Monday 24 May 2021

Wet wet wet

My golfing group, the Visionaries, were fortunate enough to be invited to play Hillside near Southport on Friday. Hillside is a wonderful links course with high dunes and clever bunkering which test even the best of golfers, so we were all excited to be playing there. The hospitality was excellent, and the course was laid out as a hard task for us. All that would have been fine had it not been for the fact that it absolutely chucked it down for five hours or so leaving everybody soaked to the skin.

After a change of clothes and a few liveners in the bar though, all was forgotten and the camaraderie which is developing amongst us continued at a pace. So after getting home and drying out the kit, thoughts changed to The Mockbeggar Trophy which was hosted at Leasowe on the Wirral yesterday.

Mockbeggar is an old sailing term used to describe a 'lone house' and Leasowe golf course sits between the former Mockbeggar Hall and the sand bar known as Mockbeggar Wharf which is off shore in the Mersey estuary .Mockbeggar Hall is now part of the Leasowe Castle hotel. 

The competition involved teams of four golfers, one being the serving captain, another being a Junior  golfer and the other two players being one each from the division 1 and 2 categories dictated by handicap. We were doing pretty well until, yes you guessed it, the heavens opened with six holes to play, and the wheels came off. Some teams ran for cover but in true Wallasey style and in deference to our hosts, we pressed on, finished and probably ended up mid-table.

The Leasowe hospitality was great and it was sad for them that the weather was unkind. Well done to Gathurst golf club near Wigan, who won. The event has been running for 30 years now broken only by Covid restrictions last year, so long may it continue. Now time to dry the kit out again for another crack at Wallasey this afternoon!

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