Solid weekend of good early September weather for us to enjoy what I think is the final major of the year. Barely a few spots of rain came in mid afternoon on Sunday but temperature was overcast, warm and the sun made an appearance.
Mr Barry Sweetman seems to be an avid reader of this blog, and [Ed. insert one of the Sweetmans] thoroughly enjoys waving a mobile phone in my face with some webpage on it claiming something about an anti-Pistol Knight theme in the posts. *Gasp* Shurely not Barry. Well Mr Sweetman took the overall win yesterday with a very solid 41pts in the Presidents Bowl.
Format being Stableford off the blue tees, the course was in fair nick, greens quite good, fairways full of growth.
Anyone playing in the last few weeks with the warm humid weather obviously helping the growth, would certainly have noticed the uneven rough punishing anyone going just inches and feet off the fairway. Kind of inevitable for even decent drives to run off given the bounce and undulations on a number of holes. Having a broken mower at the club for a couple of weeks, the rough has shot up, and when the mower was in action during last week it decided to catch fire in front of the first tees. Drama.
[NOTE: Kieran has sent an email out today (Monday) with some updates on the rough – the greenkeepers lowering height overall and increasing first cut width. It is now a stableford next week too, not a medal. Although a bit of a shame about format change 🙂 I can see why.]
The resulting rough helped produce a slow round with people looking for balls just off the fairway… bizarrely wider tee shots in supposed deeper areas were sometimes easier finds. First hole often produced a sluggish start, people looking both left and right off the fairway for balls, and I myself lost a drive just off the ninth fairway for no reason despite at one point 6 people looking (3 ball behind having driven up).
Needless to say, that didn’t help my round and less said about the final score the better! On that same hole however, playing alongside myself and Al Savs, Mr Tweedy produced the shot of the day from wider in the rough, holing his long approach on its final roll from the right rough for an eagle and 5pts. That ended a fantastic front nine with 24pts off of 5. Couple of slips on the back and Tweedy came back in with a solid 38pts, and at that stage was 2nd on countback to Ian Fowler.
Dan Donegan came in 45mins later with a two over gross for 39pts, cracking golf, only to be pipped by Barry in the last or second to last groups.
Well done Mr Sweetman on the major win.
Leave a Reply