Away Day Sunday St Mellion

St Mellion

The rain of Saturday gave way to a gorgeous day on Sunday...clocks had gone forward but we all managed to get to St Mellion in good time with no traffic delays... we were soon greeting old friends and beginning the catch up!

It was lovely to see Dorothy and Val F; Sonia, Jan and Doris who all travelled far to join us.

Our competition today was Secret Partners. 
We each played our own ball and then we were each drawn a secret partner!  Jean was in charge of the cards and did a sterling job!

We played the Kernow Course and went out in groups of 4; Viv, Val G and Anne just played the first 9 holes.

St Mellion had apologised to Sue  for the condition of the greens. The awful weather of recent times meant that their scheduled green preparation had to be delayed and the greens had just been hollow-tined and sanded. 

This meant that putting was a bit of a lottery and this was reflected in our scores for sure.


I have had fun looking through the cards and I know many felt they didn't play well...but it was common to us all!   I don't have the cards from the six winners but among the rest of us we averaged 9 points on the front nine!

Angie doing her warm up routine while Frieda concentrates on the putt!

We were glad to have the Gliders on our trolley wheels because the fairways were very wet in places. However we had beautiful sunshine and blue skies!
Who would have believed that we'd be playing in jumpers rather than all the layers we've had to wear recently?

Looking down the first

The first two holes are long par 5s. The fairway was fairly wide and undulating and there were a plentiful scattering of bunkers to keep us on our toes!

Getting ready for the off!

Soon we were away!

Ros and our glorious blue skies.

Looking back at the first tee.

I have to admit to playing the first two holes quite well...I even parred the 2nd... but you know the expression about Pride ... well it all went to pieces on the third.
If it hadn't been for Lindsay's persistent searching I would have lost two balls on that hole... the little par 3!

Lyn's group at the third tee

The third green

Well done to Fi and Chris J who parred this...but I must make special mention of Angie who hit a fantastic shot from behind the hedge... it flew over the hedge beautifully! It was worthy of shot of the day... more of which later. 

You can see how wet the fairways were in this picture of the 4th.


The 5th was another par 3 and five of our ladies parred it!
Well done to Lyn, Val F, Bev, Frieda and Una. 

The 6th hole was tricky...a dog leg uphill and playing across a road on to a raised green.

 Antoinette, Fi, Val F and Angie all parred the par 3 7th 😃

9th hole

After a welcome wee stop (how sensible to have on course toilets... and with four loos so no waiting!) we surveyed the 10th.

Well...how can one resist!  I decided to have a go...it was unlikely that I could reach the green but I thought it was worth a crack...and (a bit surprisingly) I hit a beauty... it sailed towards the green...we watched it closely... there was no splash...and we were all sure it had cleared the water... but we never found it!
We searched and searched...but the ball remained hidden...😭
... no score for me then! Sigh!

But well done to Sue S and Val F who parred the hole!
Brilliant!#

Chris L, Sue S, Lyn and Judy getting ready on the 12th

Well done Una for being the only one to par the tricky 12th.

Fran teeing off the 13th

After this we reached the fabulous 14th!

What a spectacular hole!  The card says it is 122 yds... but that is all carry!

We had a bit of a bottleneck here but it was welcome as we could watch each other play the hole and help spot the ball. Quite often we thought the ball had carried but it was actually in the bank!

The 14th  green and its steep bank

I believe Una crawled down said bank to retrieve a ball...an extremely risky business... and after finding it had to crawl back up on hands and knees... she tossed the ball on to the green only to discover it wasn't her ball...it was Sonia's!

Well done to Hil's for parring this hole... and sincere apologies to Chris L and the group in front of us because I almost took them out with my shot ...ending up on the path right next to them!  I'm SO sorry!

Antoinette and Fi parred the next hole up the hill which was followed by the little downhill par 3.

Here Pam, Doris, Hils, Sue D and Antoinette all got pars!  Well done!

Exhaustion had certainly set in by this time and the long 18th was very hard to score on.

Well done everyone!

Our winners were Fran and Jane L who scored 50 between them! Well done!

In second were Lindsay and Bronwen who scored 45 and in third were Claire and Judy who scored 44.

Not including the above wonderful winners, Antoinette, Val F and Fi all had three pars apiece - well done.

The average score for us as a whole group was 19... it shows how difficult it was today!

Oh, and shot of the day?

Fi was playing out from behind a tree... determined to do a half swing and follow through...but in fact did a full swing... the  3 wood was of no further use!

Fi receiving the 'Shot' of the day!

More about today's wonderful trophy in the next blog.

If any of you have any fun pictures that you'd like to share then email/whatsapp them over to me - thanks :-)