HawkeyeMS
Ryder Cup Winner
It was 05:30 when I hopped into my car on Monday 24th June 2013 to start my journey to Northern Ireland, and more specifically Royal Portrush Golf Club as a guest of Your Golf Travel and GM. I turned the key when the realisation hit me that my aging car had been sitting unused on the drive for 10 days as I had been away in the Lake District and didn’t want to start. Five minutes of desperate panic and wondering how I would get to the airport passed before it spluttered into life and I was off.
Even the M25 isn’t bad at that time of the morning and I was soon heading down the M23 towards Gatwick. After having handed the key over to the Meet & Great Parking rep I had booked I wandered into the North terminal to meet the YGT rep who was nowhere to be seen amongst the bedlam that was the Easyjet check-in area. I made a quick call and was basically told it was every man for himself and to make my way to the plane. Forty-five minutes later I had finally checked in my bags before spending another 20 minutes queuing at security, and a further 15 minutes queuing at the gate and I was finally sitting down in my seat on the plane.
It quickly became clear that I was surrounded by golfers all heading to the same place, still no sign of the YGT rep but I was in the right place and soon airborne and landed on Irish soil where I met Jezz & the other GM winners, husband and wife Richard and Shelley. On the coach journey to the course the skies outside were grey and it was raining. Jezz explained that he wasn’t sure how the day would pan out but he was hoping to get us some time to ask Darren some questions but we might just have to play it by ear, which is exactly what we did. On the road to Portrush you pass the spectacular Dunluce Castle and then the links of Royal Portrush comes into view. It had stopped raining by now and the skies were looking brighter so I was hopeful the forecast of sunshine and light winds would come true which, as it turns out, it did.
It would have been rude not to have a pint of Guinness at the bar while YGT explained the format of the day before the 3 of us went off with Jezz and GM photographer Kevin for some photos around the clubhouse. In the hallway of the clubhouse in a cabinet on the right hand side is the Claret Jug so I spent a bit of time looking at that and Kevin took some test shots while we waited for Richard and Shelley to appear. Once the photos were done, an hour before our tee time I decided that I best go and warm up having not hit a ball for 2 weeks so I headed off to the range. The clouds were lifting and the skies getting still brighter but my rhythm and timing was shot and I walked off the range feeling less than confident but determined to put all swing thoughts out of my head and hope my recent good from was still sleeping somewhere in there. I was even less confident when I looked down the 1st hole to see how narrow the fairway was.
There was more than a hint of amusement in the starters voice as he watched me trying to get a GPS signal on my Garmin and pronounced in a thick Northern Irish accent “It’ll be no use round hereâ€, and he was right, when the GPS signal appeared I found Royal Portrush isn’t mapped. He didn’t say as much but I could tell there was a certain amount of contempt towards DMDs and that round here, you’re supposed to play golf with your wits. That was fine; after all I had a trick up my sleeve that he didn’t know about, my JCDB (Jezz Course Database). There are probably more courses mapped in Jezz’s mind than there are on my GPS anyway so off went.
It took me a while to find my swing but I managed to par holes 2 and 3 after a bogey on the first while not hitting it great. It took me less time to work out that this could be a slow round, and through no fault of Jezz or myself. The starter had told us the course would widen out after the 4th hole which wouldn’t be hard given the narrowness of the fairways and thickness of rough but really it didn’t. After 5 holes I did start to find my game though. As a team we were struggling. With ¾ handicaps in play, 3 of us were off 5 with Shelley off 26 and 2 scores form 4 counting meant we only manage 4 points per hole for the first 4 or 5 holes which wasn’t going to cut it. I played pretty well on the closing holes of the front nine without being spectacular, parred the 10th and then made my way up to 11 where Darren Clarke was playing the short par 3 with each group, the challenge to try to get inside him. He hit his about 10ft left of the pin which on both of the previous par 3s I would have got inside, but this time I put a horrible swing on it and pull hooked my 7i into deep bunker and worse still into the back of it on a downslope. Jezz came closest to getting inside Darren’s shot but the other two also missed the green. On a positive note, my bunker shot was all downhill so I knew all I had to do was get it just over the lip and it would run down to the hole, which it did to 4 ft. I had already looked at the putt and decided it was a ball outside the right lip but Jezz had asked us to get Darren to read the putts in an attempt to get some good photos of us with him. “A ball outside right and firm and you won’t miss†was his analysis. Darren’s putt had already been missed as it jumped on him, the greens hadn’t been great all day as they look to be still recovering with treatment and were in his words “shockingâ€, but my putt never looked like missing and I think I had already turned to him to congratulate him on the read before it had dropped, “the best read I’ve made all day†was his reply as we shook hands.
As it turned out, that was all we saw of him all day.
As the back nine went on the play slowed, with some elaborate pre-shot routines, lost balls in the rough, insistence on knowing exact yardages to the pin when it was clear it was out of range, some questionable decision making and rule infractions that would send the forum into meltdown being the main if not only culprits. It was starting to affect my game but on the plus side, I had plenty of time to look at the scenery which was stunning, as was the weather.
After the round, we were shipped to beautiful Bushmills Inn were we were staying. After a quick shower we met for some whiskey tasting before dinner, but there was no sign of Mr. Clarke. I had the pleasure of sitting with Jezz, Kevin and Jezz’s friend and peer Nick Bayly, editor of Golf News Magazine, but still no DC. As I understand it, he had one of his people call YGT at 18:20 to tell them he wasn’t coming.
Dinner was followed by Guinness and then bed at around half past midnight.
All in all, it was a great day, we didn’t win any prizes and didn’t get as much time with DC as we had hoped but the course more than made up for it. The organisation by YGT was a little disjointed at times but nothing that really affected things and as usual, Jezz on behalf of GM was a great host and great company.
I would like to thank Your Golf Travel for organising and GM and especially Jezz for a great day :thup:
My course review will be posted in the Review section, I’ll let you all know when I have done it.
Even the M25 isn’t bad at that time of the morning and I was soon heading down the M23 towards Gatwick. After having handed the key over to the Meet & Great Parking rep I had booked I wandered into the North terminal to meet the YGT rep who was nowhere to be seen amongst the bedlam that was the Easyjet check-in area. I made a quick call and was basically told it was every man for himself and to make my way to the plane. Forty-five minutes later I had finally checked in my bags before spending another 20 minutes queuing at security, and a further 15 minutes queuing at the gate and I was finally sitting down in my seat on the plane.
It quickly became clear that I was surrounded by golfers all heading to the same place, still no sign of the YGT rep but I was in the right place and soon airborne and landed on Irish soil where I met Jezz & the other GM winners, husband and wife Richard and Shelley. On the coach journey to the course the skies outside were grey and it was raining. Jezz explained that he wasn’t sure how the day would pan out but he was hoping to get us some time to ask Darren some questions but we might just have to play it by ear, which is exactly what we did. On the road to Portrush you pass the spectacular Dunluce Castle and then the links of Royal Portrush comes into view. It had stopped raining by now and the skies were looking brighter so I was hopeful the forecast of sunshine and light winds would come true which, as it turns out, it did.
It would have been rude not to have a pint of Guinness at the bar while YGT explained the format of the day before the 3 of us went off with Jezz and GM photographer Kevin for some photos around the clubhouse. In the hallway of the clubhouse in a cabinet on the right hand side is the Claret Jug so I spent a bit of time looking at that and Kevin took some test shots while we waited for Richard and Shelley to appear. Once the photos were done, an hour before our tee time I decided that I best go and warm up having not hit a ball for 2 weeks so I headed off to the range. The clouds were lifting and the skies getting still brighter but my rhythm and timing was shot and I walked off the range feeling less than confident but determined to put all swing thoughts out of my head and hope my recent good from was still sleeping somewhere in there. I was even less confident when I looked down the 1st hole to see how narrow the fairway was.
There was more than a hint of amusement in the starters voice as he watched me trying to get a GPS signal on my Garmin and pronounced in a thick Northern Irish accent “It’ll be no use round hereâ€, and he was right, when the GPS signal appeared I found Royal Portrush isn’t mapped. He didn’t say as much but I could tell there was a certain amount of contempt towards DMDs and that round here, you’re supposed to play golf with your wits. That was fine; after all I had a trick up my sleeve that he didn’t know about, my JCDB (Jezz Course Database). There are probably more courses mapped in Jezz’s mind than there are on my GPS anyway so off went.
It took me a while to find my swing but I managed to par holes 2 and 3 after a bogey on the first while not hitting it great. It took me less time to work out that this could be a slow round, and through no fault of Jezz or myself. The starter had told us the course would widen out after the 4th hole which wouldn’t be hard given the narrowness of the fairways and thickness of rough but really it didn’t. After 5 holes I did start to find my game though. As a team we were struggling. With ¾ handicaps in play, 3 of us were off 5 with Shelley off 26 and 2 scores form 4 counting meant we only manage 4 points per hole for the first 4 or 5 holes which wasn’t going to cut it. I played pretty well on the closing holes of the front nine without being spectacular, parred the 10th and then made my way up to 11 where Darren Clarke was playing the short par 3 with each group, the challenge to try to get inside him. He hit his about 10ft left of the pin which on both of the previous par 3s I would have got inside, but this time I put a horrible swing on it and pull hooked my 7i into deep bunker and worse still into the back of it on a downslope. Jezz came closest to getting inside Darren’s shot but the other two also missed the green. On a positive note, my bunker shot was all downhill so I knew all I had to do was get it just over the lip and it would run down to the hole, which it did to 4 ft. I had already looked at the putt and decided it was a ball outside the right lip but Jezz had asked us to get Darren to read the putts in an attempt to get some good photos of us with him. “A ball outside right and firm and you won’t miss†was his analysis. Darren’s putt had already been missed as it jumped on him, the greens hadn’t been great all day as they look to be still recovering with treatment and were in his words “shockingâ€, but my putt never looked like missing and I think I had already turned to him to congratulate him on the read before it had dropped, “the best read I’ve made all day†was his reply as we shook hands.
As it turned out, that was all we saw of him all day.
As the back nine went on the play slowed, with some elaborate pre-shot routines, lost balls in the rough, insistence on knowing exact yardages to the pin when it was clear it was out of range, some questionable decision making and rule infractions that would send the forum into meltdown being the main if not only culprits. It was starting to affect my game but on the plus side, I had plenty of time to look at the scenery which was stunning, as was the weather.
After the round, we were shipped to beautiful Bushmills Inn were we were staying. After a quick shower we met for some whiskey tasting before dinner, but there was no sign of Mr. Clarke. I had the pleasure of sitting with Jezz, Kevin and Jezz’s friend and peer Nick Bayly, editor of Golf News Magazine, but still no DC. As I understand it, he had one of his people call YGT at 18:20 to tell them he wasn’t coming.
Dinner was followed by Guinness and then bed at around half past midnight.
All in all, it was a great day, we didn’t win any prizes and didn’t get as much time with DC as we had hoped but the course more than made up for it. The organisation by YGT was a little disjointed at times but nothing that really affected things and as usual, Jezz on behalf of GM was a great host and great company.
I would like to thank Your Golf Travel for organising and GM and especially Jezz for a great day :thup:
My course review will be posted in the Review section, I’ll let you all know when I have done it.
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