Kia Ora. Today Iâ??m blogging about the Marquess course at Woburn Golf Club.Â
Todayâ??s antics are only partly about golf as this was an international travel day. A rare commodity in our year of golf and so bear with me â?? this blog will be golf focused and a video of the smooth logistics that drive puregolf2010 is below.
Weâ??ve also had some feedback about our length of blog and thus Iâ??m going to keep it short. Any other feedback is welcome â?? please email us.  Although, to you 8 readers out there in the wide world of the web, be prepared for a few changes around this website in the coming months as we near the end of our adventureâ?¦..
So to Woburn. A renowned golf club to the North of London, outside the M25 but yet very accessible for the 1000 million people that live in this metropolis (judging by the swarm of cars that clog up the M25 each day). The words that I want to write about the congestion in London are unprintable.
Enough with the negativity and more about the course that has Mr Poulter on its books and which used to be run by a recent character in the puregolf story, Mr Eddie Bullock. During Eddieâ??s tenure here the Marquessâ?? course was built to complement the two existing courses â?? the Dutchessâ?? and the Dukesâ??.Â
We didnâ??t get a chance to walk around the Dutchessâ?? or the Dukesâ?? but from all accounts they are a seriously tough test of golf and youâ??ve got to be very very very straight. A good thing we were playing the Marquess I thought to myself!
The Marquess course is a little more open yet every hole is tree lined. It is a parkland course in the style of many we experienced in the US where the trees frame the holes but each hole is still designed around specific hazards, be they bunkers, undulations or â??feature treesâ??. In the words of a learned friend of mine, there are wide playing corridors unlike some claustrophobic and basic designs through narrow tree lined fairways in New Zealand. Feature trees frame many holes here such as the par five 7th where you choose your line on a split fairway with trees overhanging from the centre. But before this I had encountered my first â??feature treeâ?? on the first long hole, the par five second where a huge pine guarded the green repelling any shot coming in from the left hand side of the fairway and collected my ball fading to the pin and spat it back into the trees. Bugger.
[the par 5 7th hole]
On the second hole we were joined by Glenna who had kindly arranged for us to play here. Glenda is actually the daughter of Sir Michael Bonallack who can still be seen around here every now and again. Glenna has been working here for many years and was understandably very proud of the course. In true English style sheâ??d also brought her dog out for a walk, but this dog was still in training and was jumping around on the lead like a schizophrenic monkey on E. In a few months time however, the dog will be as well trained as Martinâ??s from Sunningdale yesterday.
The course, designed by Peter Allis, Alex Hay and Clive Clark actually reminded me of a Tom Fazio design, which is a big complement as heâ??s the guy many courses who want to be world class normally engage. It has some atmosphere as the hole roll up and over the land and weave through the pine trees. The course is really well conditioned â?? weâ??ve been playing some winter golf of late but Woburn was a great respite from this and we had firm lies and the greens rolled pure.
In this autumnal weather the deciduous trees had turned the backdrop to the closing holes into an impressive array of reds and oranges. A beautiful yet bruising close to the course as a few long par fours leave you coming home in a puff.
My energy levels were ok today after a great sleep at DCâ??s and I snuck in 5 birdies for only the third or fourth time this year. JP and Bart were more afflicted by DCâ??s hospitality and the excitement that was building around our whirlwind visit to the continent. Â
So after about 3 hours we shook hands on the 18th, loaded our clubs up in the Tank and thanked the team at Woburn for having us. A great morning of golf and phase one of a very long day completed�
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