Bird Hills 7 June 2024
Bird Hills Golf Club Friday 7 June 2024
by Ian Begg
Writing this I feel quite embarrassed. I feel like the school bully who’s just run into the tuck shop and stole all the sweets and ran away. None more so than for completely unjustifiably winning the nearest the pin, but more on that in a moment.
I haven’t played Bird Hills in about 18 months. Last time the greens were in a terrible state with patches of dead grass making putting a complete lottery. They have recovered ‘enough’ that they at least ran straight, and the rest of the course was in a fair condition. The course has dried very quickly now that the rain is holding off a bit and the balls are running a fair distance. And the weather threatened rain but never did, so all in all we were set up for a decent Father and Son event. The 4pm start was a new one for me but I think that worked too.
I had the pleasure of playing with Ray and Colin for I think the first time. Colin reminisced about the good old days of going to Chelsea, and Ray took the mick a bit in between shooting around in his buggy. I think Colin was jealous of my Chelsea ball marker Kevin had given me (thanks Kevin!).
It turned out to be a game of three halves as they say!? I started really well, par on the first, despite the tee shot of the group behind nearly hitting me as I was chipping from the edge of the green. A demonstration of how long tee shots would be running. My doubles partner Nick also tried to take me out later with his tee shot on the 15th, landing in the middle of the 13th green where I would have been had the ‘fore right’ not rung out. Phew! Anyway, got to the nearest the pin third and completely thinned my tee shot. Somehow, thanks to the fact they’ve now cut all the rough on that hole, the ball bounced all the way to the green and stopped at the back, otherwise I’d have been in with a shout for nearest the tee winner. Not the way to win nearest the pin, Sorry! Tee shot on the par 5 4th was long enough down the hill that I only had a 7 iron to the green, and managed to birdie that too. Completed the 7th in level par. So far so good.
Then the prospect of Tim and his handicap axe got in my head and I lost my game for 5 holes scoring a total of 4 points.
Thinking OK, that’s enough, Tim won’t get me now, I started playing again and did the rest in level par to end up on 41 points, A slight miscalculation as it turned out.
In the bar after we found out that 41 points was good, but it came down to countback. I don’t know the story of his round, but Graham had also come in with 41, as had Phil’s son Darren. Darren’s effort together with a decent 33 points from Phil was good enough to win the Father and Son trophy, a big congratulations to you both. In the overall stableford competition, Darren was ineligible, so it was down to me and Graham, and apparently I won on countback, sorry Graham but clearly well played! I also stole the captain’s purse for best par 3s score - sorry again. Suffice it to say I’d had a very lucky evening. A few wayward tee shots should also have seen me 3 off the tee, but got away with them thanks to the Bird Hills layout.
Anyway, Tim’s got his revenge and that’s cost me another 2.5 off my handicap. Won’t be doing this again for a while I suspect. Thanks everyone for a fun evening, great company as ever, and thanks to everyone who does the organisation, I’m sure we don’t thank you enough. Hopefully see you all at Donnington Valley (Thu 27th June).
I'm told this was very like Phil and Darren after they heard they'd won..…
https://www.google.com/search?q=father+and+son+golf+video&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB778GB778&oq=father+and+son+golf+video&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRifBdIBCDM4MDhqMGo0qAIAsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:38f9421a,vid:_jbq1cJ1ryU,st:0
RESULTS
Winner Ian Begg 41 pts
Runner up Graham Pearce 41 pts
Third Richard Richard Faulkner 36 pts
Nearest the pin Ian Begg 13’ 7”
Father and Son Phil and Darren Parsons 74 pts
