Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

A perfect day for golf following an almost perfect start to the 2023 Ryder Cup. Europe ahead 6 1/2 to 1 1/2 after day 1 and we all felt like a bit of Rahm magic was on the cards as we started off the day. In truth we were a bit more like the US as a group with people dropping out at the last minute probably protecting themselves for the big Red/Blue match-up tomorrow morning at Wokefield Park and confusion about who was joining which group as we kicked off.  Steve B and myself both started as we meant to go on both blobbing the first hole although Steve managed a bit of low handicapper luck on the second. His second shot found the tree to the left on the approach to the green, a fairly hefty clunk suggested we'd find the ball somewhere level the tree. We scouted around unsuccessfully for a couple of minutes before Pete Creighton realised there was an extra ball at the back of the green. Yes, it was Steve's ball and he'd managed to ricochet onto the green in regulation. A pa

  As the women's team battled day 2 to draw level in the Solheim Cup 15 Early birders set out to enjoy some fair conditions and a pleasant round of golf at Aldwickbury Park. A few of us were clearly saving ourselves for the APEB Autumn cup next weekend and perhaps the AP Autumn cup the following week, let's hope that strategy works out for them! Average gross score was 94.8 this week and Stableford was 29.27. No spectacular scores probably due to the conditions of the course changing to much softer catching people out.  There were 5 birdies today: Peter Williams (12) Coenraad Fourie (16) Pete Laurence (14) James Miller (9) and Roger Small (7) Well done gents Our winner today was no doubt making good use of the good quality lake balls he prefers, Peter Williams posted a round of 85 to take first place with 35 points. Well done Peter. In second place, inspired by the excellent golf he no doubt witnessed at Wentworth last week, sporting some excellent new garb I might add, Richard

  I'll get to the picture in a moment, it is relevant! Firstly, apologies for the glitch in the scorecards today on the round. In my holiday fog a couple of weeks ago I forgot to clear down the sheets. As you cannot action the clear macro from iOS devices I had to clear down manually before the first tee, it went a little bit wonky, a bit like my first few drives!! The picture was for Martin Lythgoe. On the front 7 holes he was scoring well, playing in the monthly medal which is typically a bad move. He scored badly on 8 and 9 then lost his ball on 10 and killed the round altogether. Those of you who know Martin well will know that he loses his sense of humour and is generally really bad company when he's playing well and the front 9 today reaffirmed his grumpy status. Once he'd killed his round on 8-10 he lightened up significantly and was really good company for the rest of the round. I asked him about this behaviour on 13 and he explained that he is like Tiger Woods when

  Stand-in reporter Martin Lythgoe reports on Saturdays round while I adjust to the hell of Sorrento.  So, the weather is beginning to get a bit hotter – and so is the golf. The morning began a bit overcast, becoming sunny but with no chance of meatballs. Just lots of found golf balls. Especially for me, your stand-in for Brian “Thomas Cook” Geddes, on the first. 7 quality balls were found, not one of which was Richard’s after his tee-shot went ‘a bit woody’.   4x3 balls today with ‘a member’ joining Group 3 – rumour has it he wants to join the esteemed Early Birds – I shall leave that one to the powers that be. Richard and I were joined by Andy ‘I’m Back’ Simpkin after 5 weeks of not being able to hit the back end of cow with a banjo.   Andy had to bugger off early, so Richard and I enjoyed watching the other groups come in from the terrace to see if Richard’s 34 was to be beaten. It was. Yet another fine performance by James M with a score 37.   Coming in second was Paul