the next players and nobody scored an eagle this year. Stableford...