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!

George Stephenson

I have had a very difficult year of golf so far. I have had some niggly injuries, some runs of bad luck and an inconsistent swing which is so frustrating as to make me almost give the game up for a while. That last emotion has, however, been balanced by my ability to find some form in a few team competitions.

I have been fortunate to come second in the Wallasey Invitational event and win some money, John Porter, a major player when New Brighton were a formidable rugby team, and I came second in the Old Padeswood senior open where we won money and golf balls,  and my team ,"Shoeless Joe's", managed to win the Wallasey4Wirral charity golf day where we won £100 each,together with wine and meal vouchers in the raffle. A very well done to Neil Bennett and his son who continue to run an excellent day and raised over £6000 for various cancer related charities

All of the above were very welcome, but none so much as the round which allowed me to qualify for the BMW Golf Cup International UK final to be played on the Castle course at St Andrews. I played in the BMW owners golf events for many years until BMW pulled the plug on them, and this is the second year I have been able to try to qualify for the finals as an independent. I had it won with four holes to play at Woburn  last year but grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. This year at Hillside I was able to keep my composure and finish in second place. That gets me an all inclusive stay at the Old Course Hotel for a long weekend, and I will hope to get a chance to play the Old Course while I am up there.

The only down side is that it clashes with the Twickenham Rugby weekend away which this year includes three rounds at Minehead GC and three nights at a tribute band extravaganza at Butlins!! Another year perhaps!

So why the heading for this particular post? Well, when I first joined Wallasey GC as a soft Southerner who knew nobody, George took me under his wing, and week on week we have played together every Saturday for nearly ten years. George extended similar comradeship to Peter Ellerington and Phil Gedman. George is now 86 and only two weeks ago went round the golf course in 82 shots. To beat your age is a target every golfer aims for. The pro golfers look to do it in their early 60's, good amateurs in their 70's and people like me hope to live until the y are 90 and are still playing golf!!

As a thankyou and a late 85th birthday present, we took George this week to play at Royal Birkdale, rated as the top course in England. It did not disappoint. The welcome was first class and the course was laid out in excellent condition. We played variable golf, but George was so focused that he and I managed to beat Phil and Peter after I had put us into an early lead and they had pegged us back on the back nine. SO, whenever I go through the emotions outlined at the beginning of the article, I just think of George and his single mindedness, never mind that he is giving me 20 years and three shots. He is a legend and I value him as a friend, long may we share the fairways.

Fore!

I really do wonder why I am still working! I have just spent a very enjoyable week in the Scottish Borders playing golf, and, as with sex, when its good its very good, and when its bad its still pretty good.

I played Hillside just outside Birkdale prior to the tour, to get into the swing of it. Hillside is one of the top 100 courses in the UK and is a very stiff test for anyone who plays it. It took me a couple of holes to get going but all in all I was pleased with the performance.

With that experience behind me, I stepped onto the first tee at Brampton near Carlisle, looking forward to making a good attack on the Nixdorf Masters trophy, an event which I had been runner up on two previous occasions. The course was extremely hilly and we got a fair ribbing from the locals as we huffed and puffed our way around. The event is always played of three quarters of handicap, so for me receiving only 12 shots was a tough ask. I ended up with 31 Stapleford points which was effectively 1 over par so I was very pleased.

That pleasure turned to elation when I found out 31 was the winning score. A good start to the week.......

Next day we played a parkland course at Tolwoodley near Hawick. I battled round that at 1 over too, for 35 points but was pipped by a colleague with 38, but won my match in the Ailsa Craig Cup to keep the momentum going. We then had probably the worst curry I have ever tasted, in a tandoori place in Hawick, ugh!

Wednesday saw the tour move to The Roxburghe course in Kelso, a championship standard course for which Sergio Garcia holds the course record at 66. It was one fo those days when almost everything went right. I played the front 9 in 39 shots, 3 over par gross, and kept the momentum going for most of the back nine, but a few three putts and a couple of poor holes saw me finish with an 86, two under par, but enough to win the day.

Finally we played the Hawick course, another designed for mountain goats. There were four people in contention for the Top Gun trophy, and as I halved my match, all four of us went down the first again in a play-off. Unfortunately I got dumped out there, and with one other dropping out at the second it all went down to the third. Frank unfortunately hit two balls into the woods, so handing Mike his first title win.

The Ailsa Craig was halved at 8 all, so Frank and his team retained it,although I was more than happy with the stash I was able to take home.

Steve and I stopped at Sedburgh on the way back and played a tidy little 9 holer before arriving back in Scouse tired but refreshed.......now, where shall I go for the next trip?