Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

The last day of October in a year we'd all like to forget. With another national lockdown looming our intrepid group decided to brave the forecast heavy rain and strong winds to get some golf in before we're stopped again from enjoying ourselves. Enjoyable is not a word which would be appropriate to describe todays ludicrous conditions. At one point it was hard to see the ball through the air due to the rain and by the time Paul and I had finished the back 9 it felt like I'd jumped in a swimming pool with all of my clothes on.  With (lucky) Richard missing out due to a puncture, we were reduced to 3 balls on the 08:44 and 08:52 tee times. We thought we would be in for a slow round with a four ball in front. As we rounded the corner onto the second tee however, the second fairway was empty. "Wow, they've cleared the second already!" I observer, "no they haven't said Paul, they're over there!" I looked like the whole group had decided to go the...

A gloomy grey Saturday with a forecast of strong gusting winds and rain later in the day. Definitely a day that should favour the early start. Fortunately we had two groups out by 8am to take advantage of the conditions. The average score was higher this week reflecting that our group is adjusting to the winter conditions and benefiting no doubt from preferred lies being in play this week. Birdies this week for Andy (11), Pete Laurence (16) and James Miller (2,9,10) Our winner this week is Peter Creighton with 39 points. A solid front 9 of 19 followed by a more solid back 9 of 20 takes the prize. Well done Peter. In second place is Andy Simpkin with 38 points. Andy started with a slightly below average 15 but spurred on by a birdie on 11 went on to post 23 on the back 9! Well done Andy. The front 9 (18 points) went to Duncan who also took 4th place this week. Had Duncan not had so much trouble with the par 5s this week he may have taken the prize. 9 over gross Duncan, not bad at all, w...

It's been a few weeks since the last outing, weather and competitions have seen to that, so it was nice to be out playing with the Swindle this weekend.  The forecast was for a grey old day with a small chance of the odd rain shower. The rain held off, the winds were light, perfect conditions for golf! The averages reflected the conditions with average stableford of 30 and an average gross score of 92.33. This week saw the introduction of the long awaited internal out of bounds between 12 and 13 on the 12th hole. It seems the 12th took more than it's fair share of victims today. It is, I think, ironic that the purpose of the OOB it to prevent people driving the hedge yet the first victim of the swindle was yours truly who NEVER uses a driver off this tee. My 7 iron was pushed slightly right helped by a little wind and took a nasty bounce to nestle on the line between the last two posts and therefore OOB.  There were birdies for James (5), Pete Laurence (6) Peter Creighton (3) ...