North Berwick, Scotland, 2014
Whilst in many ways MADJIC inherits its own dimension (a dimension in which 40-something golf bores pore over the minutiae of their own game and re-enact the shots they played that day as if their friends give two shits) certain parallels with 21st century life on earth are unmistakable. Economists advise that boom will at some point lead to bust. Physicists declare that what goes up must eventually come down. Scientists are adamant that night will be followed by day and Realists are all too aware that a MADJIC of epic proportions must give way to a more formulaic and mediocre event.
The glorious years in verdant and welcoming Ireland gave way to the lull of France, with its shanks, put-me-ups, foxes on heads and ragged ball cleaners.
Excellent accommodation, the imposing Jack Nicklaus course at St Mellion and the rise of perennial ‘Div Group Captain’ Chenners to fight to the nail-biting end were enough to convince us to return to Cornwall the year after an incredible 2011 event; a mistake that won’t be repeated: Augusta may just be about good enough for the Masters to return year after year but the blind tee shots of a gusty China Fleet don’t quite elicit the same anticipation.
So, with South Wales delivering what is widely acknowledged to have been ‘The Best MADJIC Ever’™, history has taught us that what was to follow was going to be a sure fire disappointment. ‘Kaizen’, the concept of continuous improvement, might sound good on someone’s Linkedin profile but ultimately we all know its pretentious bollocks and that the people who put it are utter knobs.
Don’t we?
Well, they are, that’s just a fact, but just occasionally good can get better and great can become phenomenal.
I’m sure Genesis fans were in mourning when Peter Gabriel walked out only for the drummer to be handed the mic as he had the least offensive voice of the remaining group. And how must Liverpool fans have felt when Bill Shankley announced his retirement after the most glorious chapter in Liverpool’s history?
Step up Phil Collins to deliver Invisible Touch, In the Air Tonight and Su Su Sudio and step up Bob Paisley with his 6 Manager of the Year awards, 6 League Titles, 3 European Cup wins, 3 League Cups and a Super Cup on top and step up, once again our own Kaizen Six Sigma black belt, Anthony Chenery with a bid to take us to the Golf Coast of East Lothian, Scotland.
It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, golf is coming home
The inevitable #bantz started from the day it was decided we were going and as ever proved to be the most tedious part of the whole experience, but after what seemed like 25’000 emails (of the 40’000 in total) discussing golfshake / handicaps / people’s form, Friday June 13th arrived with much anticipation, excitement and the hope that it wouldn’t prove to be an inauspicious date.
If you are wondering as to the contents of the remaining 15’000 electronic ‘work interferences’, they mostly concerned the big dilemma that all those with nothing else to organize had to ponder – train versus plane?
When you have eight guys arguing over travel routes, the stakes are always going to be high. Strong arguments were put for both sides but ultimately the thought of a hop, skip and a jump in a jet propelled carriage versus 6 hours plodding through the British countryside were too compelling for most; only Frosty and Justin let the train take the strain and the race to win bragging rights and vindication for relentless and banal emails about travel meant everyone was pumped.
The day started early in south London as Frosty’s alarm clock chimed into action at about 5.30am. Only a number 63 bus to Peckham Rye to catch the 6.24am Bexlyheath to London Bridge train, followed by 6 stops on the Northern Line train to Kings Cross before he could be safely ensconced in his corridor seat outside the toilets for the half a day journey to Edinburgh, in time to catch his train out of Waverley station to North Berwick from where he could carry his clubs and luggage to the house. All accompanied by his fellow tight arse railway enthusiast Sythesy.
‘Team Steam’ with time to kill
Meanwhile, the plane posse were giving their clubs a final clean and saying a relaxed farewell to their loved ones at the school gates before their respective taxis arrived to whisk them off to Heathrow. 1-0 to the ‘Tin-Bird Bandits’.
By the time the calls were made to arrange the airport meeting spot, the ‘Loco Lads’ were half a day into their journey but seated, relaxed and pulling into their first stop at Milton Keynes.
“Me, Pro, Chenners and Chilvers are at Check in Zone K Moodie. Baz is already through and having his 3rd pint in the Wetherspoons”
“There isn’t a Zone K. It only goes up to E”
“There is a K. I’m in it Moodie”
“There isn’t. Are you at the South or North Terminal?”
“I’m in Terminal 2. There is no North or South. What airport are you at?”
“Gatwick”
“Idiot. It’s Heathrow. You’ve got an hour until the gate closes. See you in Edinburgh”
It was 8am. Rush Hour. Moodie had an hour to find a cab, get around the M25, check in his case and clubs (Zone K) and get to the gate.
2 Stellas to the good and a lovely view of Kettering outside the right hand window. 1-1.
The fact that he made it was a miracle and to this day I’m not sure how he did, but as he came puffing up to the gate it was obvious to all that he would become the first man never to retain the MADJIC crown. Not for the last time that holiday we surveyed a fellow competitor and chalked off their chances of winning. His head simply wasn’t right.
To be fair to the Leicester Jester, he put a brave face on things and almost convinced himself that his shredded nerves would not play a part in the defense of his title. When he arrived in Edinburgh however, only to find that his clubs hadn’t, the game was up. It would take a solo return trip the next day before he could even contemplate relaxing but by then his chances had been well and truly scuppered.
Regular radio contact was kept between the two vying teams and like a pre-scripted and utterly staged edition of Top Gear, it was neck and neck the whole way until Baz, the ‘Jet Set’s’ very own James May, decided to throw a spanner in the works and upgrade the cars at the very last minute. All sorts of filthy looks were being passed back and forth as we waited an eternity for the paperwork to be completed, by which time the ‘Choo-Choo Crew’ were disembarking at Waverley and preparing for their final leg along the Firth of Forth. 2-1
Despite following Baz and his sat nav at quite a pace, it was too big a gap to make up and we finally rounded the bend into North Berwick to be greeted by the grinning, jubilant faces of the victors. Game, set and match to the Iron Horse.
After the relative isolation of Ogmore, the choice to stay in town proved to be inspired and the Victorian villa, whilst dated, was ample size and situated right across from the beach and pretty harbor and within a 5 minute walk of the town.
A Room with a View and Outside the House
North Berwick is also incredibly well positioned to make the most of some of Scotland’s finest links courses and so it was that after a slightly stressful bedroom allocation process, 8 guys and 7 sets of golf clubs set off for a pleasant but slightly overcast Dunbar Golf Club.
This Open qualifying venue is one of the best links courses in the country and at 3.30pm, a frazzled looking Moodie got us underway with the Founders in the 4-ball behind. Whilst holes 1 and 2 were an up and back with no scenery to speak of, the long par 3 downhill 3rd takes the players through a wall down towards the coast. Here we start fourteen consecutive holes running along a narrow strip of land by the Firth of Forth meaning a lengthy, testing exposure to the vagaries of seaside golf.
And We’re Off at Dunbar
Probert, fresh from his humiliation in Wales, kept a 6 off his card until blobbing the 17th and 18th holes and took a deserved lead after day 1, though mention must be made of Moodie who birdied 3 of the last 4 holes with his hired clubs to keep him in the chasing pack. In benign weather conditions, the course wasn’t at its toughest and there were respectable scores from all, with the exception of the tour organizer who spent the majority of holes walking from rough to rough muttering that he had come on holiday by mistake. A dark cloud had descended so we gave him a wide berth. At one point, I’m not ashamed to say, he was left to putt out alone as we tee’d up at the following hole. He may have arranged a trip to Scotland but he was momentarily sent to Coventry.
Fore…. Moodie Ripping One
Whilst not a course to have one instantly reach for the superlatives, it was in top condition and offered a bit of everything. Redesigned over the years by the likes of Old Tom Morris, Ben Sayers and James Braid, it is a classic example of links golf set in beautiful surroundings and was well worthy of opening such a prestigious tournament.
Next up was the joker in the pack, Whitekirk, and what a joker it turned out to be. Probert’s only contribution to the organization of the event turned out to be one blind shot after another, up and down mountain and glen and as karma would have it, it saw him slip well down the leaderboard.
Set on Whitekirk Hill the course enjoys commanding views of East Lothian, Fife and the many famous landmarks, including the Bass Rock, North Berwick and Tantallon Castle. Commanding views don’t come without commanding hills though and there weren’t many flat lies to be found anywhere.
Some took the high road, some took the low road and some occasionally managed to make the green afore a blob. It was with some astonishment that Baz (82), Stokes (97), Moodie (86) and Justin (91) managed to score over 30 points, whilst Anthony swapped his sombre mood as well as his position at the bottom of the pile with Dave. It was his trousers that he needed to be swapping though as his misjudgment carried over from the golf to the wind direction during a routine toilet break. A sheepish look, a strategically placed jumper and weak protestations that it was an Evian spillage had his group struggling to keep their concentration. As for Chilvers, It wasn’t so much his score that irked him, more the cost of the 2 boxes of balls he went through whilst trying to battle a horrific slice that never left him all week.
Nothing to See Here
A change from links golf I suppose and there were some memorable holes, but not a course I would travel far to play again though Stokes, who was now sitting atop the scoreboard would surely disagree.
June 14th was about much more than the golf thankfully. The gods had been kind and much like a golfing version of the celestial mechanics that gives rise to a solar eclipse, MADJIC had fallen on the same date as the World Cup and that Saturday night was England v Italy in the first group game live from Manaus, Brazil. Epic.
Now admittedly we could have been somewhere a little more Anglo-embracing, but this is a group that had been out of their comfort zone on many an occasion and always come through: Being the centre of attention in a traditional Irish fishing village as Barack Obama lookalike Justin breaks the occasional chatter about the forthcoming weather with 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’, or surviving a South Wales rugby boyo backwater mini-rock festival or when we spent 4 days in France. With the French!
Surely we could handle a few rowdy Jocks?
Football Night
We started with a fish supper and a couple of liveners back at the mansion and then headed to The Ship Inn on Quality Street for the game. Prime seats were afforded us around a table centre-screen and we filled up as the bar filled up with the young of North Berwick intent on getting lagered and watching the footy. Loyalties appeared mixed and the hostility towards the visitor from south of the border seemed friendly enough. At one stage we even had to fend off the advances of the friendliest of the group of lads behind who was fawning over the England team and seemed more desperate for them to win than any of us. His drunken pro-England rantings were getting louder, he was in multiple full-blown rows with his pro-Italian buddies and then the chants and dancing started and before long the animosity towards him, England and us and was more forthcoming. The Raheem Sterling ‘ghost-goal’ that we all jumped up and raucously celebrated was greeted with howls of derision when it was shown to have hit the side netting and as matey-boy became more frantic, the place turned into a ticking time bomb. I don’t know what provincial Scots put in their Irn Bru on a Saturday night but they all seemed to be on it and I think we were lucky that England didn’t win that game so we could escape with our lives.
Quite an evening and not the best preparation for the toughest golfing challenge to await us, Gullane no. 1, though we did have the foresight to book our first tee-off at 4.10pm.
This gave us just enough time to enjoy the delights of the Lobster Shack where the quality of 7 lobsters and one crab, chips and a glass of chilled white wine were well worth the wait.
Lobster from the Shack
It was moments like this as well as the quality golf that made North Berwick such a memorable venue. There are not many places where you walk 5 minutes to the quayside and sit out and eat fresh fish before taking on an Open qualifying venue. The course snakes across Gullane Hill from where views of East Lothian, Edinburgh and Fife are spectacular. Greens, fairways and bunkers are all superb and the course presents one of the best challenges in Scotland. With punishing rough flanking long and narrow fairways, the abiding memory is of a long, windy monster of a course that took its toll, but the scores suggested that in the main, we coped admirably with it.
Stokes did struggle and just like Pro had dropped from first place on the leaderboard, now it was his turn to capitulate. There are some courses where a 4 iron simply isn’t going to give you a chance to make points and Gullane was one such course. On the other hand, Frosty make a mockery of his pre-tournament odds and shot a sublime 94 gross for an unassailable 37 points.
Baz and Moodie scored well for the 3rd round in a row, though Justin lost touch slightly after five 6’s and three 7’s blighted his card. By this point, Anthony and Dave were embroiled in their own competition to see who could avoid the wooden spoon.
And so it was that we went into the last day with Mark Bailey leading the pack on 100 points, 3 ahead of Moodie, 6 ahead of Probert and 9 ahead of 6th placed Syvaldo, who maybe had an outside chance if the wind was up. But surely the day was going to belong to Baz Dogg, desperate to discard the tag of perennial choker and keen to secure a victory for low handicappers everywhere; so often forced to congratulate through gritted teeth the duffers as they pick up another net eagle on a 137 yard par 3.
“That wee felly’s heeds nae right..”
Perhaps it was the loss of his beloved GPS at Gullane that was affecting him? Maybe it was the effects of a momentous booze session in the Auld Hoose the previous evening when Probes asked a local whereabouts in England his accent was from (Scotland it turned out) or was it his inability to stop laughing at the utterly bemused expression that Dalston Dave received when asking for a ‘Flat White’ at the putting green tea shed in town? Whatever it was, the absolutely pristine surroundings of the bar overlooking the 18th at North Berwick Golf Club didn’t seem to shake it. Nor evidently the full Scottish breakfast that preceded the round, as the jovial and loquacious starter who had given us a full and entertaining history of the course turned to us after a shaky 5 iron off the first and proclaimed that “Seems the wee man’s heed is not right”
Sensing a weakness, Mike and Justin went for the jugular, delivering a two pronged attack on Baz – sublime shot making backed up by just enough chat to start messing with his karma. The Ying and Yang of competitive golf.
5 pars in the front 9 were a solid start but when you are sandwiched between the Birdie Boys, it’s easy to get flustered with Justin out in a sensational 38, followed closely by Mike in 39.
An 8 on the 11th followed by a double on the 12th and Baz had become a Karma Comedian, but the joke was on him. Justin kept up his scoring for a sensational 82, which could have been even better had he not failed 3 times to chip over what must have seemed to him a 12 foot wall that ran alongside the 13th.
The insurmountable wall
And let’s not forget the 4 ball behind, where Moodie was compiling a not too shabby round of 84. As he came down the 18th, a wonderfully wide hole that shares fairway with the 1st, he still felt he was in with a chance of what would have been a remarkable retention of his crown. With OOB on the right and a green just about in reach for the longer hitters (I think Justin may have laid up) he smashed a remarkable 1 wood to the heart of the green for a putt at eagle. A great finish but too little too late as Pro had done enough, scoring on 17 of the 18 holes, to finish top of the pile and reverse his debacle in Wales.
2014 will be remembered as a year of record scoring, with the top 5 players generating more points than 2014’s winner, superb weather conditions, beach front location and more than anything, the sense of quality and history of 75% of the golf courses.
The surmountable wall
The bar is at a level that I am sure is unattainable but Belgium 2015 promises to be a memorable and enjoyable event in its own way. Bring it on!