[Sean Walsh]

I would also like to offer my thanks to Sean and Tony for setting up the event.  A wonderful time was had.

Phillip,

I hate to rub it in but Ganton was great (even though I lost the match), fully deserving of its high reputation.  also one of the friendlier clubs I have encountered.

[Mark Pearce]

Another set of heart felt thanks to Sean and Tony.  A lot of work goes into making something like this run as well as it did and to do as much as Sean did and then miss out must have been deeply frustrating.  I'd also echo all of Rich's comments about the hotel and local environs.

Sean's right.  A bit like an honourable draw but we won.

Sean - glad you enjoyed Ganton, it is a fantastic place.

How did the Seaton Carew trip go?

[Andrew Mitchell]

I'd also like to add my thanks to Sean for the initial organisation and to Tony for all his efforts last week.  It was great to see everyone again and meet some new faces.

Mark - don't be fooled into accepting that there may be any merit in the suggestion that the use of a couple of ROW players somehow tarnished our glorious victory. Do these people not realise that it is part of England's sporting heritage to select individuals not born in our fair land?  The ones such as Tony who proudly answered England's call on Friday were merely following a road already trod by the likes of Tony Greig, Mike Catt, Greg Rusedski, Owen Hargreaves et al

[Michael Whitaker]

As I look out my London office window on a truly dismal Monday morning it looks as if golf may never be played again!

Like Friday at Moortown, it has turned into a beautiful afternoon. All is well!

[Craig Disher]

The attendees won't be able to thank Tony enough, allowing the rest of us to relax while he took care of the messy details. Thanks again, Tony; I wish Friday night could have turned out differently for you.

I'd also like to thank Andy Levett for spending a full day with Mark, Brent and me at Seaton Carew. My memory card was filled so we'll have to wait for Mark or Brent to post their photos. The course is delightful. MacKenzie's holes stand out but his influence is evident throughout the course. A few holes - like the 3rd, 15th, 17th, and bunkerless 18th - typify links golf at its best. The wide fairways heading out - and into the wind - are replaced by tighter playing areas (dunes, high fescue, buckthorn) coming in. Nearly all the greens permit a running approach but the penalty for off-line play can be severe. The day was a terrific end to my week - a warm day, light breezes, interesting golf, and good company.

[Mark Chaplin]

Gents,

A pleasure to meet you all and well done to Sean for the ground work and Tony for pulling it all together. Now I know why the R&A Autumn meeting is held in mid September......they plan it to clash with St Andrews Uni freshers week!!

I was gutted to miss out on so much golf and the police surgeon put me out of my misery today and confirmed I have cracked a rib. Four to six weeks out, which is really depressing as I'm due at The Addington (Friday), Rye (Wednesday) and Littlestone and The Berkshire the following week.

Mark

[Andrew Mitchell]

Mark

It was good to meet you last week.  Shame you missed so much golf on Thursday & Friday.

Depressing news as you say re your rib injury, particularly with that fixture list.

I wish I lived closer as otherwise I would volunteer to deputise for you

[Tony_Muldoon]

Great fun, great company, great result (yes suddenly Im a turncoat and my daughter is proud of me).

There will be more photos soon

I'll email bills tommorrow night but no one should owe more than £90 (ok one will).


I will be asking you to check carefully Allwoodley say they are one green fee short on the Thursday.  I know Mark Chaplin didn't play but was there anyone else?  If its you please IM me and then I can refund more of the deposits of those who unavoidably had to pull out late.

thanks guys.

Tony

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sorry for causing confusion and thanks for the IM's.   It was the Thursday where Alwoodley ticked the wrong names.  (last post edited)

"...I have a cold"

[Tony_Muldoon]

The Captains confer



L-R
Tom Thomas – First time guest
Nick Leefe – Club Historian and past Chair of the Green
John Kinnear – First time Guest
Joe Fairey
Ian Dickson
Andrew Mitchell -  currently 7 -0 -0 in Buda Matches
Michael Whitaker
Jim Goby
Brent Hutto
Mark Chaplin
Richard Farnsworth Goodale
Tony Muldoon
Mark Pearce
Giles Payne
Conrad Gamble
Craig Disher


Missing from team photo’s – joined day 2.
Mark Bourgeois
Philip Gawith
Sean Walsh
Andy Levett

Also
Mystery Guest – our own RT who took these pictures. Thanks Russell


Also playing with us on day two was Ken Rigby Vice Captain and David Richardson Past Captain and Chairman.

The dining room. Where we enjoyed being welcomed into the club and I’d would like to thank Nick, Ken and David for joining us for dinner.



The 17th

[Rich Goodale]

Many thanks again, Tony (and RT!).  All I can say is....

1.  I love how the GCA lunch crowd is hanging on my every word as I try to organise them for the afternoon game...
2.  I am so glad that Jim Gobey continues to join us, not only because he is great company and a fine golfer and did so much to make BUDA III such a success, but also because as long as he is with us and gravity does not affect us disproportionately, I will always have someone at the BUDA Cup who will look up to me, at least physically....
3.  Andrew Mitchell--I'm gunning for you!

Rich

[Andrew Mitchell]

Rich

Although your troops are apparantly ignoring your pre match rallying speech I note the deference with which you are treated on the first tee group photograph.  Whilst the rest of us bunch up to make sure we are included you stand there at a slight distance from the rest.  This either marks you out as the undisputed leader slightly aloof of your team or you had too many beans for breakfast

I am aware that you are gunning for me and I shall not shirk the challenge.  My luck has survived two Budas now and is unlikely to last through another, particularly if Buda VI is held at your adopted home course next June.  Bring it on!

[Andy Levett]

Seaton Carew. My memory card was filled so we'll have to wait for Mark or Brent to post their photos. The course is delightful. MacKenzie's holes stand out but his influence is evident throughout the course. A few holes - like the 3rd, 15th, 17th, and bunkerless 18th - typify links golf at its best. The wide fairways heading out - and into the wind - are replaced by tighter playing areas (dunes, high fescue, buckthorn) coming in. Nearly all the greens permit a running approach but the penalty for off-line play can be severe. The day was a terrific end to my week - a warm day, light breezes, interesting golf, and good company.

I’m glad you enjoyed it Craig. MacK’s report on the 3rd  (then the 16th) says: “This is a first-class short hole and I can quite understand the members wishing to retain it exactly as it is without any alterations of the tee or the green.”

Initially I was disappointed to only make the Thursday of the Buda but in retrospect further participation could have jeopardised the English victory. Roll on next year.

[Brent Hutto]

Andy,

Which green complex is it that is really shallow and has bunkers in front but when you get up there you see there's an extra 10-15 yards of grass between the green and bunkers? Is that the third?

[Andy Levett]

Yes, that's the third, Doctor (named for the founder, Dr McCuaig, not MacK). The green's actually 30 yards long, plus about ten yards of apron behind the front bunkers, which - though visually intimidating - seem to get less business than the pair back left and one back right.

[Tony_Muldoon]

There must be some stories to be shared.
How many heard of Ian Dickson’s 70 yard pitch to the 8th green, had one little sit up bounce, kissed the pin and dropped for an eagle?

The play of the week has to be Sean Walsh on Gibraltar at Moortown.  He pulled his tee shot in to the bunker on the left and was tight to a very high vertical face.  The rain was at its heaviest and yet somehow he got it to 12’ below the pin.  There was a river running through the green about 1” deep and the flag was an island.  I was on a similar line about 15’ away and the strongest I could bring myself to hit the ball moved it less than half way there.  Somehow Sean forced the ball upstream into the hole for an amazing up and down.

[Brent Hutto]

...the front bunkers, which - though visually intimidating - seem to get less business than the pair back left and one back right.

Yeah, that back right one is the reason the hole isn't named "The Good Doctor".  

BTW, when you came into the blue room to get me at the end of the day I was commiserating with one of your fellow members who I had overheard complaining about too much soft sand in the bunkers. So even if Mark B, Craig and yourself think it's great there's at least one other Englishman who's with me on the matter. Honestly, the couple of bunkers I played out of at Seaton Carew were much more difficult to get out of than the two at Ganton the next day.

[Brent Hutto]

Tony,

I'll recount one shot of mine from the seventeenth at Alwoodley. I still have the marks on my legs from backing into a Gorse bush short and right of the green, choking down to the metal on a lob wedge and tossing it right at the hole. It isn't backing into the bush that gets you so bad, it's the turn and leg action during the stroke. You don't notice it while the balls in the air but a couple minutes later you realize those little holes burn like hellfire.

The ball rolled over the left lip of the and finished five feet past. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great shot since I missed the putt. Andrew Mitchell got down in two from nowhere and halved the hole to win the match IIRC.

But the best shot I saw all week was also Sean's. It was on that long Par 3 on the back nine at Alwoodley. He hit a low lefty pull that never got eight feet above ground level. It was going at the right edge of the right-hand bunker but it somehow rimmed out, travelling nearly 180 degrees of the bunker lip and then hopping up on the green 6-7 feet from the hole. He made the putt to win the hole and keep us alive in the match.

For me the essence of playing in a Buda event was that Thursday morning round. It was mine and Sean's better ball against Andrew since there were an odd number of England players that round. So I got to play in a left-handed threesome with a Melbourner and a Yorkshireman, neither of whom I'd ever met before. That's never happened at my club back in the States and probably never will.

[Mark Pearce]

On Thursday afternoon the usually metronomically accurate Andrew Dickson hit the worst shot I think I've ever seen him play, ditching his second to the 17th into the bunker in the gorse 40 yards short.  He somehow managed to reach the front edge of the green from there and then holed a 30/40 footer for a tremendous par.

Of course, by then the match was over and a point on the board for England......

EDIT  Of course I meant Ian Dickson.  But then I wonder if it really was Ian, or was it Tony, in which case metronomic might be a step too far.  I'm really too young for my memory to fail me like this.  I'll put it down to the shock of opening the round with three straight birdies (and a four on the 4th, which is a par 5 off the whites, just 15 yards back from where we were playing and into the teeth of a gale).

[Tony_Muldoon]

Although we've all seen it at the Ryder Cup playing in an event like this really shows you how important a) the short game and (particularly) b) putting counts in Matchplay.

Watching Craig and Ian roll putts in whenever they needed to, was humbling.  In my match against Craig I had many greens in regulation n the back 9 but with my average putting couldn’t do better than par( except for th 11th ).  Craig can save par from anywhere so when I make a bogey...   On the 16th I was 8' below the hole in 2. Craig was dead in a grassy knoll 20 yards off the green.  Somehow he managed to get to on the green 10' above the hole.  Of course he holed the tricky downhill slider.  I felt it like a blow and in the circumstances I did well to two putt.  But it ended my mini recovery and his putt effectively won the match.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Mark when I picked out great play how could I forget "opening the round with three straight birdies (and a four on the 4th, which is a par 5 off the whites, just 15 yards back from where we were playing and into the teeth of a gale). "  when I was your partner!  Way to go.

[Sean Walsh]

Before anyone gets the impression I can actually play the game I must say that I lost three out of three.  

Thanks for the ego boost though guys

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