This summer really is going on forever. Well, it isn’t really, but every day of ridiculously warm, settled weather takes me a little nearer to next spring!
Golf again today at the Thornbury Par 3 with one old friend and hopefully one new one and the course never looked better. The grass is still growing at a rapid rate of whatever speed it is that grass grows at and the sun was still generating some warmth from behind the fluffy white clouds.
On a good day, and there have been a lot of those this summer, you can usually see across the channel to Wales but today there was a thick mist in the middle distance, between the green meadows and the sky.
It was millionaire’s golf too, meaning that we pretty well had the course to ourselves.
I am not a gymnasium person due to a combination of laziness and aversion to pointless exercise so I play golf as much as humanly possible, or more to the point as often as I can get away with it. Four times a week at Thornbury represents the best part of 16 miles of brisk walking in about eight hours.
The stress of playing badly – happily not today – can often offset some of the health benefits, probably raising the blood pressure until at least the next good shot, which sometimes can be a day away.
Happily, today I was hitting the ball quite well, finding the green on a respectable 14 of the 18 holes for a round of 63 which is up there with my better scores.
The company was even better than the golf though. The banter and humour is a joy to behold and a game which itself provides great enjoyment is massively enhanced by the friendship. God alone knows what we talked about but I do know that I spent an awful lot of time laughing at the dreadful puns of the man I shall refer to only as Gary, in order to preserve his identity, credibility and reputation!
All too soon it was over and I was filling up the car with my clubs which cost £200 in 2012 and have since been used on around 250 occasions, plus at the driving range. Pretty good value,I reckon. I really should clean them soon!
Am I getting better? Hmm, that’s tricky one. I reckon the answer is I am, slowly, getting more consistent. I need to play big courses a lot more often in order to improve my long game because the short game is not too bad.
Ridiculously, I am still enjoying playing the same Par 3 course over and over again. I still don’t judge the putts properly and I am still not entirely certain where my shots are going to go after I hit them but alone or preferably with friends it most definitely isn’t a good walk spoiled.
