Red Phone call from the lads in the UK

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I am a sad GCAer, who should be playing Rye today after 36 glorious holes at RSG Monday and a delightful day at Chart Hills Sunday. Instead I am  at the office and practiced  putting at lunch on a punched practice green. It is not the same. Please Goodale et al on the Yank team, update me on the events at Deal and Littlestone.

[Bill_McBride]

John, I share your pain...  

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Sean, I look forward to meeting and playing with you soon. John

[Philip Gawith]

Tiger - no doubt Rich will in due course offer fuller details, but the bottom line is that the GCA Ryder Cup  (to be named The Budapest Cup in future ? - Sean Arble to explain!) is in the hands of the USA, helped I might add by a South African playing under a flag of convenience.

We were a small group in the end - Rich, Sean Arble, Andy Levett, Robin Hiseman, Craig Disher and Noel Freeman and myself. Despite the small numbers, a good time was had (and many thanks to Craig who is a member at Littlestone who put it all together  - and to Noel who hosted the party at Deal).

We played twice at Littlestone on Wednesday, and again today, and yesterday the match moved to Deal where the weather was pretty torrid.

Littlestone is a fun course - well worth playing. The front nine is not too special, especially when played downwind, but the back  nine is a real challenge, and 16 and 17 are great holes. The club was founded in 1888 by the same man who founded Royal St George's (his name escapes me). Originally its members were mostly London lawyers, and politicians, including some prime  ministers, such as Balfour, Gladstone and Asquith. Nowadays it has more local members, and those that joined us - Chri.s, Jim and Peter - were good company.

Chris, who also belongs to Rye, reckons that Rye is an excellent Winter course, but Littlestone better in summer when Rye becomes dry and quirky.

There is talk of holding next year's event in and around Hoylake to coincide with the return of the Open after nearly 40 years off the rota. Start planning!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I am so pleased the yanks prevailed. I am equally sorry I missed the event. I hope all this work was worth missing a moment in golf history. lol

[Bill_McBride]

I like John "Tiger" Bernhardt deeply regret missing this special occasion.  It sounds as though a good time was had and a lot of golf played.  Congratulations to our side for holding onto the trophy.  (There is a trophy, right?)   Hopefully next year will work out better.

I look forward to getting together with anyone who will be at St Andrews for the Open.  I'm sure we can arrange a rendezvous, although I'll bet the place is a lot different during the Open!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Bill that is the understatement of the year. lol I am envious of your trip.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

If Hoylake it is next year, then I should be happy to point visitors in the direction of other good courses in the area.  Wallasey is a must and Delamere Forest and Sandiway would be first choice inland courses for competitive golf.  Reddish Vale and Cavendish (both Mackenzie) are not far distant and Prestbury is a fine Colt course.  I hope some of you will visit some of these, although the draw of the Lancashire coast (West Lancs, Formby, Southport and Ainsdale, Hillside, Royal Birkdale and Hesketh) is strong.

[ForkaB]

John (and Bill)

I agree with all Philip and Sean said, although I side more with Sean in his assessment of Littlestone.  All 18 holes are fine golf holes, and while the back 9 is more spectacular, the front is equaly good, if more subtle.  The greens are particularly good (both in terms of design and condition), and the routing allows for significant variety (of course it's maybe easier if you have 600+ acres to play with!).

Deal is equally good, although very different for a course only 40-50 miles away along the same coast.  It is a brute of a course, very much more in your face than subtle, with more spectacular undulations than any great links I know (puts TOC, Cruden Bay, Dornoch etc. to shame in this regard).  We played it in a 30-40 knot wind which brought in some heavy rain at about the 12th (just as we turned into it ).  As Sean said, it was a steady diet of driver/3-wood, and we were only playing a few yards behind the ladies tees on many of the holes!  Noel tells us that they have invited Donald Steel in to stretch the course to 7200-7300 yards.  God bless anybody who plays from that distance in the weather we had on Thursday......

One personal comment.  Going downwind, while Deal played short, it was extremely hard to find the club to stay oln the greens.  At the 5th hole I pulled out a lumpy Ttielist balata, vintage 1995 or so and promptly birdied two holes in a row!  I also drove the ball about the same distance as my ProVIx (kept the same polite 15-20 yards behind Sean "The Animal" Arble with both balls).  And, the sound and feel of the ball strike was like heaven, or at least an orgasm..... .

ROLL BACK THE BALL!!!

Some other points.

1.  In addition to us GCAers (or "Anoraks," in the local vernacular, we had two friends of mine Herschel Hoffman and Ian Dickson.  Each of them has played in two of the previous Budapest Cups.  Plus, as has been mentioned, and much as last year at Painswick, we had tremendous playing support from Littlestone GC).
2.  Vis a vis the Budapest Cup, Sean outdid himself.  It is a thing of beauty, so much so that one of the Littlestone members who was a silver anorak said after caressing it:   "Don't you DARE engrave it!"  As it turns out, the cup is a holy communion cup that had probably been secreted away for 50 years or so whilst the Soviets ruled Eastern Europe, and of world-class quality.  We will (I think) be buying a plinth for engravure and asking Littlestone to keep the cup for a year in their trophy case and then bring it to the next venue until we decide if it is too valuable for our humble purposes.  They seem happy to do so, and also assure us that they will be happy to participate in next year's event.  They will be most welcome.
3.  As for next year, Hoylake would be incredible, if we (Philip) can arrange it.  If not, there are alternatives (including coming back to Littlestone, but combining it with Rye), or coming back to Scotland, or whatever (give us your ideas!).  Next year we will probably try the Mucci strategy of non-refundable deposits so that venues and hostelries can do better capacity planning.

Rich

PS--Bill McB.  I now will definitely be in Fife during the Open.  Let me know if you want to get together for a game or a pint or three or both.

[Sean_A]

Rich

Glad to hear you made it back to Fife with your Japanese,  left-hand UK plated car.  I must say your comments about the Budapest Cup are quite flattering.  I am not deserving of such praise as I had no idea what it was I purchased.  Blind luck as it were.

Your comments relating to "The Animal" are certainly not justifiable.  You obviously didn't play with Philip "The African Animal" Gawith.  He has at least 15 yards on me.  He hits this dive-bombing hook that goes like a stabbed rat as soon as it hits the turf.  The African Animal is a solid player.

The Dean Witter shot of the week (that I witnessed anyway) was from Rich.  He was bunkered short left on one of those heartache holes coming home.  A very difficult shot considering the headwinds.  Rich promptly hits a wedge for a distance about 60ish yards for when the flag was about 30 yards away.  The ball flew some 25 feet over the hole to eventually be hit by a gust.  The ball then started to fall back toward the hole.  When it landed the backspin was such that it rolled another 14-18 feet back down the green to just miss for a birdie.  As it was, Rich tapped in from 2.5 feet for a workmanlike par.  I probably won't see a better shot all year.

The runner-up for the DW shot of the week was at #7 (I think) at Littlestone on Friday.  This one shotter was playing about 175 with a stronger wind than at Deal coming from the right.  The pin was back right with two bunkers guarding the right side.  Robin Hiseman hit a lovely 5 or 6 iron (?) with a touch of draw right over the bunkers.  The wind did the rest by pushing the ball about 20 yards left.  The ball landed as softly as an angel might.  Robin was left with a 12-14 footer for birdie.  As it was he didn't need it as yours truly managed to three putt after hitting a bloated 5 iron to the front left of the green.  

I for one don't mind going back to Kent, or up to Hoylake, or up to Scotland.  I do like the idea of staying south of Hadrian's Wall only because most people don't give England/Wales much time for golf when in truth they deserve to be explored.  Hoylake/Wallasey sound ideal.  However, if things don't work out on any of these fronts, I can probably organize something for Pennard.  Ashburnham is close by and Southerndown/Porthcawl are easily doable to/from the motorway and airports.

Ciao

Sean

[ForkaB]

A couple of addenda to my post:

1.  Many thanks to Craig Disher and Noel Freeman for their hospitality at Littlestone and Deal respectively.

2.  My only quibble with both courses we played was the severity of the rough.  Absolute wrist-breaking stuff, and probably more to do with the nature of the terrain than maintenance practices.  Of course, this quibble could be mitigated if one were able to hit the ball relatively straight off the tee (both courses have sufficient width)....  

3.  Agree with Sean re: Philip.  He hit a drive through my legs as I was putting out on #1 at LGC that would have been40-50 yards past the green if not for that rough described above.  He was a fine member of the American team and shows how valuable pre-match negotiations are in ensuring victory in events such as these.

[Philip Gawith]

Sean - "dive-bomb" hook? I'm devastated. I could have sworn those drives were going dead straight!

Whatever - the African Animal (I think this is a soubriquet we can agree to lose?) does not transfer well to the tree-lined fairways of Huntercombe where my Spring Medal score today was an NR.

Re next year, I will look into the Hoylake option and report back. It would certainly be nice to draw on Mark Rowlinson's local knowledge in the event that we were to fix something in that vicinity.

[Bill_McBride]

Rich, look forward to seeing you in Fife.  We'll work out something.  Right now we are playing North Berwick on Tuesday, Balcomie Links Thursday and nothing else specific except watching some Open and walking TOC.

Could you lay out the composition of the teams?  That is, after all the defalcations (not sure that is that really a word, if not it should be!), how many bona fide Yanks were really on the US team?

[ForkaB]

Bill

Phillip was the only non-Murcan playing for the USA.  More traditional ones were me, Craig, Sean, and Noel, but we're all resident at least part of the year in the UK.  Maybe next year we can get some more US GCA'ers to apply for passports and come on over.....

[ed_getka]

According to Robert Hunter in The Links, "All the one shot holes at Deal are disappointing, while most of the two shot holes are outstanding."
   What about that opinion, and has the course changed since the 20's to alter this notion of Hunter's?

Wish I could have been there guys, I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves.

[ForkaB]

Ed

The course has changed since Hunter wrote about it, but the main change was to replace a famous short hole (#4--"Sandy Parlour"--a blind shot over a dune, old pictures of which give Tommy Naccarato paroxysms of joy and anger...) with a more prosaic one.

There are only 3 short holes at Deal.  4 and 8 are both drop shot holes which play down the prevailing wind making the effective target VERY small if the course is playing firm and fast.  14 is a 230-yd brute which plays into the prevailing wind.  I think all the holes are very good, with interesting greens.  Maybe Hunter didn't like the lack of variety, or maybe he just didn't like "Sandy Parlour"............ .

Of course, #6 at 325 is a short hole these days too.  I drove it playing a lumpy 15-year old Titelist balata........

[NAF]

Ed-

It is simple, the par 3s have changed since Hunter saw them, mostly as a result of JSF Morrison..  He is responsible for getting rid of the Sandy Parlour original for the 1938 Open that Deal couldnt have b/c of flooding.

Ah, the 6th is a wonderful hole, is it not Rich.. It is drivable from the Yellow tees at 290ish downwind but pretty damn tough from the whites which can stretch to 360ish.  It doesnt matter though because if you miss the green, you are pretty much looking at 4 at best anyway--especially during the summer.  I have driven it once and missed my 10 foot eagle putt!

[ForkaB]

Agreed, Noel, although I think it is more of a "Death or Glory" hole than one on which one can try to execute alternative strategies.  Downwind, at least, there is no safe option.  In fact, the safer you play, the harder the 2nd shot gets.  The green is too elevated for a run-up and too hard to successfully pitch onto.  Might as well just bomb it and hope, IMHO!

[Bill_McBride]

So was there either an after dinner speaker or an epic poem?  Details to date are scarce......................

[ed_getka]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Sandy Parlour was the hole that Hunter included a photo of, so that may have been the one he took offense with.

[NAF]

Hunter had it wrong.. He must have not liked the adventure and swashbuckling nature of blind holes.. Tis a pity, the old Sandy Parlour was a gem..

[Craig Disher]

Those who played at Littlestone may remember we talked about the original 17th which played blind over the dune that holds the current green.  Here's a photo of the original 17th - the 18th tee was to the right of the green near the location of the present ladies' tee.

Real natural, huh? Ironically, the photographer is standing almost exactly on the site of the current green.

[ForkaB]

Great stuff, Craig!

Is that Hedda Hopper's Luytens A&C house (sans ailes) in the left background?

Rich

[BCrosby]

Craig -

A stunning photo. And I thought the RTJ era was the Dark Ages.

But what is the bizarre obelisk thing behind the green? Looks like something out of an O'Henry nightmare.

Bob

[Craig Disher]

Rich,
Hedda's house postdates this photo. Anyway it's directly to the photographer's left, off the photo, about 500 yards away.

Bob,
The obelisk is a water tower built in the 1890s during the building boom at Littlestone. It's now a quirky weekend house with four rooms, one on each floor, providing absolutely no privacy but fabulous views. At the top is an observation bunker used during both wars. The two large houses - both still standing - were residences of Lord Balfour and one of his relatives.

Looking from behind the 18th green with the water tower and Hedda Hopper's house (now the Romney Bay House Hotel) in the far distance. It stands just behind the 17th tee and 16th green.



And a view of the 17th green from the tee. The original 17th played over the dune to the left of the large bunker on the left. The tee was immediately below the current tee.