not being familiar with any of the golf courses anywhere around London except for Wentworth (where Thomson had a membership last year - grr) and not having a car has been somewhat challenging when thinking about setting up a tee time. First you have to search for London golf courses, and then they need to be accessible by train or tube.
Hours of searching came up with these two sites:
and then South Herts Golf Club which is not on either site above, and I have no idea how it worked its way on to my browser, but it looked good, Harry Vardon was once the pro there, and it looked to be a short walk from the next to last stop at the top of the Northern Line.
Here are my clubs on the Picadilly Line:
- so - apparently golf clubs o the tube are a fairly rare sighting. I received looks, glances, and stares in my journey which I ignored by virtue of having brought along my small ipod and a magazine for the long-ish journey (about 50 minutes total on the tube) --Just after transferring to the Northern Line a couple of German tourist guys got on and were standing next to me... a few minutes later a received a tap on the arm and a 'May I?' question while one of them was pointing at my irons. Long story short there is now a photograph somewhere out there of a big German guy wearing german tourist clothes (the image in your head right now of his outfit is exactly correct) holding my six iron on the Tube like it was a shovel.
they said thank you - I nodded, and they got off the train a few stops later.
All in, it was about a 15 minute walk to the tube, the previously mentioned 50 minute ride (with a change), and then a 10 minute walk to the golf course where I had to show my CSGA Handicap card to prove my worthiness (and to vouch for my colleague that I was playing with) - the card's sticker was dated 07/28/2000 - but somehow the guy did not notice and only saw the 2.6 index that I only have faint yet fond memories of today.
South Herts was good, and a more challenging track than my first golf outing.I hit the ball much better than anticipated having not swung a club since that initial outing - hit a ton of greens, and three putted 5 times... and missed a face reddening four four-footers.
(One of my three putts can be seen by clicking on the photo - my ball is the one on the right)
Final tally - 2 birdies, many bogeys for an 80.
I will break 80 on this island at some point.
2pm tee time, and as you can see here it is 5:25 as we are finishing on 18 - one significant change from the 5 hour rounds at Harding Park, as much as I miss it
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