Golf glut

Two weeks after my last post, I had another golf related day out. This time I went to Newcastle, home of Royal County Down Golf Course, one of the most famous and most difficult courses in Ireland.

It's a classic links course--fairways and greens dotted among high dunes, with treacherous bunkers sunk deep in the ground surrounded by high tufts of thick seaside grasses.

And if you miss the fairways snaking among the dunes, and you miss the waist- or shoulder-high bunkers, you can find yourself in heather. I watched a few players whack their ball multiple times before getting it to pop out of the heather.

The course has the mountains of Mourne on one border and the Irish Sea on the other. Tough to beat.

So what was I doing there? Shandon Park has multiple teams competing within Ulster (regional) competitions, in order to go to the All Irelands. Yesterday, the Revive Team made it to the All Irelands and today, the Senior Foursomes were competing.

It's an interesting format. There are three foursomes, each foursome made up of two from Shandon and two from Royal County Down. Two foursomes were at RCD today and one was at Shandon. In a normal year, all three would be at a neutral course. Due to Covid, we draw straws to see who gets two home and one away.

Here we have an RCD player teeing off into who knows where. The two women in the middle are Shandon players. On the right is Geoff, husband of one of the Shandon players and my coach. The players alternate shots, sharing one ball.

So on each hole, one of the pairs will win the hole, or they draw. When I joined this group, Shandon was four holes up on the sixth hole. Then they were 7 up. Then six up. When they got to the 13th, they were six up, so game over. No way for RCD to win enough holes on the remainder of the course. The Shandon team following this team was not doing well. However we learnt the Shandon team playing at Shandon won, so the whole competition was won by the team above on the 13th. It was really exciting.

Above is me in a photo I edited--maybe over edited--to brighten it up a little. This was around 7pm. Our teams teed off at 4pm, so a late game. In the background is the RCD clubhouse.

I played golf myself at 11 am today (a Sunday). Then drove to Newcastle with Paddy, where I took him swimming for 15 minutes (his second swim of the day) before going to visit my friend Aelish. She watched Paddy while I watched the golfers. Below are the winning group.

15 August