Rob Flanagan had kindly let me leave my car at his place while we were away and we had planned to play together in the final round and fight eachother for the title of the 2013 champion. Well..... we were playing together in the final round, but we were fighting to fend off the honours of the wooden spoon. I had beaten Rob at the regional final at the Macdonald Donnington Grove in Newbury and I was planning on repeating that feat on this beautiful Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates!
The clubhouse is still under construction and the temporary digs would still put a lot of clubs to shame with a massive balcony overlooking the driving range giving views of Dubai and the Burj Khalifa towering over the rest of the city in the distance.
After a quick introduction, a short stint on the driving range and a little play on the very flat and fast practice green it was go time for Rob, John (bad belly) and myself. The sign at the first tee said a measly 7675 yards, fortunately we were playing from the competition tees and NOT the championship tees! It was still a loooong golf course!
I had a decision to make on the first tee. I had 15 clubs as we had checked out of our hotel already and I was chopping and changing between using my Hybrid or my 3iron. I chose my 3iron for the round and I have never hit it as well as I did on that day. I definitely made the right club choice. This round was the first time I ever remember using every single club in my bag! I had an amazing round and really enjoyed my day with Rob. Unfortunately Johns D&V got the better of him by the 9th hole and he had to call it a day. This meant that I no longer had to worry about the wooden spoon! I was quite worried about John and was relieved when he relented half way to go and get sorted. I've taken a few photos from the day and as I can't remember all the specifics from my round, I won't bore you with the details except for a few memorable holes after these photos.
My 3iron to just short of the 220 yard par3 4th was beautiful (the hybrid might have just got there and I still don't totally trust my 3 wood).
Snap hooked a 6 iron off the tee on the par3 6th over water and didn't call a provisional ball for my third from the tee not having ever played with a designated drop zone before. Silly billy.
Rob hit a fantastic approach to 4 feet from the tan bark on the dogleg par4 8th for a fantastic birdie. It was a pleasure to watch and applaud!
I hit an awesome drive on the par5 14th leaving about 235 to the green and then perched my approach shot right on the edge of the fairway bunker short of the green. I then shanked that chip into the face of the bunker and watched in amazement as the ball kicked out and away from the water to leave me with a shot at the green for my 4th.
The 15th was a sea of sand from 175 yards to the green so I layed up short of the bunker. I slightly pulled my approach left with my 7iron and stiffed my second chip to within 2 feet and tapped in. I'm trying to forget the duffed first chip!
On 16 I flirted with the water on the right and had an approach shot from 165 yards out of the rough. I hit a beautiful 5 iron straight over the pin landing about 5 feet passed it which scooted over the back of the green. Meanwhile Rob had hit the fairway a loong way forward of me and popped a wedge to about 5 feet.
My chip was terrifying! I could see exactly what I had to do though and I popped it out of the rough onto the green and watched it trundle down the slope to about 4 foot from the pin leaving a straight-ish, uphill putt for par. The little bugger squirmed out of the hole! The hole must have had cling film over it because Rob missed his little birdie putt too!
We caught up to the group in front on the tee of the famous 17th hole and watched them tee off with varying success.
Our turns came and Rob just rolled off the back and I managed to hit a squiffy 5 iron into the front left bunker leaving no green to work with and ignored the large 'fat' part of the green. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had to get the ball to barely scrape over the top of the bunker to avoid going over the back of the green and to give myself a chance to hole the putt. I managed to succeed on my 5th attempt and then holed the short putt. Rob dropped on the back edge and nearly chipped up and down for a 4, just missing his putt.
I really should either wear my glasses or get my eyes fixed. I was standing on the famous 18th tee looking in the book which showed that the fairway on the right of the creek was reachable from our tee. It turned out not to be but I sliced my drive into the houses being constructed while aiming for that non-existent fairway. My provisional ball was a good one followed by a near miss with my 3 wood which tapped the ball to 200 yards from the green. It was time for the 3iron to go to work again and I hit a sweet shot to the edge of the greenside bunker. I had to chip in for a point from there and I hit a beauty! It lipped out but I was still stoked to have made it around the world famous Earth Course. I hope you've got a decent idea of the fantastic condition of the course from the photos and that you enjoyed reading about my escapades!
As soon as I had finished the round, I was thinking that I didn't have the game for that course. On reflection I believe that I let the occasion get to me. My long game has the potential and I just wasn't concentrating enough on my short game. This year there will be a lot of practice and concentrated effort on improvement and hopefully I can redeem myself next year and be a force to be reckoned with!
Congratulations to Carl Greenwod, Neil Ratcliffe and Andy Holden who took out the top three places in the singles competition taking it right down to the wire.
Congrats also to Chris Wall and Mark Green who held on to their 2nd day lead to clinch the title from Colin Ledwith and Alan Smith in 2nd and Joe Sach and Dan Smith in 3rd. The guys at the top played phenomenal golf all week and are deserved winners!
Congrats to Jason Swann who overcame a substantial deficit to reel in Jason Tabor and take the staff trophy.
Go to www.leaguetodubai.co.uk to enter for your chance to stop me from getting to Dubai next year! Best £36.75 I have ever spent!
Again a great read. I feel you have been too harsh on yourself as I have heard in golf everyone is always improving, and it sounds to me like you did amazingly well in such an awesome environment, which indeed would have been incredibly distracting in itself; add to that the photography and recalling so many holes so well, I say well done, and hopefully you do get to go again! PS I post anonymous cos I don't have a clue what all the other options mean!! love MUM ha ha ha!!
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