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!

Bill Badger strikes again

Hasn't it been raining recently? My poor old mum in Plymouth has been battered, the Argyle game at the weekend being abandoned midway through the second half . The residents of Cockermouth in Cumbria, and Workington, up the way, have had their communities devastated by flooding. Bridges lie on the river beds they once traversed, and property and businesses have been wrecked beyond salvation. The people of Bradcaster in Cornwall will be looking up Country with every sympathy.

Imagine, then, my trepidation as I invited six rugby colleagues up to Southport of the fourth annual Dom Pedro golf tournament. November up North in the wettest November on record, not a good idea! The event is usually held mid-October in Portugal, and the name of the tournament is associated with the hotel we all stay in. I managed to win the individual and the team contest last year and had high hopes of retaining the trophies.

Things did not start off well though. Our hotel, The Prince of Wales, had booked us into double rooms as they had five coach loads of the 'grey pound' posse staying there for 'turkey and tinsel'. Z-beds were provided with the promise of room changes the next day.

We then arrived at Formby golf links as the heavens opened and dumped the aforementioned precipitation on us. On went the waterproofs, jumpers, thermal gloves and beanie hats and off we trudged.

My partner for the week, Adam, and I were playing Gareth and Bill Badger in our first round tussle. Now Bill Badger has been around the rugby club for years, he has played for most of the senior teams and has won kicking cups, golf trophies and man of the match awards consistently throughout his time there. He must be a great all rounder you may think, but no, not really.

In the same way that Scottish football teams might field A. Trialist, or B. Trialist in games to protect those players anonymity, so Bill Badger is a nom d'plume for people who go on tour and don't want to be recognised, or is a trophy winner filler in the years a pot is not played for. And so it came to be that as we were only seven on tour Bill became our eighth man.

On the first day he was represented by my father-in law, Marty, who I invited along as an early 70th birthday present. He showed his gratitude by sinking a thirty foot putt on the 17th to win 2 and 1, humf! The fact the rain cleared after three holes and we played in glorious Winter sunshine was small consolation to me.

On the second day at Formby Ladies, Bill was represented by a Liverpool acquaintance called Stu, who helped Gareth to a comfortable win, and took the day prize himself with 39 points. Saturday was again set fair and for part of the round we were playing in polo shirts it was so mild.

A night out in Liverpool in Alma d'Cuba until 3am did not sit well with the final match of the tour, played on the greens of the Hesketh club. Gareth did hang on to win again, so emulated my feat of last year winning the team and individual titles, on another rain free day.

It was great the lads travelled up to play and that they has a good time, we did agree however, that it would be back to The Algarve next year. Whether Bill is with us may well be influenced by the governments stance on bovine TB in the countryside.