Spent a wonderful day on the golf course with Olle (apologies for previously misspelling his name) and the club's current Captain, Patrick Logue. Olle and I had made the date the evening of the Members' Scramble and Patrick, with whom Olle is staying on this trip, was good enough to join us.
Ollle had asked me which course I preferred to play, and I attempted to deftly kick the ball back at him, telling him that we should play whichever course, tees and game they would play if they were off on their own. After all, I'm here for the purpose of studying the genus and species Ballyliffinus Memberus.
It turns out that we played the Glashedy without the benefit or burden of a scorecard, a merciful format when you lose two balls off the second tee. We played the age old game of hit it, find it (not always easy in the Maram grass) and hit it again. It was a beautiful blustery day with, by my estimate a three-club wind. Though, to be fair, Patrick considered it more of a wee breeze. Unfortunately the weather didn't quite hold, as we got rained on playing the 17th and 18th, though it should be noted that that's the first rain I've experienced on the course since last Wednesday.
Patrick plays quickly and I did my best to keep up. During our walks he was good enough to share with me his philosophy of life and golf. "When alll else fails," he confided in me, "try ignorance and brute force." I of course pressed for details of sequence and proportions, but further insights eluded me. No photos of our day as the pace was too quick for that, but I was lucky to have the chance to discuss the specific holes and shot values as we made our way around.
The sevnth and fourteenth provided stiff tests in the strong wind, as the elevated tees buffeted the player unmercifully. My hat blew off as I hit my shot at the seventh, and was lucky to have it end up playable from the hazard. On fourteen, Patrick suggested we play from the black tees, some 180+ yards. We played it with a strong, left-to-right wind, the hardest wind for a right handed player and the results weren't especially pretty. But like giddy schoolchildren we dropped second balls to have another go at the near impossible shot.
Last night I looked up over Theresa's shoulder in our sunroom to see a spectacular double rainbow. Pictures to follow, though I forgot to bring the necessary cable to transfer them to the laptop.
I'm drafting and posting this as we sit in clubhouse where we've come for dinner. On our way in we picked out a couple of items in the golf shop, where Ashland was manning the counter. I had given her the URL for the blog yesterday, and as we were paying she asked if there was any new content up. Oh the pressure of a global audience clamoring for more....never satisfied. How I suffer for you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment