The Wonders of Cottesmore

Posted by Jamie on 17 October 2010 | 0 Comments | Tags: , , ,

Never is our life made easier than when we have the privilege of staying at the club we??re playing.  Happily this was the case today at Cottesmore.  It was sheer coincidence that our path crossed with this lovely little country hideaway, and a very happy one at that.  You see, the proprietor Matt Rogerson and his wife Sue were at our launch event, back on 25 January at Terrace Downs.  Matt and his friend Paul were random entries in the field, and we had the pleasure of playing around with them.  Naturally the conversation turned at some point to where the remainder of the journey would take us, one stop being England.  Matt insisted that when we make it down to West Sussex we pop in for a visit.  So we did.  And here we are.

Today fell at the front end of a 5 night stay in the wonderful Cottesmore Lodges (ours was ??Carnoustie? ?? they??re each named after an Open course north of the border).  Matt and Sue were still up in Scotland fishing, but we were instructed to make ourselves at home, and enjoy the facilities.  After the chaos of the past week or so ?? from Birmingham, through Somerset and into Wales, and down to Devon and Cornwall ?? Cottesmore was an appealing prospect to say the least.  Something of a holiday.  

It??s been like staying in an alpine resort ?? the wood cabin having had a therapeutic, almost medicinal effect on our bruised bodies.  Waking up I may as well have been deep into the Swiss Alps (except it was Tunnocks Tea Cakes by the bed, not Toblerone, and a rooster outside, not a yodeler).  We each had our own bed on this occasion too!  Bart??s been a fantastic injection into the puregolf2010 engine, but the novelty of sharing a bed with him is starting to wear off.  Sorry Bart.  Replace the B in his name with an F and you can guess what he spends most of the night doing.

The Fuhrer had us up bright and early, and into the pool for a spot of aqua jogging.  We looked like a bunch of woofters, but if I??m being honest the episode did wonders for les jambes.  Some improbable underwater routines were followed by Bikram yoga-like stretching torture in the gym.  What a treat it was though to have these facilities at our disposal.  The same can be said of the washing machine and dryer not 30 yards from Carnoustie ?? which got a good going over given we??ve been ??saving up? a regiment??s worth of soggy breeks.  Yes, Cottesmore has been the full shilling.

Back over breakfast Michael and I were topped up with pills and powders ?? Berocca, Glucosamine, fish oil, etc ?? by our new dietician.  From woofter to geriatric in the space of an hour.  With our tee time not scheduled until 1250 (on the Phoenix Course, little brother of the two), we had a spare hour or two with which to catch up on, well, everything.  Primarily blogs.  The sun was shining; we had Toons blaring through the fresh country air of Carnoustie; and life was incredibly good.  After having done a shop last evening too, there was a full fruit bowl from which to gorge ourselves to keep productivity levels up too.  Ahhhhhhhh...

Matt and his father Michael built the golf courses themselves, from scratch.  Pioneers of the industry, they were.  The first of the farmers to spot a gap in the market ?? golf at this point remained a largely elitist game in the south of England ?? they quickly found a following (600 members in the first couple of months) and went from strength to strength.  They even had a waiting list of 200 before long.  As the story goes, however, the R&A banjaxed everything ?? by bringing out a document called ??The Way Forward? in 1988 (?).  The learned gentlemen at that distinguished institution had done their sums ?? totalling all the waiting lists in the UK ?? and came out with a projection that another 700 golf courses were required to satisfy demand.  What they failed to account for was the fact that many people had their names down on several waiting lists, giving a distorted (inflated) picture of reality.  Needless to say, where Matt and father Michael had paved the way, a slew of other farmers followed.

Cottesmore however continued to enjoy success, and over the years Matt has added to the business with wisdom and enthusiasm.  It??s quite amazing what he??s achieved.  The set up now includes a fully functional country lodge (run separately for the past 12 years), which does weddings and weekend parties and the like.  Of course there??s the health club too, and the Lodges themselves (which for me were the highlight).  It??s a smashing piece of land; something Matt can be very proud of cultivating into what it is now.  Incidentally his only brother runs the school next door, the other half of the family legacy.  These Rogersons are a canny bunch.  

And a charming lot too.  Sue the Rogerson matriarch is a first class cook, and has been blessed with a nature of unparalleled grace.  It hasn??t skipped a generation either: we had the pleasure of catching up with youngest daughter Louisa, who??s as charming as ma and pa.  The newest addition to the family ?? Louisa??s husband of 3 months, JP (another one) ?? rounds off the bunch with a wealth of youthful charisma and fire in his belly.  A great lot to chew the fat with over dinner, as we were fortunate enough to find out.  



Thanks go then to the Rogerson Clan for their wonderful hospitality.  Cottesmore has been a delight and a half, and we look forward to seeing y??all back in NZ in December  / January!  For those not privy yet to the well kept secret that is Cottesmore, check it when you??re next near London ?? you won??t regret it believe me.

JP

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