Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

  Chip 'n was the name of the game today with at least 4 players deciding that if the greens are going to be quick, why bother using them at all! My chip on the first started things off, a perfect drive down the middle coming to rest in the rough just beyond the path, a slightly wayward pitching wedge pin high to the right of the green sitting on a nice hard piece of dirt and a perfect chip that bounced once and rolled in at pace. Jock found himself in the rough near the tree just shy of the green on 8 and did an almost identical shot. Both shots for were for Birdie. Later in the day Roger Small "rocketed" a chip in on the 5th and Martin Deery holed from 50 yards on the 12th. Both of these remarkable shots were good enough for 3 points each making at least 15 points without use of the putter! The conditions were quite tricky, especially for James it seems who shot around 15 shots over his average round. Hitting the fairway gives no certainty of a straight bounce and many

  It's official, summer is here finally! On course this means that the ball is rolling on, the rough is long, the greens are fast and scoring is more difficult for most. Add to this a bit of wind and you can be sure that average scores will be lower.  I was out in the earlier group today so no anecdotes from Aldwickbury to share except perhaps how many puts Martin Lythgoe nearly sunk. He missed at least half a dozen, with about 3 coming up around 1/2 inch short and the rest touching the edge of the hole. If he had sunk 6 of these it still wouldn't have been enough for 1st or 2nd place from his fellow early starters.  The average stableford score this week was better than last week at 29.33, perhaps demonstrating that we're getting used to the course conditions. 8 out of the 16 players managed 30 or more and JJ was on course to do so had he been able to complete the full 18 holes. Our average gross score was a respectable 94.7. There were 5 birdies this week: Peter Williams