Buda Sidebars Installment one: Installment 2 only if demand for it develops
This is the stuff you don't get from travel/golf books
Porthcawl= Whiskey River take me home
Pennard= They call me Ishmael
Clyne= let me tell you a story bout a man called Jed
St Enodoc= Anearer walk with thee (A religious experience)
Southerndown= fly me to the moon
Saunton= I'm just too good enough to be loved bu anyone
Royal North Devon= A Man called Horse
So the great tour begins in Porthcawl. A place that is no doubt a bit on the seedy side but still styled as a seaside resort. Royal Porthcawl is indeed a quality golf course because Harry Colt found a golf course on some very seamless places in between the dunes
The GCA guys are a good bunch and totally about the camaraderie of discovering and appreciating the classic courses of the ODG's(Old Dead Guys). As the matches and drinks and dinners progressed the group took on even more of the flavor of the olde fraternity energy in the form of nicknames assigned: Drinikn Joe, Whitty, Spangles, Chez, Yank, Gorilla., Canary. These guys are golf architects, corporate indoor plant suppliers, bldg architects, investments bankers, executive recruiters/fine turf specialists, college sport network franchisers, all over the board and I still don't know what half of them do.
I checked in and went to the sea bank hotel to wait the arrival of Uncle Billy Mcbride and watched the BBC coverage of pope Benedict visit to Edinburgh. I wish I had taped THAT motorcade action.
Restless from, long sitting I went on a walk along the Porthcawl seaside boardwalk scoping potential dineries. At the terminus a sidewalk signboard directed me to the Seaside pub a couple blocks inland.
I first hooked up with a couple of locals in the Seaside bar. Brian and Johnny informed me of many shades of local Welsh color. Johnny was an old seaman, and displayed the old seaman capacity for drunken banter. It is somewhat hard to understand Welsh/Cockney spoken by a mouth full of tacks. But he( all 5'6” and 140 lbs) did tell me that his last name was Butkus ergo a distant relative of the bad ass linebacker for the Chicago Bears and that THEIR ancestors had migrated to England from “Polischavikia” ( no shit). Brian schooled me on the varieties of Welsh dialects some no more distant than 20 miles away that always took him an effort to comprehend. He was an mechanical engineer for industrial plants. We talked of the massive expenditure the Ryder Cup venue received such as hwy spur just for that event that would then be abandoned. All the while the rounds kept comin and I realized that they had revealed to me that Porthcawl was home to the second largest Elvis fest outside of the las Vegas for a reason; they were determined that at 9:00 we would go karaoke Elvis. I narrowly escaped their clutches; ate dinner at my hotel and made another run at seabank to find my companions and then the weekend began to come into focus. I ran into another threesome of Buadapestrians leaving my hotel after their dinner when returning to retire.
The next day was great as RP is a well done test. I got my first chuckle after chasing my shot to the back of the 120 yd par three seventh, a lovely hole with a great green complex. Gazing back at the hole I saw only the neck and head of Andy Levett popping up over the lip of an amazingly deep and small pot bunker placed not 20 feet from the flag stick ; just so funny to see a guys head and the hole basically all in one view,
Our dinner was lively and the speaker who spent 10 years working on the Celtic Manor course recounted how forced the site was for a championship course. For instance recalling the above mentioned bunker which we could never build in the states due too to drainage limits He revealed that even tho they had raised the course app 5 feet in elev he had to install 180 catchbasin/inlets on the new nine they built or over 20 per hole: Yuuuch! I also learned that the way one can discern British striped ties from American is that the stripes are on an opposite diagonals!! I think low left/hi right for USA. But we enjoyed it very much. The Yank, Sean Arble ,was truly moved by my organizer appreciation gift of single batch bourbon and opened on the spot to everyone's great relief.
Pennard is truly a wild and barely tamed common ground. However I was prepped for it by playing Clyne where the sheep, cows, horse, and llama roam. Greens surrounded by double wire perimeters open only at the very back of greens spotted over one of those large 2 +/- sq mile 400 foot tall rolling mounds bordered by charming small valleys and usually crisscrossed by hedgerows that seem to comprise this part of GB made this course a lot of work. It also had some very tricked up holes and aerated very rough greens . Not one to which I would return. There I recvd a lecture on the differences fine turf grasses make to the playability of the various links/moorland courses. An arch typical Brit with wild windblown locks and plus fours and ascot tramping the course saving himself for the afternoon at Penn rd named Lorne Smith
The pro at Pennard, Mike, was wonderful. Other than the crazy hillsides, cows, and fierce wind making this course a lot of work it was unfailingly populated with memorable golf holes and great fun. I maintained that it is a course one must play in a lifetime but one I would rather not play all the time. It felt like leaving a cave tour or ships deck after four hours upon quitting the links the ground was that tumultuous and the angles that baffling. The fairwayturf quality was explained to us as resulting from the clubs inability too fertilize because the cows would sicken and die if eating same and the farmer refused to collect his cattle and place them on his own land . Thank goodness my caddie was the junior champion and very accomplished. Greens better but still not good and also aerated. This where I learned of a concept called SuperInjunctions
Our second group dinner was a grabbag Indian feast which I emphatically declined for some very processed fried prawns but the comraderie was good. Next night we ate Turkish along the Mumbles in Swansea at the Mediterranean and this was rather good. Grilled seasoned meats and veges like onions, tomatoes, peeprs, eggplant; I selected lamb shoulder and liked it very much
Spoutherndown was another moorland ( bracken surrounded) high headland course with spectacular views hundreds of feet above the River
as it emptied in the sea and formidable long slow gradual climbs. The last event of the buda I used a motorized trolley and loved it. Very nice condition and good smooth greens. This is also the place I discovered my new signature shot. SGC's home hole is a fearsome 430 yard 4 par with a split level fairway playing into the wind. Decent drive but 200 out with no three woods in the bag so viola 10 degree driver off the deck on a rope no more than 15 feet overall rise to the green margin and up and down for a satisfactory par. I have used it several times since and impressed my traveling partner Mike Whitaker to no end ( esp the past captain at Saunton with whom we played; “never seen that done”)SGC has the worlds best snooker room all glass on three sides and 400 feet above the sea and valley river floor. The parting shot of advice from our newest “bar “ friend” be sure and put your shoes in plastic bag so the sheep shit doesn't smell up the car.
Westward Ho and its surrounds epitomize the archetypal Cornish Victorain seaside retreat but amazingly vibrant and still spot on today. Innstown and Appledore are villages right out of “ The Prisoner” with Patrick Mcgooann so pictaresque and snug with the estuarial River Torridge.Westward Ho!( you must include the !) was such a perfect change of pace for Mike and me. Sunny and level to gentle rises and a soft but steady breeze. Truly restorative after the full contact golf in every way of the previous days. Not that it was an easy course just one that was relaxing and really classic resort course of the olden days. The classic was the mis direction play Mike and I managed by hitting our approaches on No 4 to the fifth green and right in front of the golf Capt. David Miller who was on five green and who was involved in a Veterans competition in front of us. We finished the round and retired to the changing room after breezing past a number of signs on doorways reminding us to not take trolleys into the clubhouse. We found JH Taylor's locker with the plastic plate over his inked on name and washed up to meet the golf capt in the bar.
The museum in the bar area is an impressive collection of club memerobilia, antique clubs , and a red leather belt for the club champion that is the only known mate to the “Open “ belt produced by Prestwick club and permanently retired to “Young” Tom Morris in the 1870's after he won multiple years in a row. This belt was retired when H Hutchinson won the club championship as a 15 year old and the club had to maneuver around the winner being bestowed the captaincy of the club. Their solution was to banish the Captaincy and retain the President title and retire the belt. Curiously they had no women's clothes with the clubs logo on them? At any rate this is about the time I noticed my back wasn't near as angry as I before; I had literally played my way out of a months old back condition; extraordinary.!