Royal St Georges

OK - it's again been a long time between posts for me again... but we're now in our new place, and temporarily poaching someone's wireless - and no travels set for another 2 weeks... so now they'll be coming at a rapid pace (maybe).

The first one is a golf post - not fun for some - but fun for me.




Royal St Georges is a course that is part of the British Open / Open Championship (depending on where you live) course rotation. The tournament was last there in 2003, and it was just announced that it will be back in 2011.

I found that the course is open for 'public play' on certain days & times - and that over the winter months that they offered half price green fees...which expired at the beginning of March. As the course is not too far from London - my colleague and I decided to keep an eye on the forecast, and then see if we could capitalize on a nice day. One came on a Tuesday - so we 'rented' a zipcar and took off before 8 am for the coast (through heavy fog...)

The gps took us in what might have been the fastest route...but it certainly did not seem to be the most direct, and there were a few 'dodgy' moments in our race against tee time... but we made it with a good 10 minutes to spare.

1st tee:

the tallest bunker in the UK (neither of us fell victim off the tee on this hole):

It was definitely well worth the the trip and £65 - and I absolutely want to go back - not just because I did not have my A game with me that day (as evidenced by the photo below - just trying to figure out where not to hit it..) - but also because it is an Open venue - and a very good, but fair test.

I had also read that it was wise to bring a jacket and tie... after the round we went in to the locker room to use the facilities - and even the guy vacuuming (hoovering? spell check does not like that) was wearing a vest/shirt/tie/coat... He told us that if we wanted to see the clubhouse we needed to also be similarly attired - and I think a bit to his chagrin we were back within 10 minutes. Again - well worth it... the history, trophies, displays, etc. from the various Ryder Cups, Walker Cups, Amateur Championships, and Open Championships (won by Greg Norman, Sandy Lyle, Harry Vardon, Bobby Locke...) was great - as was the ability to sit in the great library room that looked out over the course with a silver 'tankard' of some ale with a big stone fireplace... pretty cool.

result: 83 (poor putting from inside 12 feet, and poor back 9 tee shots resulted in bogey after bogey)

more can be seen on this PHOTO PAGE - a new one for 08.