Sun shines on East of England golfers
The sun did indeed shine brightly on Civil Engineers from the region and their guests at the annual ICE East of England Summer Golf day at Hintlesham Golf Club near Ipswich last week.
The course was in superb condition and some excellent scores were recorded. The event was sponsored by Survey Solutions who were on hand to measure the longest drive competition.
Andrew Kenyon, Chair of ICE Essex Branch wrote:
I have wanted to develop some following for golf in the region for some time and this was the first of what will hopefully be an annual golf day. It follows a charity event last summer as part of the Brunel the Bear initiative where a handful of members and guests played at Fynn Valley Golf Club a few miles north. I have also taken part in the ICE South East of England region annual summer golf day last year and I organised our event in the same format.
Hintlesham is a course I have played before but just once a couple of years ago at a charity golf day as a guest – and my memories of the course were good. It also seemed to be a good central-ish location with good road links from most corners of the region. It was also nearby our sponsors – Survey Solutions.
Hintlesham is set amongst the rolling hills of Suffolk and is a parkland course with water only coming into play on two or three holes. The course is tree lined with mature trees and with particularly penal long grass past the first cut rough. Any errant drives are severely penalised. My favourite hole was the Par 3 4th hole – down hill with a small lake in a narrowing of the fairway between trees to a small green protected by some tricky bunkers. Reviews of the course can be found on www.Golfshake.com.
In total we had 17 golfers who signed up to play however 6 of these unfortunately pulled out for various reasons including injury but even with 11 players the day was still a great success. Part of the package was a staple golfers snack lunch of ham, egg and chips – which was excellent – and once this was despatched and some goodies distributed (courtesy of www.golfshake.com) the golf was under way.
Despite the heat and the dratted long grass there were some decent scores recorded. Nearest the pin was won by David Hutchinson who received a bottle of wine. Somewhat surprisingly none of the golfers in the following groups could keep their ball on or near the fairway so the long drive was actually won by me – even though I was just off the fairway and not actually all that long at 207 yards. I was pleased to take away a certificate, shoe bag and a bottle of bubbly courtesy of Dave Bredin and Survey Solutions. Dave didn’t have a particularly busy afternoon but many thanks to him regardless for supporting our event.
It was great that people hung around afterwards to chat and watch the evening sun setting over the course which end what was a really excellent afternoon.
Thanks to all who supported the event - and see you next year.
You can read more about the event on Andy's Blog at http://constructionetc.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/sun-shines-on-east-of-england-golfers/
Click here for an online album of photographs.