Royal Birkdale

This morning we said goodbye to our Southport home.  The Vincent Hotel.  If ever anyone is looking for a venue when in the Southport / Liverpool region, the head straight for the Vincent.
A magnificent building, very sleek decor, and very well appointed.

The exterior of the hotel

The hotel bar

While all of these things are great, it was the people that made this a special place.  Heading up a wonderful F&B staff was Andi.  Andi made huge efforts to accommodate our group each day, and nothing was a problem. The service continued in wonderful fashion with great help from Gabriel, Kate, Natalie, Laura & Jake.  The professionalism from these people, plus the others that work there, made our stay very very enjoyable.  A big thank you to the team from the Vincent.

I have been waiting 21 years for todays round.  My chance to retrace the steps of my childhood golfing hero Ian Baker - Finch, and his majestic 1991 Open championship victory at Royal Birkdale.

This was what I was trying to emulate today.

Birkdale is in Southport, only a few minutes from our hotel.  We had a lovely sunny day, but for the first time this tour were faced with some stronger gusts of wind.

View to the green at the 2nd hole

Again we played an Open championship venue that was in near tournament condition.  Faster greens would be all that was needed.

Rae Biggart & John Gaffney surveying the putting green at the 3rd hole

The wet and humid conditions have meant the the undergrowth in the rough is very lush and thick.  The rough was about the same length as Hoylake, but a lot thicker.  The staff said that the rough has not been this thick since the 1980's.

Libby McCann extracting her ball from the thick rough.  You can see the ball at the top of the shot, well done Libby

It was all that I had built it up to be, and more.  Great undulations, variety of holes, and a great layout.  The only thing that did not meet expectation was my score, but I loved it anyway.  Thanks to all on the tour for helping me enjoy this moment.

Looking back at the 11th green

A little bit of local wildlife on the 18th tee

After our round we had a quick bite to eat in the clubhouse, and celebrated the good scores for the day.
It was Anne Ryan who was champion today scoring a magnificent 46 points.  Bob Murphy scored 42, and Tom Pettigrew 40.

We then headed off on the long coach ride down to Surrey, arriving at our destination at 10.30pm.

Richard Logan catching some flies on the coach ride. (I did warn you that we would do this)

Off to Royal St Georges tomorrow for another brutal Open venue test.