From the desk of the Captain – who thought he’d written this on the night of his victory, but he obviously didn’t save it!
The Solihull posse took pity on the sole Knowle representative, again, and once again we were on the way to the other side of a bridge to Taff-land. Would the bridge be open this time? At least we hadn’t been promised elite golf and food in luxurious trappings. Rob had left it quite late, the bill to play was so much lower than the Gibbon, and a meal was thrown in – so expectations weren’t high.
Turns out Dewstow is just a few minutes down the road from St Pierre, but was a collection of the best kind of surprises. The welcome was very warm, at least 3 old boys introduced themselves in the clubhouse, commiserating with the Villa fans in our number and promising us a good round at their track.
A pretty good bacon roll was followed by a trip to the strangest putting green we’ve seen in a long time, built as it was into a cliff face with no semblence of a straight putt in sight.The groups were drawn – happily Pete was drawn with the sponsor so that some on course #helpingrob action could take place – indeed, Rob was so enthusiastic about the prospect he decided to start live streaming the proceedings to a gaggle of his facebook cycling friends. I will be creating an archive post pulling these excellent videos together, but suffice to say that Pete, Rob and new man Martin, who must have found the double act quite entertaining, did little to trouble the match report in terms of actual golf (despite reckoning that Rob had nailed one of the sharks, his effort was well outside my mark).
It appears that Noz finally found some form in the leading group – getting up to 32 points and the prospect of a win as he sat there as clubhouse leader. All the action was in the middle three – Millers opened on fire, pars and birdies – Woolly was also mounting a valiant defence of the Horn, especially coming home – a birdie on the 17th made things interesting but this was after a shank on the 16th and followed by knocking his tee shot on 18 into the front bunker. Millers completely lost it on the back nine, must have been the ongoing chat about Jaime Lannister and his metal fist – but possibly also by his new found interest in Woolly, who was teasing him with some flexing on the tee boxes.
Despite some strong finishing so far this season, I’ve been struggling with a bad back, and it took some industrial painkillers on the practice green to get me round Dewstow. Nevertheless, despite a shaky 2nd hole and a couple of chunks up a hill in the scrub on the back nine, I played solid stuff – no birdies but lots of looks, and for once, an excellent putting round. So I shot a 36 off 13 – a couple of points ahead of Woolly, but this wasn’t just my 2nd Brissle win. In an unprecedented show of WHV domination, I swept the event. Rob put up 2 nearest the pin prizes, I may have missed the four footer on 18, but only 2 of us found the dancefloor. I was about 8 feet away on the beautiful ‘bottle’ hole, and managed to draw a driver sweetly into the middle of the Dog fairway, around 235 yards to round out a Dog, Shark, Win day.
The course was excellent, the greens were a few weeks away from being great, but for the money we paid it was a much better value than the corporate gaff down the road – even the nosebag after the golf was pretty good, if you didn’t mind peas and avoided the fish.
So, officially
- Winner – Donk – £20
- Runner Up – Woolly £10
- Shark – Donk £5
- Bottle – Donk £5
- Dog – Donk £5
Not long til the Captain’s Matchplay – and an MRI scan that I hope won’t ruin what is promising to be a good season on tour…
Some images from the day – either from my phone, that little camera I was wearing, or from Boyce
