The Belfry Hotel & Golf Complex. Stag golf. First up was the The Derby course, the chunkier, sweatier, less attractive sibling of the Brabazon & PGA National courses. The kind you see nervously fidgeting on the edge of a late 80's nightclub dance floor, fingers secretly crossed, praying for a slow dance to Luther Vandross's latest generic chart hit.
If you have never played it, you actually have. Every mid range municipal in your area ticks all the boxes the Derby has to offer. A series of bland holes, a good hole thrown in here and there, average fairways & greens marked like a Ray Liotta skin condition. Don't get me wrong, it's not awful for this time of year, but if you have one of those £99 overnight Winter deals and you play the PGA course next day, the difference in quality is huge. (there are less electricity pylons for a start). Some of my group could have played off the more satisfying PGA turf if their second shot wasn't already deemed out of bounds. The PGA preened itself every hour or so, lifting it's head over the boundary hedges, taunting us with it's winding fairways, deep bunkers & superior emerald green fairways. Almost wanting to sound-track itself, this time by a heavy set man in a buggy shouting to his group, "IT IS MY F**KIN BALL DAVE, I F**KIN TOLD YA". Then much softer, to himself, as he disappeared back below the tree line, "I f**kin told him it was my ball"
I played pretty good, even though the Stag's consigliere had put various bottles of spirits on at least 4 tee boxes. I scored 42pts. Which is amazing considering I have played this course at least 4 times, and played poorly on every outing. I put it down to a hot putter and a quart of Jack Daniels washed down with some kind of powerful rum.
A warning to golfers, "Don't drink & drive.....don't even putt"
The on site Bel Air night club is basically an ill judged time capsule. It's like someone has eaten the 80's and then thrown up on themselves. Me to DJ. "Can you play some Stones, Beatles or...anything like that?" DJ "Yeah no probs mate" as he ignored all requests & looped 'Now That's What I Call Music Vol's 1-8'. My friend the stag, got asked "to leave" around 12.30 ish, I'm still unsure why. Was it because he was last seen crawling around on the floor looking for a lost camera battery, or was it because he was wearing my massive collared shirt and a fur waistcoat?
I missed the next days golf on the PGA. A work commitment probably did me a huge favour from a golfing point of view. Half of the group apparently didn't last the next day on The PGA National, it beat them up and then spat them out. A reminder to all stag/golfers, that dancing at 2.30am to 'Alexander O' Neal's Criticize' is not the best way to prepare for one of the toughest tests an amateur golfer will have to face.
