Very warm, sticky few days over the bank holiday weekend. Some awesome pictures of the electrical storms over the country – Friday night over the west country, Saturday night in the south east. Day times were generally fine – the odd spot of rain and humidity just making it quite sticky.
Swindles
I wasn’t around Saturday but I think I’m right in saying a certain Mr G Adams returned an extraordinary 40pts off of Swindle! Very impressive. Be careful everyone – don’t get cornered by our Graham and ask him about his new putter.
Sunday’s Swindle was well attended and the warm sticky weather produced a very impressive standard scratch of 33. Playing with el Captiano Winkle on Sunday, we saw him put together a very impressive 23pts on the front nine, which would’ve been 25 off club dontchuknow! A couple blobs unfortunately bought our Capt back down to earth on the back9… probably the weight of carrying me as a partner *mumble* silly Swindle handicap *mumble*.
Sunday was won overall by our Jez “man-bun” Parfitt with a very steady 39 points, who now cannot mumble “I never win” for a month or so.
Max just misses out at Walton Heath
There were still 4 Swindling on Bank Holiday Monday and a certain M Jaggs won the fourball complete with pink faux crocodile skin scorecard holder.
Phil, Ritchie and I headed up to Walton Heath after Monday morning’s early round, seeing Backdoor Johnny up there along with the usual faces who walk around – the Masseys and the Jacksons amongst others. Walton Heath hosts the US Open qualifiers where pros play 36 holes across the New and Old courses off the back tees with their awesome fast greens. Setup to be very very long from their back tees, there is the chance to play several 3woods and rescue woods from the tee and still go miles given how firm the fairways were… but beware the heather lining all the holes.
We saw Harrington and Colsaerts had a big following, and another huge crowd in the distance we assumed were following Andrew Beeeeef Johnson.
We followed young Max Orrin and caught up early in his second 18 holes of the day on the New course. 8 under and in a great position, we enjoyed some fantastic golf from Max who was playing as a one ball after a withdraw from his playing partner. Must have been tough but some very solid play was seeing him move into a great position.

Typical view across Walton Heath (including the overcast skies)
Fantastic to see and hear a pro striking the ball from just a few feet away. I say this every year but if you get a chance to come up to Walton Heath (which is free by the way), it really is a great opportunity literally on our doorsteps.
Max narrowly missed two birdie opportunities on his back nine after great approaches, and unfortunately towards the end copped a double bogey on a par4 after his approach from the heather found some deep rough, and took a 6 from being beside the par5 15th in two. Unfortunately Max just missed out but played very well – let’s hope next year he can go one further!

Walton Heath qualifying results 2017
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Eye up, get well CC
People may also be aware that Mr Graham Lovely has taken the Swashbuckler pirate theme a bit too far after suffering from, and consequently having an op for…. a detached retina!
Aaaarrr Jim’lad.
He is currently going through the wars with all the post-op recovery after such a procedure on his eye – lets hope for a steady period getting back on his feet and back up at Surrey National soon.
Get well soon Graham.
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