Boards Golf Society 2025 (Round 7) - Seapoint Golf Club - 16th August

I'm a late entry for this one too now 🙂

Taking @paulos53's lead and travelling up tomorrow...

Minimum of 2 1/2 hours..

This is the closest course to me in10 years and it's still 1.5 hrs away :/9

Bones of 4 hrs for me.

Luckilya few decent skins in Dublin has a bed for me.

They're not all bad.

Coming from Cork?

And to termonfeckin we go 🏌️🏌️🏌️🏌️

Where are ye set up? I'm in the bar?

Lucky you. I'm in work now.. Long night ahead.

Longest spin of the year and being honest an outing I was on the fence about heading to given the distance, but I'm glad I did.

The course gave me a good hiding. Too tight for my wild game, spent more time looking for balls than hitting them and was starting to get frustrated, but a reasonable back 9 (and the stunning closing holes) made it worthwhile.

It's a stunning course, and makes great use of the parkland holes as well. Not every hole is memorable but there's more there than just the back 9.

Round actually started off well with good approaches into 1 and 3, cleaned up par on the first, and birdied the third which was nice! I dunked the ball into the channel on 2 but made a good putt to save bogey.

Started to fall apart a bit from there, scratched 4 after being stuck in the long stuff, and then 5. I could be here still and wouldn't make that green, just totally got in my head.

Terrible drive on 6 put me on the back foot but managed to recover for a bogey, and had another on 7 after a good knocked-down approach under the wind.

8 played massive into the wind, and after one poor recovery shot and a bad putt that was another scratch, and after bogeying 9 I had another scratch on 10. A ball I thought would have been fine was never seen again.

Don't remember much about 13/14 other than I was getting sick of trapsing around in the long grass, even though I felt I hit what were decent drives, but bogeyed both before a bad chip on 15 caused a double.

Was very cool to see Baltray backing on and the branding for the R&A Boys Championship, and you couldn't not be happy playing that back stretch.

Bogeyed 16 after a good tee shot but couldn't reach with the wind, and then on 17 I hit what I thought was the perfect tee shot, and the wind just never nudged it back towards the flag. It hit a swail and kicked right into a very awkward rough patch, but after duffing the first one, I got up and down for bogey.

After two good shots on 18, I said I'd go aggressive and try and cut a soft 3 wood into the wind to make the green in 3, ended up with a piss missile that went into the thickest grass up there, and after a few hacks and digging myself out of the bunker I scratched for 8.

Played with @Macker1 @tigerwood1 & @a post punk who were all great company and very generous with their help in looking for my wayward shots, can definitely owe a few points to these lads over the afternoon! Was marking Macker who was fierce consistent and hits those fairway woods exceptionally well.

Alan went on a hot streak on the back 9 and hit a gorgeous approach for birdie on 14 and had a look on 17 as well after an excellent tee shot. Terry can really step on a driver and made some superb recovery shots, felt that he got some bad breaks along the way, always nice to play with a fellow Corkonian!

Not sure what my story is for captains. Have a good few weddings so the bank balance is running dry between the round, fuel, food etc etc.

A savage course. I'll go back and play it again soon. Really enjoyed it, and with good company with kiith and fix, though kiith may have taken the brunt of the slagging in our 3 ball this time. Having thick skin helped. Thick skin was also what he needed when looking for golfballs in the marram rough on a number of occasions 😏. Kiith's golf swing is so athlethic and powerful. His good shots, literally on the level of the best tour pros. His drive down 12 on the LD hole, wow, his ball was probably still rising as it passed over my own and fix's. That said, with great power comes great responsibility, and the hooking miss left is a card wrecker for him. His handicap will tumble once he figures that out and a single session with a pro running trackman will go a long way getting him to single figures I'm sure of it. Fix's game was as usual, solid and tight. An excellent 2 for him on the 2nd hole was a nice start. Always clinical with the driver, good course management, and so confident with the putter that it's used from areas I can't even imagine putting from. Feels like he always gets up and down. Weather was stunning, course was wonderful, and banter was full flow. Food afterwards outside then and a bit of craic with everyone was exactly what I needed.

So here goes,

Mulling this in my head it's going to read like the Eminem wannabe penning the Dear Slim letter in Stan, but Dear Golf, why do you break my heart? Had an alright game on Saturday at a lovely golf course in a stunning location, to a monthly stableford competition and I nearly took up Red Bull cliff diving with the bag on my back 🏌️🏌️🏌️🏌️🏌️😭😭😭😭.

Having too many rounds starting well and then second 9 complete capitulation.

Anyway, hey slim????? I mean golf, all roads, mostly motorway led to Seapoint links outside Duleek, County Louth, I arrived way too early to drive into Seapoint Links housing estate and had to double back to the clubhouse.

Needing 3 good finishes to get much needed jug points, I arrived at the car park with about 1hr and a half to spare, plenty of time to loosen, practice and get some putting yips out. Saying hello to @bakerbhoy and @Alanm, the club pro came out to say "You're boards yeah, you're out at 11:20 not 12:20" 😲😲😲😲😲, cue a panic and asking poor @Seve OB to put on the superhero cape to jump in to unplug the panic button.

So with no warm up, if was on to the green tees with @bakerbhoy , @Alanm , and @boccy23. The course was in great nick, definitely will play it again at another stage. The lads were playing some great golf, @alanm just makes the game look so effortless. @boccy23 plotted along the course very well, the highlight as mentioned was the ping into the 12th, great NTP at 2" 2( correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't measure it 🤪) , @bakerbhoy had a great game too and has a brilliant 2nd shot and short game.

My own game was all over the shop, need a putting clinic, just left so many putts behind and it was the difference of a 3pt as opposed to a 2 or 1 pointer.

Think I came in with 30 points, but another should have would have could have.

The restaurant had a fantastic view of the 18th and there was great banter and craic as always afterwards the golf. Congratulations to @Concerned2 with a fantastic 42 points.

As always well done to captain @Kiith for organising the day albeit some administration misdemeanors and the stalwarts and workhorses in the committee sorting out the scores, handicaps, and cards before and afterwards.

So it's on to the range and Lourdes before Captains weekend in Wexford to sort out some part of my game physical and mental .

See you all next month.

Snackbox