Well after a wonderful overnight stay at Newark GC, including an invite to hit some balls at 8.45 pm when I was locked into the car park. Which I took up before bed. Then a good nights sleep. A bit disappointed the showers weren’t working but beggars can’t and all that.
Anyway got my coffee and scrambled egg on toast and a quick putt on the putting green, before leaving on one of my short journeys on the tour to Birstall, around 45 mins. A really easy drive as it is quite near the A46 (I think). Anyway the road from Newark to Leicester.
As I drove in, I couldn’t help but be well impressed by the new clubhouse with the members sitting on the new balcony overlooking the first tee.
The pro said that he would try to find a member to play with but there were surprisingly few booked. Eventually a very nice young man Tom, who has starting to move his allegencie from Football to Golf. He lived 15 mins from the course and said I could join him if I wanted to. The only catch was that I would have to miss the first as he had returned from the second to the clubhouse to give his mum back her keys that were in his pocket. So we charged down to the second hole and played from there.
The course seemed to be divided into half the par fours were nearly reachable and the other half hardly reachable, so I seemed to be playing a driver and a wedge on one hole followed by a driver and 3 wood but had some lovely par 3s all different lengths and the odd par 5. It is a beautifully presented course once again serviced with fairway cutting robots, must be a midlands thing.
Anyway Tom had to run off and I couldn’t resist playing the 309 yards downhill first. So took the driver out and hit a low bullet which finished in the greenside bunker. I returned to the pavilion to shower and freshen up before my drive home and noticed this lovely view over Leicester as I ate by cheese and onion roll.
I am now happily ensconced on the sofa at home writing the blog with a cup of tea after eating my fishy rice cooked by my grandson. Later I will wander upstairs and watch a bit of TV with Nessy my wife, and just for a day or two forget about Golf. ( Actually I have been selected to play cricket for Cambridgeshire over 60s next week.)
I hope you have enjoyed my little stories of my reciprocal tour. I will try to do a summary tomorrow to finish off. It has been fun meeting members from all over the UK enjoying their golf for many reasons why. Thank you everyone for making me so welcome at your clubs and thank you everyone for reading about my little post retirement adventure. But most of all thank you to whoever is responsible for providing me with two and a half weeks of dry weather.
Peter Allcock – roll on reciprocals
PS- I have been looking at flights to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South African for the international Gogsiprocal.
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