Today, I got to play a round of golf on the (in)famous West Course at Wentworth Golf Club. 6839 yards of absolute hell and joy combined. Tortuously undulating fairways with no even lie that I could find. Tons of mature trees with their ball catching branches wide apart. Greens that would put a brand new Axminster carpet to shame with their smoothness and feel. With the added advantage of no carpet burns! Blimey if I could grow this grass like this in my house I would.
I scored 28 points which is 8 off my handicap, but the leap of difficulty between this and my normal course, or the ones I played last week, is like the gulf between walking up Box Hill and Mount Everest. 28 points is not too shabby for my level of ability and I was only beaten by a 12 handicapper (thats pretty fucking good for the non-golfers). We teed off at 08:00, the air temperature being around 25 at the time,. but the humidity level was not far off Rainforest level. Probably because of the large number of trees and bushes all over the place there. Within one hole I was soaked in sweat with the stuf pouring off my brow. But it was worth it.
To the non-golfers all I can say is this is the equivalent of playing your mates at tennis on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Or playing 5 a side footie with mates at Wembley. Or driving your car at full belt around the Nurburgring. It is hallowed turf.
Wentworth itself is also the closest thing to Beverly Hills in the UK, with the rich and famous, though not necessarily the beautiful all living around it , with huge palatial houses and equally huge gardens backing onto the fairways and greens. The clubhouse and car parks drip money. More Aston Martins on show than on the Aston Martin production line. When I parked my rather nice 2003 registered Volvo S60 (well I think it's nice!) in the car park they probably thought I was the bin-man. The clubhouse oozes cash and earned wealth, whether morally or immorally. The hallway leading to the main bar is festooned with golf clubs donated by Tournament winners there over the year. A Driver from Tony Jacklin, a 3-wood from Nick Faldo, several clubs from the imperious Ernie Els. The place is a veritable golfing Hall of Fame. On the course we played a group through who were behind us. They were a group of 4, but only 2 were playing, the others being Coach and Caddy respectively. One of the players was vaguely familar although although we couldn't name him. A film director, or producer we thought. The other was....Kenneth Branagh. A fine actor (watch him in the excellent Conspiracy....chilling) and also a throroughly decent and chatty geezer. We talked as they went through and prepared to tee off. He even offered to "buy" the shot I'd just played straight onto the green. I declined politely ....his last comment was "You lot just want to see a crap shot"....and he duly played one " There you are" he laughed and off they went discussing and negotiating some sort of deal (we heard bits of their conversation as we followed them around the course).
And yes, this may be boring to you , but to me this game, on this course is very much one of the highlights of my life to date. My thanks to my Corporate supplier who set this "jolly" up . They give a another go, and business will fly to them because I am that fucking shallow.
And so, to cap this fortnight or so off, with 144 holes of golf last week, a round on the West Course at Wentworth today, on Sunday I play The Belfry PGA National course in the The Company's annual Charidee golf bash mate. The real competition round is on Monday on the same course, but a few of us (around 30) will play the competition round on Sunday because on Monday we play the equally reknowned (compared to Wentworth) Brabazon course. The course was the scene of the last Ryder Cup triumph for Europe when it was played in the UK. Another one steeped in golfing history. Another thing to tick off the list.
What a fucking brilliant week.
Sometimes the corporate gobbledygook bollocks and Management-WankSpeak I have to endure really is worth it.
Later, GolferJack
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