Most of us know how to get to Farnham Park but have little or no idea where it is located in the geographical area bounded by Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and Slough so when we came across the Road Closed signs on the last stretch of road we were up the creek without a paddle. I ignored the initial set of Closed signs working on the optimistic hope that Except for Access would include the entrance to the golf club. 100 yards from the entrance I was disabused of this notion and sent due north. I ignored the big pair of wire mesh gates 400 yards up this road on the right which opened onto the golf course and carried on, eventually switching on my sat nav a couple of mile up the road – 30 minutes of pot-holed minor roads later I arrived at Farnham to find MikeW there. We were soon joined by RobA who, with quick thinking, had turned right through the wire gates and travelling round the back of the 17th and along the 18th he found a swift route to the car park.
Gradually others arrived until only MikeS was missing. He then phoned to see if we could help find his way. We did our best but 5 minutes later he called again to say that he was back where he had phoned us from before. We tried again but 5 minutes later he was again calling from his starting point. We re-assured him that we had a 20 minute delay to our tee-times so he tried once more but finally as we went up the second hole we had Mike’s final call to say that he once again was where he had started from and that he had decided to give up. For all we know he may still be out there emulating that famous tribe in the Congo.
The course was in good condition – the fairways were very green as were the greens although they were about half the pace of Temple’s. But the lush condition also extended to the rough which was very thick indeed and unlike anything we normally encounter. This, in a very curious way, played into the hands of RobertM in a way I shall come to later.
We were limited to 6 clubs + putter and for some reason I decided that Farnham did not have many bunkers (wrong!!) and decided to leave my sand wedge at home. I discovered that my wedge is not an adequate substitute and the unreliable flight paths of my balls out of the multitude of bunkers I managed to find were not conducive to high scoring. In fact I lost my ball in the direction of Stoke Poges out of the greenside bunker on the 10th.
The balls had fallen so that Stuart & MikeW were paired playing with JohnS and Bill. That left RobA, RobM and myself as a 3-ball initially waiting for MikeS to join us but when that didn’t happen we adjusted our team handicaps and played as a 3-ball.
I cannot now remember which way RobM voted at the AGM when we decided between a 1 or 2 stroke penalty when you drop a ball on the fairway to replace a ball lost in the adjacent rough. We of course voted for the very clement 1 shot penalty. Now RobM typically hits the ball a long way but not always in the right direction and he was suffering from some very wayward drives which actually resulted in him in losing 5 balls in total. But dropping on the fairway parallel to where he had lost the ball, he was often able to hit a couple of monster irons up to the green. The piece de resistance was on the 434yard Par 4 13th where his hook was so severe that he had only gained about 90 yards off the tee but 2 iron shots later he was 6 feet behind the pin at the back of the green and sunk his putt for a 5 for 3 points (including the penalty shot). RobA and I could only look on and marvel.
Along the way we were able to put into practice the new BB guideline whereby a 3-ball (us) being held up by the 4-ball (them) in front and being caught up by another group behind can ask to go through and this we did and only received a few dirty looks for our impertinence by our fellow BBs – but it did work out OK and they were just under a couple of holes behind at the finish.
For the most part the scores were not very impressive with everyone bar RobM having problems with the rough.
The team scores:
RobA, RobM & Richard 20 + 19 = 39
MikeW & Stuart 13 + 17 = 30
JohnS & Bill 18 + 11 = 29
The Putter was won by RobM with 34 followed by Richard (30), Stuart (26), JohnS (23), RobA (22), MikeW (20) and Bill (18).
The 3 NPin2 balls were won by Richard, RobM and MikeW.
Wycombe Wanderers seem to be working out what they are going to do with their new acquisition with a 12 hole course likely which might suit us in our dotage but for the moment there are very definitely no suasages and chips with brown sauce as there used to be 30 year ago.
I think it’s Aloha to South Bucks.