Recent May: Hope and expectation are an essential part of golf

Hope and expectation are an essential part of golf. And hopes and expectations are often quickly dashed by the challenge of the course in front of us or the limitations of our own abilities. It is particularly the case when we go on a golf trip. You have carved out the time to go and play golf, you have agreed on a plan and settled the itinerary. You may have had lesson in advance or an extra session on the range; you will have been checking the weather forecast and cleaning the grooves on your wedges. And getting there, rain or shine, you enjoy for a moment the joyful pointlessness of time devoted just to golf for the days ahead of you. And then on the second hole of the second day you (well I) take a 10 on a par 4, without even losing a ball!, and all that preparation and planning, those hopes of your game coming together after a winter of training lie in ruin. Your card, and while you were never threatening the course record, is wrecked for sure. What you do know matters. Do you curse and swear and hurl your putter into the undergrowth? Do you sulk for the rest of the front 9, grunting and grumbling as your playing partners try to go about their business unaffected? Or do you find the strength to laugh, to smile, and to remember how good it feels, no matter how bad your game, to be out and playing golf?

Recent Golf convened in Munich, early in May, for our first trip of the year. Organised by Moritz, freshly relocated to Munich, we had a fantastic few days at Wittelsbach, Eichenreid and Margaretenhof. Wittelsbach is routed through the grounds of the former riding schools of the Bavarian royal family. It is a parkland course with some challenging holes and the most wonderful trees - figuring out how to get round a tree is a little less frustrating (though no less challenging) when it’s a magnificent 250 year old oak. Eichenreid is Moritz’s home club and home to the BMW International Open, a DP World Tour event and as a result has the best conditioned greens I’ve ever seen in Germany. It’s clubhouse is stylish and approachable, and while a tournament prevented us playing a full 18 holes (we had a 9 hole evening scramble instead), I was really impressed by its openness and ease. Margaretenhof felt truly Bavarian, a short distance from Tegernsee with a lower alpine feel, huge changes in elevation and spectacular views. 

Golf’s great test is that while it tests our skills, which we can practice, or our strategy, which we can work on, it also tests our temperament and our character. In those moments when the game can seem so cruel you can feel so alone, lost in the sudden impossibility of escaping from a bunker or holding the ball on the green. But we are not alone, we are all moments away from the nightmare hole, as Nelly Korda showed three holes into the LPGA at Lancaster Country Club. You, me, Nelly Korda and Tiger Woods. We can all collapse and we owe it to each to smile and stay cool when we do.

In June we are off to Scotland again for our big trip of the year. Our focus is Aberdeenshire, where we will play Murcar, Royal Aberdeen and Cruden Bay. A trio of tough and scenic courses, where the wind and the weather can make for a serious test, and at a time of year when the rough will be long and the greens quickening. To prepare we have a couple of rounds on our way up at Dunbar and Montrose, two classic old links courses that hug the coastline (to its detriment at Montrose where coastal erosion has removed parts of the 2nd fairway) and require all the nerve and guile and luck that makes links golf so much fun. If you’re reading this and will be nearby in the fourth week of June (22nd - 29th), drop us a message and join us for a round. When it all goes wrong a few holes in, I promise to keep smiling.