Men’s Golf Seniors Report

With no competition this week due to course maintenance, I have had the opportunity to compile my report at greater leisure than usual. I was also deprived of the opportunity to play last Friday by Storm Eunice. The threat of 70-mile an hour winds meant that the course was closed which reminded me of previous storms at Roehampton Club when numbers of trees had been uprooted or severely damaged. I was relieved on Saturday to learn that the course had escaped relatively unscathed.

Dipping into a book of golf memories, I read about a day at the Open in 1938 at Royal St George’s, Sandwich which challenged the whole field. Links courses are renowned for their windy conditions which can make playing rounds on successive days a bit of a lottery. The celebrated golf writer and broadcaster Henry Longhurst painted a graphic picture of golf on the final day played in 50 mph winds. ‘Steel-shafted clubs were twisted grotesquely into figures of eight, assorted haberdashery soared away into space to be salvaged later as far away as the neighbouring Princes course while frenzied traders tried to pin down the remainder of their wares.’. Less than a quarter of the field broke 80. The Daily Mail concluded that ‘it was a day on which nobody would dream of playing golf but some of the greatest golf ever seen was played by the leaders.’.

We held our monthly Grail competition early this month on Wednesday of last week to avoid playing during or immediately after course maintenance. With the course very wet from heavy overnight rain, it was a carry-only day and as a result it was made non-qualifying. We also suffered a number of dropouts, with only 46 players completing cards. Despite the conditions – rain for the early starters and strong gusty wind for the last out- scoring was extremely good.