4 days of Golf in near perfect weather, catching up with old friends ( welcome back from Oz Nick) and making new ones, what more could you ask for ?
An advance party of 9 of us turned up on the Thur, despite being in the depths of Norfolk the travel seemed to work out for those of us driving, with a lot of early starts and some hotel stopovers, Thomas coming all the way from Glasgow was a commendable effort.
We played the Wensum Championship course on the Thur, three 3 balls, very little heavy rough meant we whizzed around in 4 hours, a definite bonus. The course was parkland for front 9 and then a water meadow setting for the back 9, a good test for our game, Ivo came out on top on countback from yours truly with 37 points….a sign of what was to come? Peter H came 3rd and also got the NP, nobody managed a 2 and nobody managed a NPx2. A good warm up game and then it was great to catch up with everyone on the patio in the sunshine afterwards, it was a fun atmosphere at dinner and in the bar after, we even had a late night visitor sneaking into Dean’s room, wasn’t even a Grindr date… I think ? Although I did hear a rumour that there were other late night visitors over the 3 nights, alas I can neither confirm or deny :-)
Friday saw the rest of the group arrive so we were now 20 players, an even earlier start again for those arriving. Royal Norwich was the venue and I think it proved very popular, the glorious weather certainly helped. Tim the course manager greeted us warmly and advised us all to have a practice on the putting and chipping greens, otherwise he said it would take 9 holes to get used to the greens. Those greens were fantastic, blinking tough ! but a real experience and it certainly took me till the 9th hole to get the hang of them even with the practice! He was spot on, and so was Ivo, topping the leaderboard again with a very good 36 points on a tough track, no countback issues this time, that was for 2nd and 3rd spot with 4 of us finishing on 33 points, myself and Tim just edging out Tom Scotto and Andrew Seseman. Ivo also had NP and Thomas had Npx2 and Andrew, Malcolm and Peter shared the 2’s . Again the weather allowed us to sit outside the impressive clubhouse afterwards and lament on those (many for me) missed putts and wayward drives.
Back to the hotel and a visit to the pool and spa area for some before supper. We shared the dining area with a large number of other golfers, including a couple of guys wearing mankini’s and wigs and they weren’t even part of our group ! The hotel was full for the next 2 nights but the staff still did a good job looking after us at all times, the evening meals were ample, nobody went hungry, breakfast was a bit below par but generally for the price we paid I think we got decent value.
The Saturday and Sunday games saw us playing both Wensum courses, the Valley and the Championship course again, an advantage for those who played it on the Thur. Ivo stood aside for the Sat game and let John win with 38 points, followed closely by Owen on 36pts and Nick T with a very good 35pts in 3rd spot, Nick had a good day as he also had Np2. Ivo still had his say with a NP and shared the 2’s with Tim. The late tee off on Sunday was a problem, it makes the last day too long when people have far to travel so in future we will make sure we get a morning tee time. The leaders went off in the last group as is tradition and Ivo didn’t flinch in first place and proved a worthy winner on the day and for the overall tour, great golfing Ivo. Malcolm got his game together for 3rd place and Yvonne was just one shot behind Ivo in 2nd. Suddenly there were a host of 2’s, 7 in total, finally playing on flat greens must have had something to do with it. NP was John and Ash displayed his driving prowess and accuracy by making the green in 1 on the NP2, just the 270+ yards ! So congrats Ivo for overall tour winner, John came in 2nd beating me on CB.
Hopefully those who attended had a good time, it certainly felt like everybody gelled and had fun on the course as well as during the evenings. I had great feedback on Royal Norwich with many keen to play similar courses. I’m always open to suggestions and ideas ( or even help) for future tours so don’t be shy.
Thanks again to all those who came along and the cheque is in the post ( or Ming’s in tray ) for those who won prizes, 14 of you in total so despite Ivo cleaning up, a few others still managed to cover some of the cost of their bar bill.
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