Golf Tour to Alicante Region, Spain

Day One: Saturday

Once there were Four and now there were Three. At the end of the 2005 cricket season, a plan was hatch by members of Southill Park Cricket Club to invade the golfing areas around Alicante and Punta Prima in the early part of the spring. Here is the story of our intrepid golfers and their quest to tame the spanish courses and the locals.

It was a cold early start for two of our golfing hero's as the awoke to the cries of "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" in a northern twang of Irish as the chauffeur spotted her partner dressed, ready and organised for the start of the day at 5am. Yes, you got Ian Stockdale was organised and ready, something not normally seen during the summer season. The second of our team of three was still snoozing away topping up his beauty sleep! I hear you cry that he needs it, but Dave Pike, the youngest of the team needed to relax and sleep off the bottles of beer consumed with the white wine he had drunk during the evening.

Car packed and driver ready, the two golfers hung on for dear life as the irish banger racer driver sped off down the A6 to Luton Airport. Women drivers are not the best thing in the world, especially when its an early start, one of your team has a hang over and you want to get to the airport alive. The accelerator is for go and the brake is for stopping and the speed limits, well they are for others to observe. Thankfully we got there in one piece and alive.

At the airport, Dave Pike's organisational skills started to warm up to the situation, at the same sort of pace as the sun was rising and on a regular 4 minute interval Dave got up to check the departures board. At this time we had no idea what the third member of the team was doing...the imagination only boggles at the idea. Zebadee was bouncing off to the departures board and being a skin flint refused to purchase the £4.50 Cricketer magazine for its articles on how to play golf the Duncan Fletcher way. So, as thoughts started to cross our minds to the thought of food and breakfast we gazed at the bangers and burgers. It was time to take our lives in our hands and head off to get food, and were about to take this leap of faith, but alas, the last call was announced for the Monarch flight to Alicante. Bugger!! there goes the idea of food as we headed off to the departure gates.

Well, what can we say about the Monarch setup....hmmm, well its far better than Easy Jet and well, safer than Ryan Air and their female pilots.

The flight went without hassle and our Richie Benaud sound alike ran up and down the plane as trolley dolleys do trying to sell us all food drinks and useless items of crap. "1-2 1-2 " was the only thing we could think of as he twittered away during the flight and this to the utter amusement of Dave, as he thought of our fourth golfer who had pulled out. Shame we had no one to compete with this Benaud sound alike, if only Clive had come with us like he was supposed to.

Well,we landed at Alicante and made our way to the villa near Punto Prima. At a steady speed of what could be described as FAST, the AP-7 was open and clear and it took us 40 mins to get to the villa dump our stuff and head to the first course of 9 holes at Campamour before the light faded and the third of the team arrived at Murcia Airport.

Well what a disaster! We got to Campamour Golf course, booked in and got our golf buggy, then went to the driving range to warm up. That was the start of the whole thing. Dave, and the organiser Stocky got to the first tee late...thank god another pairing were late too but the spanish 3 minute interval between groups is a little tight. Teeing off Stocky put his first two balls into the right of the fairway, out of bounds. Dave hit a nice straight shot with a little draw down the middle of the fairway, but either way it still went down hill for both our golfers. Lets say at the end of 9 holes we had got the cobwebs out of our game and ready for the following day.

It was now time to pick up the "judge" at Murcia and head out for some well earned food in what was the commercial district nearby. Day one was drawing to a close.

That evening the three amigos ventured to a nice french restruant and with kangaroo, chicken tikka and paella on the menu a gratefully rest full and relaxed evening was had by all........next step was an early morning at La Finca.

Day Two: Sunday

Well, what a nights sleep that was....Dave decided to give blood in buckets full during the night, but via his nose, not something you would expect to see. In fact no one saw it, only the after effects as both stocky and the judge we fast asleep. Jonesy in his double bedded OAP facilities and stocky in a snug single. So when it came to waking everyone up, it was the judge who knocked us all up, good job there were no women present.

Breakfast was an excellent affair at Macy's Cafe, with three large english breakfasts hitting the spot before setting off on the 30 min drive inland to La Finca Golf, near Algorfa. As we set off no one knew the trials and tribulations that would face us on this short drive.

The three amigos played Campamour, La Finca and Las Rambles course, playing some high handicap but fair golf on what was some very difficult courses.