Advent 20

You won't need telling that I am a fan of golf (nay life) in Ireland. Of the courses we played in our sadly now discontinued excursions to the Dunmore Classic (tempus fugit and we couldn't carry on at that pace) the best of them was the Old Course at Tramore. The 'Old' is important because the golf club (like many in that great island) found themselves fleetingly awash with money and built an extra nine holes which are too modern in idiom and threaten to ruin the atmosphere of the original course. Oh well.

I have reproduced the card of the Old Course (the distances are in metres, lest you mistake it for a pushover) so that you can judge what a well-balanced challenge it, notwithstanding some dubious architectural interventions, remains.

The 17th may not be long but it is an exquisite piece of design. It turns, late in its course, sharply to the left such that your driving area is deceptively confined - you have to go counter-intuitively wide right. The green itself is a work of art, very wide but shallow. All framed by mature trees. 

Advent 18

I only played Mulranny in County Mayo because there was a competition on at Westport that prevented me getting on there. Initial impressions were not favourable. There were only nine holes; there was no clubhouse, just a derelict caravan and an honesty box; I appeared to be playing behind a nine-ball of children sharing three sets of clubs; there were sheep all over the course. I need not have feared: built (though that is the wrong word - courses like this happen rather than being built) on a matchless piece of coastal land, nine holes were plenty - I went round three times; the nine-ballers scampered about and played at a pace that would put your average television-influenced adult four-ball to shame; rudimentary fences kept the sheep off the greens.

To be honest I could nominate any hole at Mulranny - the only requirement is to be at the place. I believe they have a clubhouse these days - that might almost spoil it for me. Anyway, I pick the 6th/15th (177/193 yards) because it is blissfully close to that fabulous beach.

Just in case anyone is paying attention to these things, I am late posting today because I had an enjoyable jaunt to Telford to play very muddy golf with WJR. My form was abject, his marginally less so. He beat me two up. At least I took it to the 18th.  

Advent 17

 I'm not generally a fan of opening holes. This is entirely down to my own inadequacy. I'm a comically slow starter - this is not confined to golf, I was the same on the rugby field. My imagination goes into overdrive and all I can conceive is disaster.

All of which creates a dilemma when it comes to consideration of 1st holes. Do I like an easy start? Well, in theory yes but all that an easy opener does is to exaggerate my uselessness when I struggle. So we can delete from consideration the openers at, say, Faithlegg or at Pype Hayes, both of which are seemingly generous appetisers. No, instead I go for what for me has proved the most testing (technically and intestinally) 1st hole in my narrow experience. 

I have only ever played Waterford Golf Club in competition and thus from the back tees - twenty years of tournament suffering. Always with a hangover. The 1st presents you with an uphill drive, the practice ground to your left (OB naturally), the car park to your right (OB naturally). In truth there is plenty of room but you try it with the world (well a few other competitors) and his dog looking on. I think that the scruffy low hook that I kept in bounds on my first ever visit may still be one of the best golf shots I have ever hit - now that was a hangover.

Once you have crested the hill you topple down to the green through a tunnel of gorse and trees. 420 yards. This is a prelude to a course cunningly crammed into what feels a small site. Having started with that belter, the round finishes at the comically difficult 18th. If nothing else, by that time your hangover will have abated. Nice clubhouse. Good Guinness.

Advent 14

Having said that Dunmore East is the weakest of the five courses on the Dunmore Classic rota, I would have to say that today's course is the least congenial. That little bit too corporate and, a bugbear of mine, some long walks between greens and tees. That said, Faithleeg is an impressive piece of golfing landscape. The 17th stands out as a devilishly difficult 430 yard par 4. With the 17th at Bull Bay and the 10th at Little Aston already in my list, a pattern of admiration is emerging for the slight double dog-leg. This one goes left-right, right-left with mature trees guarding both sides of the hole. As if that were not enough, anything straying left of the green is menaced by a pond.

A shaming confession - the first time I played this course, so bad was my mood that I managed to smash my wedge. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. 

Advent 13

Dunmore East, by a margin the least impressive of the five courses on the rota for the Dunmore Classic, is an uneven course - too many prosaic holes running back and forth to no great effect. But when you get to the clifftop holes you are in for a visual treat.

I have already alerted you to my predilection for downhill par 3s and today's is that with bells on. The 14th at Dunmore falls energetically down to the cliffs. All you can see is the green and the Irish Sea. Being coastal there is invariably a wind, either straight into you or pushing you down to the green. Neither is easy - there is out of bounds at the back of the green and if you are playing in a following wind you are not going to hold the green with a full shot. That said, this 200 yard tester really comes into its own when the strong wind is in your face. Sometimes driver isn't enough. I once hit the most comically deviant left-handed double-cross off this tee. It dived right and disappeared from view, supposed by all to have buried itself in the rubbish. It transpired to be even worse that that. I found the ball sitting insolently on the eighteenth tee later in the round. It must have been a hundred yards off line. Bloody lucky I didn't kill someone.

Friendly clubhouse. Good Guiness. Naturally. 

Advent 5

Depending on my mood, County Sligo at Rosses Point can be the best course I have ever played. The hole I have chosen from this magnificent links is not the hardest of the eighteen, indeed as I read the course website I realise that the hole I played does not exist any more. After two relatively benign holes the third launches itself from the top of a dune - when the Pig played it, it was a short par five. I learn that the powers that be have built a new green some one hundred yards further down the hole in order to make it more of a challenge. That's as maybe, but I will choose to recall the four iron I hit from the fairway to about six feet. I missed the putt for eagle. Of course.

No picture available of the hole as I played it, instead I have chosen a photo that communicates just how fabulous a course this is. A thing of beauty.

England And Its Empires

Sir Philip Sidney, described the English in his Arcadia as an elect and 'only'people, governed both by 'justice and providence'... Half a millennia later, however, the 'chosen people' seem, in Davies's words, to be 'manifestly bewildered'; abandoned by God, divested of their empires both 'outer' [the wider empire] and 'inner' [the supposedly 'united' Kingdom], tempted once again by the European res publica, but troubled by it too.

Ian Ward wrote these words in his provocative The English Constitution: Myths and Realities in 2004. We haven't come very far have we? If anything we are mired deeper in our confusion. Ward's sympathies are disestablishmentarian and republican; mine are not but I must confess I am wavering. The powerful executive that Ward laments has retreated a tad under the successive handicaps of coalition and Brexit but nothing has emerged to fill, even partially, the resulting lacuna. Parliament has flexed its muscles but so used is it to being enfeebled that it cannot manage a decision. All we get is the posturing of Bercow, who, Heaven preserve us, has become a cult favourite in Germany. I can't believe I'm saying this but the Germans may have a point.

Where I am undoubtedly ad idem with Ward is in his denunciation of the venality of modern party politics and the sheer, lazy, crassness of Tony Blair. Cameron has not, by the point when Ward writes, yet hoven into view. Don't start me off on all that again.

We watched a rather silly film last weekend, not that it was unentertaining just that it was, well as I say, silly. It was Angels and Demons, the preposterous sequel to The Da Vinci Code. 5/10. My mate JB (Viperjohn to the virtual world) has on occasion passed the opinion that Dan Brown's novels are great literature. I'm pretty certain he does this to wind me up, God love him. It must be said that he only produces these opinions when we are both copiously in wine. This is the week that he and I would, under our ancien regime, have been in Ireland for the Dunmore Golf Classic. As he wisely said in a text (we're so modern) this week, I don't miss the weather but I do miss the craic. No matter, OG, Viperjohn, Big Willy Mac and the Boy Bacon will be convening in Northumberland for golf and fellowship in the Autumn. By which time my adherence to a strict programme of Pilates and Body Balance will have me playing off single figures. Will it bollocks. 

Weather looking rather grim but no matter, we're of to Mon for a couple of days and next week I'm off with the Heineken crew to Newcastle for the European Rugby finals. It's a hard life but someone's got to live it.




   

Advent 8

I was with Viperjohn, Mikey B and Big Willy yesterday, drinking and eating curry. Seeing that formidable threesome put me nicely in mind of today's nominated place. Dunmore East was our destination for the final week of April during twenty over-indulgent years.

Whether it be in The Strand or The Haven (our two favoured drinking holes) fun was always on the menu. The golf was a mere incidental. Most memorable of all are those days when we stayed up to see the dawn and walked back up the hill in the weak morning light before catching a couple of hours of sleep and then starting all over again. Great days indeed.

One of Dunmore's most estimable citizens, Tony Boland, was fond of describing his home as a drinking village with a fishing problem. Amen to that. 

Football's Coming Home?

The question mark in the title is important, preserving as it does my self-diagnosed status as detached and sceptical commentator.

Thus far I have avoided the World Cup in these mental peregrinations and I must confess that I had not watched any match in its entirety until England met Colombia, preferring highlights and/or repeat showings. The denouement of that Colombia game was almost too painful to watch particularly once Henderson had missed his penalty. Yesterday's victory over Sweden was easier on the nerves although I don't quite buy into the total dominance narrative that seems to have found favour - no match that you win 2-0 and in which your keeper makes three fabulous saves can be a procession. So now I am all up for the semi-final - dare I watch it other than on my own, that having been the 'lucky' formula for the two knock-out matches thus far? To paraphrase Ray Prosser - it's only a game, well what the f*** do we have goals for?

My mate Donald Trump will be in this country later this week. I have seriously toyed with the idea of joining a peaceful demonstration against the wanton vulgarity of his presidency but I'm afraid the thought of breaking bread with the daft left has put me off.  Anyway it's too hot for demonstrating. On which front (weather front - geddit?) my precious lawn is burnt to straw but, always look on the bright side, the weeds have retreated completely and I can postpone the need to buy a new mower, perhaps getting one last season out of the old faithful - a man can attach the same emotion to his first petrol mower as to his first car.

The heat makes of me a sluggard - I can function well in the perishing cold but extreme heat gets the better of me. Nonetheless I have had to abandon my usually effective plan of waiting for cooling rain and instead set out for a run in the broiling weather yesterday morning. To the usual and absurd get-up of lycra and Oakleys I added a cap. Only shuffled a couple of miles but must admit I feel the better for it.

In addition to the football I have also enjoyed the Irish Open golf from the magnificent looking links at Ballyliffin. Seaside golf, either playing or spectating, can't be beaten. Oh to be in Northumberland hacking up the course at Goswick, the day ended by a walk on the sands at Bamburgh.

The Kindness Of A Stranger

It is the second night of the Dunmore East Golf Classic and the boys are eating at the Azzurro restaurant. Their fellow diners are all golfers.

The scene of the drama

A senior gent at the table next to ours starts to cough uncontrollably. It dawns on the rest of us that he is choking. Big Fat Pig gets to his feet just in case he has to administer the Heimlich Manoeuvre. Both he and the victim are relieved when the lady at the third table betrays her medical training and skilfully performs said Manoeuvre. The gobbet of steak is ejected. Gratitude is expressed and everyone returns to their food. The manager brings a glass of Prosecco to the good lady and thanks her for saving the man's life. He then produces a glass of the same for the choker and thanks him for not dying in the restaurant. The room rings with applause. The food is good.

God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.

Lads On Tour II

It's over - and we partied like men on a mission, which was justified because we may not be back. There has been sensible talk of knocking it on the head and Big Fat Pig will definitely be missing because he has promised to be with the Groupie to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of their meeting.

Well how was the golf? I opened with a display of near competence at Dunmore East, a result made all the more remarkable by my being scandalously hung-over. As the alcohol coursed less thickly with the passing hours so I found myself with a minor case of the shakes which made teeing the ball a matter of high comedy.

Dunmore East Golf Club - Big Fat Pig had six pars

Next was the dreaded Faithlegg. The Pig has been known to suggest that the site should be bulldozed. Nothing this year caused a reversal of this opinion. Played like a clown; course was a bit tatty and the administration was woeful.

Tramore was in good nick but the Pig's game was not. Last up was Waterford Castle and the Pig played much better if still without anything remotely like distinction.

Good food was eaten, drinks were drunk in good company. I will miss it if we don't do it again. The thought of never chatting again to 'Flat Top' Pat from Dublin is mildly vexing. Thanks as ever to Big Willy who had the thankless task of marshalling the Pig and Viperjohn.

One last thing  - I greatly enjoyed the confit of rabbit at the Lemon Tree Cafe.  

Lads On Tour

On the ferry as I write this, probably my last missive until I am back on board next Friday. It is not that they don't have Internet access at the places in which I will be drinking in Ireland, but rather that I can't risk leaving the computer in a bar somewhere. I know my weaknesses.

Mention of weaknesses brings me nicely onto my golf at Bull Bay yesterday. Actually not totally terrible but definitely not totally good. Big Willy naturally won the Bull Bay Classic playing off his ludicrously generous new handicap. Viperjohn and I trailed in his wake, as is our destiny.

The Irish Sea is mill-pond still which bodes well for the week to come. We leave behind the banalities of a British election campaign. Ahead lie fun and laughter and, who knows, maybe even odd incursions into golfing competence. Don't hold your breath.

Bull Bay Golf Club as photographed from my private jet

 

And So It Starts Again ... For The Last Time

Nobody's keeping score but I reckon this will be my seventeenth year attending the Dunmore East Golf Classic. Big Willy and Viperjohn have been at it for even longer. Well, sad to say, old time is on our track boys and it has been resolved that this will be our last trip. Things ain't what they used to be. No doubt we will think of something else to take its place - presumably something mildly less ruinous of liver and wallet.

We start tomorrow with the traditional warm-up at the glorious Bull Bay on Anglesey. Then it is the ferry on Sunday, succeeded by four days of what one must laughably call competition in Ireland's sunny South East. My golf game degenerated many years ago but I will set out with the usual ludicrous optimism that this could be the year I don't make an arse of myself. I've cleaned my clubs specially.

Bring it on!

Asymmetric Warfare

In an early episode of The West Wing, the tyro President Bartlett agonises over military action and muses angrily that some day someone is going to have to explain to him the meaning of  a 'proportionate response". I wonder if the Donald was similarly vexed when ordering the air strikes on Syria. We can only pray so because one has to say that the world makes precious litle sense to anyone in these fractured times. Just why does the use of chemical weapons tip the balance of atrocity to one that demands western action? I'm only asking because it is not obvious to me. War is shitty, however one wages it - full stop.

If you press me I will shamingly concede that the American strikes make a warped sense in a warped world. We welcome America back to the world stage after it had been so poignantly vacated by Obama, vacated moreover in favour of a gangster like Putin. The trouble is, one wishes these decisions rested in hands more dextrous than Trump's.

Listening to now

But enough of all that. I'm listening to a bit of Belle and Sebastian as I write. One of Scotland's better exports. The other platters that have mattered recently have included Stevie Wonder's masterful Songs in the Key of Life. Why was that not in my advent countdown? I think you should demand a recount.

Have been listening to

I have decided to be pleased that Sergio Garcia won the Masters. I didn't back him (don't ask - I'm still mired in my losing streak) but in the final measuring it is nice to see a man wrestle with and defeat his demons. Never mind the birdies he made - best of all was the par he made from under a bush at the thirteenth. OG style golf one might say, only good. I wouldn't look good in a green blazer anyway. Not my colour. Mind you I do believe that my dear friend Big Will Macfarlane owns such a garment - a permanent reminder of his richly deserved captaincy of the Royal Chav (Cavendish Golf Club to the uninitiated). To re-coin an old phrase is, Big Willy is a man who looks good in anything - except clothes. Mind you I have seen him in the showers and you have to say he looks pretty rubbish in the buff as well. Too much information?

Talking of golf, the annual pilgrimage to Ireland hoves into view. Yet again I have thought long and hard and have solved the puzzle of how to be good at golf. I really have cracked it this time. I'd tell you but then I would have to kill you. On that very subject (golf not murder) I do seem to have been bombarded with junk mail informing me that the key to golfing success is to buy a wondrous new club called the GX7. All I have to do is part with $200 and success will be mine. Not bloody likely - I've had cars that cost less than that.     

A Week Is A Long Time

It has been my habit to blog from the ferry as we (being JB, Big Willy and the OG) set out for Ireland on our annual golfing gallivant and thereby to publish the result of the Bull Bay Classic, played every year over the prize links at Bull Bay. But somehow this year I got distracted by the need to rant against St Barack of Obama. I stiil don't regret it.

So better late than never I confirm that perennial favourite Big Willy duly won his umpteenth Classic but only by one point from a near-competent OG and with the help of a handicap hike given to BW by the good burghers of Cavendish Golf Club on account of some rather alarming ill-health. The OG was typically magnanimous in defeat. Sadly but not at all unpredictably the OG's golf did not stand up to the greater rigours of the Dunmore East Golf Classic and he delivered four epitomes of sporting ineptitude. Quite seriously he is considering whether to knock golf on the head altogether because there is a demanding degree of public humiliation about his efforts.

Fortunately there is much much more to the Dunmore East Classic than four piddling rounds of golf and the week was rescued by the quality of the company. OG and his travelling companions were joined in Ireland by the legend that is Mikey B. The good times rolled. Everyone bar OG caught a cold. BW and JB were sufficiently incapacitated to hire a buggy each day, leaving OG and Mikey B to lead the foot soldiers. OG actually carried his clubs throughout - this was the only notable part of his game. For those who may care to tread in the footsteps of these golfing gods, here are a few tips: Dunmore East is the least prepossessing of the courses but has the best clubhouse hospitality and food; Like Dunmore GC, the Haven Hotel has been refurbished following a fire - the seafood chowder remains a world beater; Faithlegg is a testing golf course but unlovely; Waterford GC is (in the eyes of the poor old OG) quite unplayable; Waterford Castle is the best of the four but still unplayable by the OG.

Despite there being rain, hail and sleet, Mikey B did not at this renewal incinerate his golf glove.

Having typed in these words OG is already reconsidering his mooted retirement from golf. After all it's only a game.

End Of Trip Report

Let's get the golf out of the way first. Horrible quite horrible - I refer there to my own form not the venues or the company, all of which were exemplary.

A big Overgraduate shout-out to local organiser Tony Boland and our personal organiser Will Macfarlane. Two giants in the land, figuratively if not literally in the case of Tony. Will returns to his candidacy in next week's local elections and to support his estimable wife Sue who is standing for parliament. That they are standing for the Greens is something over which this blog will draw a polite veil. I admire their conviction and commitment if not their politics.

So it is back home for BFP (bigger, fatter and pigger after the attentions of the chefs of Dunmore East) to the prospect of the election and the reality of unemployment. I'll keep you posted.

Collapse Of Stout Party

I'm a Taurean but you'd
never guess

So you're standing on the eighteenth tee at Bull Bay, you've been playing (by your own limited standards) moderately well  and you hold a one shot lead in the defence of the Bull Bay Classic. What do you do? Well, what BFP did was to start out with a vicious duck hook into the gorse leading to three off the tee. He the compounded the misery with a couple of tops and for the grand finale threw in a full-on shank. Meanwhile Big Wiily Mac calmly holed out to take the trophy out of the grasp of your correspondent. All in all not my finest hour.

But I'll get over it. We are now on the ferry and this bulletin is brought to you as we pass the sea wall at Holyhead into a moderate swell.We have already breakfasted. We should be in the bar at the Strand by mid afternoon. Life is good. Willy has learned (via the miracle that is the internet) that Belper Town won 2-0 yesterday and John is vexing himself by reading the property page of the Sunday Times. He will perturb himself yet more when he comes to read the Rich List.

The Weather Is Turning

Which can mean only one thing - it's time for the annual pilgrimage to Dunmore East. April has been largely sunny but today we have glowering cloud and I've double and triple checked that the waterproofs are packed. Do I care about the weather? Do I bollocks. As long as the ferry crossing isn't cancelled the climate can do whatever the hell it likes. BFP is locked and loaded with two dozen lake balls and he's ready to rumble.

I am free of work and my future can wait till I get back.  The only pressing decision is what to listen to in the car on the drive up to Anglesey. Viperjohn will be in the passenger seat and I'm not succumbing to his dubious taste. This is going to be fun.

As an aside I saw some cracking rugby last night - Bath's second half domination of London Irish was a thing of raw beauty.

The Ballad Of Iron Mike

you want to be where everybody
knows your name

So it is night three of the Dunmore odyssey and we now encounter the world's greatest bowl of sea-food chowder. As any fule kno this is served at the Haven Hotel in Dunmore East. It is a meal in itself but real men use it as the warm-up act to the King Rib and then finish off with a slab of gateau. Jason the bartender also does a very mean Bloody Mary.

Now I must introduce you to the fourth member of the team. Big Willy and ViperJohn you have met before but our usual teammate, PJ had other commitments this year. Thus did Iron Mike join us. Iron Mike, the Boy Michael, Mikey B. We shall draw a veil over his golf but it suffices to say that he was a model member of our team. That is shorthand for, he was shit. But one does not judge a man by his golf in Dunmore, one judges him by his conduct at table and at bar - and Iron Mike was a star. What other partner in a major accountancy firm would decide to dry his golf glove in the oven and absent-mindedly incinerate it? I love the smell of burning leather in the morning.

Day three meant a damp round at my erstwhile nemesis Faithlegg. Too much walking between holes but I have to concede that this is a good golf course. Please note that I made my only birdie of the week at the par five 10th - driver, 7 wood (yes I do know it's a girl's club), sand wedge, four foot putt. Easy peasy.  Repeated complaint - the clubhouse bar at Faith Legg seems to treat eating and drinking as peripheral activities. They are not and Faithlegg might take lessons in conviviality from the much less salubrious Dunmore East. Mine's a Guinness.

Night four and I eat too heartily of the monster fish and chips at the Spinnaker. Chronic heart burn. Good food mind.

breakfast of champions

Round four took us to Tramore. I'm relieved to say that we played the Old Course not the rather incongruous new holes. By all accounts Tramore Golf Club does not have its financial difficulties to seek - an hubristic epitome of the Celtic Tiger. Mine was a curious round of golf wherein I struck the ball quite well but made an inelegant meal of getting it into the hole. I can play considerably worse. And better.

And so the final night. A quiet one by our standards but graced by a final bowl of chowder, a Bloody Mary and some Hendrick's and tonic. Roll on next year.    

Back To Earth With A Bump

I had a toweringly good time last week in Ireland although the chronic heartburn and general tiredness were candid reminders that I'm no longer a youngster. So to cheer myself up (which I need after a predictably crap day back at work) I am going to crank up the old brain cells and write about as much of it as I can remember.

It started with a great sporting shock as I beat Big Will Macfarlane to claim the Bull Bay Classic on Anglesey at the start of the trip. Willy magnanimously presented me with the trophy and it stands alongside the winning scorecard on the mantel-piece in Anglesey. Classic? Well hardly, I was just the least bad.

Poor old ViperJohn had to walk in after fourteen holes at Bull Bay and his health deteriorated when we got to Ireland. The Sutton Coldfield doctors were on hand ( a bad week to be ill back home since the doctors are all on the razz in Dunmore) to confirm a recurrence of his Meniere's Disease. Poor sod didn't hit a shot in anger all week and was only really on the mend by the time we came home. He wore it well. In his absence the three remaining members of team ' Not on the List' (ironically named for ViperJohn's blog) came stone cold last in the entire competition. It wasn't even close. We're so shit it's unbelievable.

not a par in sight

I ignored the old cliche about not mixing grape and grain on the first night and the dried-out husk of my golf game got a pitiless bashing from the course at Waterford Golf Club. I threw some four-putts into the mix just to make sure everyone knew how far I had fallen. Mediocrity is a distant aspiration. Funny course Waterford - a lot of holes which are placed on top of each other so that it can feel claustrophobic but it is certainly too good for me. Cracking breakfast in the top grade clubhouse although on reflection the breakfast was a meal too far for this particular soldier.

what fairway?

And so to Tuesday and a day of God-given beauty - sun dancing on the Irish Sea, a slight cooling breeze attending the soaring views from the cliff-tops of Dunmore East Golf Club. This is a young course, unfairly disparaged by some competitors. There are admittedly some prosaic holes further from the cliffs but the setting of the coastal holes is unmatchable. I'd not had quite such a heavy night in preparation this time but I still had right old attack of the shakes at the outset. Couldn't get the effing ball to stay on the tee-peg. Two points in the first six holes. Things then got better but not to a point one would identify as competent. Seventeenth, classic Dave - on in regulation and putting for a birdie, four putts later I had scored my final point of the round. I achieved a shanked chip in front of the clubhouse for my grand finale. Classic and curiously enjoyable.

Well all of the above has made me feel better but old time is on our tracks boys so I will resume the telling of the tale tomorrow. And I will introduce you to Iron Mike and the best sea food chowder in the world.