Aftermath

The British Senior Ladies Championship is over, fairly successful for some, not so successful for most. At the cocktail party the night before Day One, one caddy-husband (of whom there were many) declared knowingly that three 72's would take the championship but in spite of some very good scores (including Scotland's Lorna Bennett) this was not to be and there were actually only twenty-three scores below eighty in all the three days' play.

The sun shone 24/7 (us blogmasters have to adopt modern terminology) but the wind affected everyone at some point or other - although some more than others, depending on the timing of their rounds. Mornings and late afternoons seemed quieter, but perhaps that is self-delusory.

Many courses are made up of two different halves, especially older clubs which started life as nine holes, then on acquiring further land, incorporated a second nine later on. But Kyle and Penfig in Wales (P and K) has two halves which are as different from each other as Adam and Eve. The first nine were tricky enough especially the sloping par 3's, whose heavily bunker-protected greens produced nightmare scores that rendered the player a quivering wreck. However the second nine were hidden away in fern-strewn high dune country, where the only people one met were playing partners, dog-walkers and kindly ball-spotting volunteers, always nice, always encouraging with words like "no, don't do it, try to carry on, only six more holes and then the agony is over".

We should all be used to wind up here but the wind at P and K was definitely the main enemy (apart from one's psychological deficiencies). Such was the architecture of the greens, together with many unnecessarily evil pin positions, a seemingly perfect putt or chip could look good one minute and be twenty feet away the next, due entirely to the speed of the surface aided by a cruel and uncompromising side-ways wind. Three and four putting was EASY.

The semi-rough, often visited due to the afore-mentioned side-ways wind, looked innocuous from afar but on near examination was found to have closed round the ball with a claw-like grip and as for the bunkers - veritable caverns which left many in floods of tears and scores sent up in flames.

The LGU officials seemed a more benign lot than last year - in fact, although some were quite nice, most of them were very nice and the time warnings so common last year, were regretfully but so sweetly delivered.

The K and P members couldn't do enough. Even the solicitous lady who looked after the wonderful flowers in the locker room, was on hand to urge "wrap up well - it could get cold" which generally meant putting on a light jersey over one's scanty teeshirt.

Memorable championship? Well maybe when the great grandchildren are crawling round one's feet, one might look back in gentle reflection "when I was at Pyle and Kenfig ..." but for the bulk of the players with giant scores, maybe not quite yet.