Aldwickbury Park Early Birds

  Long, thick rough was the main feature for this weeks golf. The course has now fully recovered from the extraordinarily wet winter and is looking great. The bunkers however are still not in great shape and the rain in the week left a number out of play for this weeks swindle. Personally I lost more balls on this round than for some time and combined with my round at Berkhamsted on Monday where balls were being lost in plain site, it's been an expensive week for me.  The scoring reflected the difficulties cause by the brutal rough when combined with less than average play. The average gross score was up at 96.4 and the average stableford score was down at 28.31. I thought I was a shoe-in for worst round this week but 4 kind souls managed to score at least as poorly as my 24 points.  Only two birdies out there this week, both from James Miller (16,17) Well done James A mention for Jason Landau this week who did manage to score enough for second place but not being eligible for the

  Yes, he's back, the metro-gnome finally back in saddle and swinging straight and true.  The conditions were perfect for golf, the sun being kept at bay preventing overheating and the wind being light enough to make little difference to our shots. The scoring certainly reflected that with stableford average up at 32.9 and gross average down at 92.4.  There were 4 birdies out there this week. Paul Gardner (14) Brian (11) Steve Reynolds (8, 17) Well done gents.  Martin Lythgoe couldn't reach the heights of his mid-week one-man-medal round apparently hitting the ball well but running out of runway and losing balls. This was definitely a feature of the round today as the rough has gotten very thick over recent weeks and makes it difficult to find balls and even if you do it makes it very difficult to play.  The first group managed positions 1-4 today so maybe we should think about playing together in the next team competition? Worth mentioning James' attempt on the 12th today.

  Ball hunting was the game this week, at least for some of our number. The rough has thickened given the recent rain and sunshine combination and it's making it very hard to find balls that find their way in, not ideal for our standard of golf. This combined with the firming up of the course would make ideal conditions for our one and only metro-gnome and it looked like he was in the hunt on the front 9 until his groin gave out following the other side effect of good weather, gardening duty. I have a sign for you Paul, refer to it on Thursdays or Fridays.... Anyway rest up and we'll see you back to form in no time.  The weather this week was stunning, summer having followed us back from Menorca, thankfully the wind hasn't followed us! The course is in fantastic shape but they have let the greens grow out a bit making putting pace a bit tricky to judge. I'm sure this resulted in a few shots left out there this week, it did in our group.  Average scores this week reflect

  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