Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

 A very bright and breezy day made for some challenging golf but perhaps more enjoyable than last week with no rain forecast. Thanks Steve for sharing the video of our intrepid Peter Creighton playing not one recovery shot but two from his favourite position on the 10th. I found one of Peter’s balls on 10 in a very similar position whilst looking for my own wayward drive, this was duly returned to it’s owner on the 16th when we crossed paths.  Also, thanks for the picture of Alex’s trick shot on 12, maybe a trip to the Fairground next time, try the ping pong balls into the gold fish bowls! Finally thanks to Martin for clearing up the confusion about bunkers being in and out of play by having the good sense to not trust his memory and take a photo of the sign in the club house. Someone should perhaps mention that placing such signs at the first tee might be a useful idea! Birdies this week for John James (17), James Miller (16) and Andy Simpkin (1) Scoring was generally reasona...

 What a difference a week can make. Constant rain over recent days with showers forecast for the day. My forecast was 25% chance of light showers, what it didn’t say was 75% change of heavy showers! It was wet, wet, wet!!  It was so wet, our back-up manual card nearly didn't survive With standing water on the greens and squelchy ground under foot we were in for some pretty poor scores today. The average stableford score was just 29.27.   I saw a first today, two birdies scored by two players on the same hole, both with 30ft+ puts and both perfectly executed. This happened on the 3 rd hole where Richard sunk an amazing 30ft+ put which was perfectly weighted starting out right and looping gradually in to drop into the hole, any less weight and it would have been a near miss. “You’ve seen how to do it now Roger, you just need to do the same.” He had and he did, another perfectly weighted put. Well done both, that was worth writing about.   Two more birdies ...

A hot a windy day at AP promised punishing playing conditions and it delivered. However this seems to have been agreeable for most and our average score posted of 33.71 was one of the best ever.  Before I get to scoring I must relay a few tit bits shared by a member of the group in front of me. When we arrived at the seventh hole Roger "Hits it like DeChambau" Small had accumulated 21 points including a 2 for 5  on the 7th. Roger proceeded to crumble on 8 starting hooking the ball about 120 yards into the long rough separating the 8th and 7th holes followed by a hitting the ball to the right of the course resulting in a lost ball. This was despite the efforts of his fellow golfers who at this point were already very well rehearsed locating Roger's balls. Roger had a chance to reboot his round on 11 when he chipped his second shot onto the green only for his colleagues to point out that he had chosen to strike the wrong ball and was playing Peter Creighton's provisiona...

Thankfully today was not as hot as yesterday, the 3 rd hottest day on record apparently. Sunshine was promised and delivered but a good covering of cloud helped to keep the temperature to a more tolerable 20 something degrees.   The warm weather suited some more than others today with scoring generally better than last week, average today was 30.75 points.   Some new pin gadgets to contend with today and only one reported bounce off I think they’ll work ok once we got used to them. Roger Gibbs, normally a mild mannered type of chap, was provoked into uttering expletives on the 15 th as a result of this but he also confessed it was his worst round since coming out of lockdown.   The golf scoring app let me down today, seems I need to figure out how to make sure others can update the sheet. Hopefully we’ll get it back on track next week.   Birdies today for Paul Gardner (10) Duncan Miller (2 and 10) James Miller (12) and Roger Gibbs (18)   ...