Hector's Vacation

This morning we were all up early due to a small error on my part; when I plugged the clock back in last night I managed to set the time one hour ahead so Dad left to get his paper at half eight not half nine, and I was up for about nine. This meant that after feasting on 'pain, beurre, confiture, tarte aux pommes et chocolat chaud' we left for the course by half ten. When approaching the course in very windy conditions there was barely a sole out there, yet as we stepped up to the teea lone woman had appeared, but playing by herself we were not worried about having ot wait.

Yesterday the round was made very stressful by having to start on the 7th and then playing round to the 6th as a consequence of following a family of 5, 4 of whom were hacking their way around the course. Today's round was much better with scores of 46 and 48 in a quick time of only one hour fifteen minutes, compared to the average of about two hours so far. We dived back to the hotel for lunch and decided that as we were back so soon we'd try to get on the course again straight away to leave us some time by the pool in the afternoon, allowing for the Deauville weather to redeem itself and clear up to be a beautiful evening. As indeed it did.

The second round was held up at first by two men who were doing a circus act, so comical was it to watch. Fortunately they let us through at the second, though with the self imposed pressure of having to impress them and prove that they were right to let us through- I sent the ball heavily slicing to the right and ended up crossing the neighbouring fairway as well. Miraculously I recovered for a 5 on the par four. With the path clear both of us played well even if Hector wasn't joining in and was only giving mildly encouraging looks from his pocket in the golf bag. Dad and I were driving well and I was holing many of my putts, this lead to our best rounds yet of 42 and 44.

At the 9th hole I hit a superb drive, enourmous distance but fading towards the end left me with a very challenging second shot from within a small clump of trees- the "hit it and hope" philosophy paid off well as a low, skidding jab at the ball gave me a good position to approach the green and I ended up with a birdie 4.


This left me very happy for the day. Hector had spent most of the afternoon in a generally unimpressed mood and when it came to packing the clubs away he was unwilling to help out, finding it fit only to slouch around and point out that the red golf bag should go on top of the blue bag.