Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

  As we reach a certain age it is important that we never leave home without our spectacles. It seems that this week's winner may've rectified his vision issues seen on tour last week or maybe he just played well. This reporter wasn't paying any attention to weather or conditions in the UK this week as he's been relaxing in Menorca and due to the busy couple of weeks leading up to this he neglected to delegate reporting responsibilities so we'll focus on the scoring this week. We welcomed an old/new Early Bird back to the group this week, Jason Landau. I've not had the pleasure of meeting/playing with Jason yet but I'll have a go at describing his round. Not great! Now I'm sure it's just a case of nerves as I know you lot can be an intimidating bunch and I'm sure once Jason gets into the swing of things he'll be bounding up the leader boards and invoking the usual cries of "bandit" "handicap cut" "lucky ...." etc

  Day 2 and the weather had improved significantly. A breezy northerly wind was keeping the temperature lower than normal but the sky was blue and a great day's golf awaited our intrepid crew for the main event, the JJ Cup. No partial rounds on this occasion as buggies were permitted. Andy, our organiser for this year's event, got off to a bumpy start, unable to see his phone properly due to his broken glasses, he forgot to ask at the pro shop if they could put the NTP and longest drive markers out.  All was not lost as yours truly at Andy's request had them bring out the markers to the first group on the second hole.  In addition there was a technical hitch with the scorecard which needed my attention and was duly fixed as the first group approached the second green.  I don't know if this was a contributing factor to my ropey start or if I was still shrugging off Martin Lythgoe's attempts to scupper me the night before but I was 0 points after 3 holes. Despite bein

I don't think the last group were quite ready for the photo! Day 1 of the 2024 JJ Cup saw us teeing off on a new course to the group, The Nottinghamshire Signature Course. Having decided that the Belfry and similar courses are not for us and having the Greetham Valley management decide that 2 days was not enough to allow us to stay, we relocated to a new venue with two golf courses and the on site facilities we've become accustomed to. The weather was a bit sketchy at the start with a heavy rain shower setting in as the first group finished the first hole. Thankfully wind wasn't an issue allowing the use of umbrellas for those that did remember to bring them.  The course was mostly straight forward but as the course had been extended to a 18 hole course, the various sections of the course had an extraordinary amount of OB boundaries at the perimeters of the course and internal OB around the driving range area. This made for some interesting misses and near misses during the

Middle of the green today! Windy again today, but that wasn't a problem! A nice warm brisk breeze from the south made it seem like we were driving into the wind for the most part today but we seemed to cope ok with that, it was the greens that were the problem. Even the best puts today were coming up short or swerving from the hole. All of them spent more time in the air than on the ground just bobbling along.  13 players set out today but only 12 returned. Jock was lost somewhere along the way leaving a 2-ball to wait patiently behind our 4 ball. Steve and Martin both made the most of the extra time they had (see below) Average scores were not great: 99.25 average gross score and 26.25 average stableford score. Judging from what I saw the putting was the biggest contributor to extra shots.  Only 2 birdies today. Martin Lythgoe on 10 and Brian Geddes on 18. Well done both! Still the extra time that Steve Reynolds had as a result helped him refocus for his back 9 and he came in our

  This image was inspired by Pete Laurence commenting on the 16th hole this Saturday - "It's like there is a goalkeeper stopping the shots going in the hole" - This after my put veered 2 inches to the left as it reached the hole. Yes this was generated by Adobe Firefly, a generative AI program which I have had a play with and this is the best I could manage to muster, a goalkeeper saving shots with golf balls!! The conditions were still a bit challenging this week and the greens were awful but without the wind the scoring was far better than last week. 12 turned out to register average gross score of 94.3 and average stableford score of 29.25. Still not where we'd expect it to be with such a talented group but far better than the performance last week.  There were 3 birdies this week: Pete Laurence (18) and James Miller (11 and 17) Well done gentlemen! 3 x 33 this week and prizes to all 3.  First place goes to Pete Laurence with 33 points on countback from Andy Simpki

What a day to switch to the white tees!! It was a beautiful morning with blue sky and some cloud but a cold feel in the air due to a rather brisk north-westerly wind. I was out with the early 3 ball and it seems we may've had the best of the weather given that the rain was starting to fall as we loaded our clubs into our cars.  The club management have decided that it's time for the white tees to go out so as is tradition with the Early Birds we switched from the yellows. This combined with the strong wind and rain later in the round resulted in some pretty poor scoring. Pete Creighton went off injured during the front 9 so his card is void leaving us with 13 players for our official round this week. The scores were, I believe, the worst we've recorded with an gross average of 100.7 and average stableford of 24.54!!  Only one birdie out there this week for Steve Brewerton on 18. Steve hit driver off the tee into a strong wind and probably a 7 iron from about 100 yards to ju