Corralejo Golf Society - Fuerteventura, Canary Islands.TUESDAY 8TH JANUARY

Although we had a fun day warm up comp on Friday 4th, Tuesday the 8th was our first official comp of the year. A few changes were voted in at our AGM, so we are now running on an official computer program that calculates handicaps with each game we play. Other changes are we’ve dropped the Sunday fun days this year to make way for the occasional special comps so watch out for those. We also welcome in our Captain for 2008, last year Dennis May did a splendid job and has set the precedence for our new captain, John Burgess. Elected vice and next years captain was Vince Price, who also fills in for any duties whilst John is away.
We had a good turnout for our fun day last Friday, but our first main comp of the year was sold out! We actually had to squeeze in an extra person at the last minute but still managed to get everyone out 10 minutes ahead of schedule! So 37 of us including 11 guests set out to tackle the course. The weather was pretty much perfect, there was a slight breeze which grew as the day went on, but blue skies mostly and a blazing sun was what we had to cope with on that fine January morning.
With the extra person we had to send out three groups of three on the first tees of which I was in the 2nd with Rob from the Kings Arms, our unofficial clubhouse and Alan Wrigley a café owner and entrepreneur from Blackpool! Rob had a bit of luck on the first after bouncing out of the houses on his tee shot and me and Alan played the hole more conventionally. The tee on the infamous 2nd hole, the hardest hole on the course was from the whites for the men, making it more or less a par 5, and a hard one at that! Despite actually getting off the tee without being out of bounds (for the first time in 3 weeks!), I still didn’t manage to score on the hole but Alan did. In fact Alan was clocking up a tidy little score on the front 9. The most eventful hole for us though was the dog leg par 4, sixth hole. Myself and Alan were in the middle of the fairway with our tee shots, but Rob hit a corker cutting the corner and ending up about 60 yards from the green. Rob came up short on his 2nd and left himself a 20 foot putt for birdie, which he sank! Alan duffed his 2nd shot into trees at the side of the green and after eventually finding it he hacked it out to the side of the green and then chipped in for par! I on the other hand, was at the side of the green for 2 and 3 putted for bogey! The back 9 was eventful too, with some great golf shots as well as some awful ones! I managed to pull it back a little and played to my 10 handicap scoring 36 points, Rob had lost the will to live, and Alan chipped in again on the 18th giving him 37 points and joint 3rd with Gordon Gilhooley, Vince Price and up and coming rookie Lynden Bartlam. In 2nd place was our very own thespian, Paul Benham with 38 points and the days’ winner, Steed Ansell, just back from getting hitched to his fiancé Jenny, romped in with a staggering 42 points off an 18 handicap. It seems that the taste of wedding cake has given him some extra zing in his Ping! Well done Steed!
In the guest comp, Lynden Bartlams’ brother-in-law Paul Wilson beat off competition from the other 10 guests and won it with a very respectable score of 33 points off a 26 handicap with his 15 year old son Richard in 2nd place with 30! Nearest the pins were won by Steed Ansell on the 7th and new member, David Galavan got nearest on the tricky 15th hole. Only one person managed to get a 2, so the 2’s comp and also lucky sweep winner, was Terry Blood, it was a good day for him!
Check out our website www.CorralejoGolf.com to see this year’s fixtures and please note that due to both courses being very busy in winter months, we have limited spaces for players so please contact myself or Derek in good time (at least 4 days before the comp) to guarantee a place in any of our comps.
Don’t forget our next event is on Tuesday 22nd January to be held at the Salinas golf course, tees from 11am. The following two games are at the Fuerteventura Golf Club, 29th January and 5th February tees are from 10am. If you would like to join us for these or any other events, or if you would like any further information about the society, please call Derek Mac on (0034) 646 672888 or drop me an email to corralejogolf@yahoo.com