We’re at Buckinghamshire Golf Club for the penultimate Regional Championship!

At last. After weeks of TT events savaged by the rain, the Buckinghamshire Championship brought sun, pink flesh and mosquito bites galore. Hottest day of the year, but was the golf equally sizzling? Well, it wasn’t bad.

The Buckinghamshire is an inspiring course; there are handsome fairways, tricky tributaries, dinky islands and scratchy stretches of heath. The whole place has been sensitively designed and is immaculately kept and many of the Trilby Tourians raised their games to match the surroundings.

Though…Not all!

Former TT champ Chris Dyson turned up for a round looking incredibly hansom and half the man he once was after some serious dietary adjustments. He struggled to build a score, however, so if that’s what weight loss does for his game he should maybe consider getting back on the pies sharpish.

Elsewhere, one unfortunate player only managed to score a feeble 6 points and after to trying to get away with an N/R without success, was then slaughtered my WH at the leader board. Tears flowed.... with laughter.

A tiny amount of wind arrived in the afternoon to cool the overheated players but many of them simply used this as an excuse to cover poor play. One player hooked his tee shot on the 2^nd so badly that the ball ended up on the 3^rd fairway. ‘This wind is strong’, he rationalised. The wind would have to be gale force, to cover up that slice.

Several of the holes at the Bucks feature streams running across the fairway and as sun-stroked tiredness kicked in many players found it harder to avoid getting their ball wet. The water on the 16^th, in particular, caught many out as it runs right where the players drivers were landing. Fortunately, a few days sun had hardened up the ground so quite a few were lucky enough to see their under-hit shots bounce over rather than landing in the stream.

The glorious 18^th, once it’s bedecked with flags and banners, creates a spectacular amphitheatre for the players to finish their round but more than a few found themselves slightly overawed by the cameras and ended up in the bunker past the green. So many, in fact, that spectators sat hiding from the sun in the nearby trees eventually decided that they were in too much risk of being hit and moved to a safer position.

The Bucks played tough today and so rounds were completed a little slowly, so the 4-man, 3-hole play-off ended up starting a later than usual. Luckily this meant that it was played against the backdrop of a spectacular sunset and, despite the Sky TV crew looking worried about the imminent darkness, a winner finally emerged just as the last of the light went.

Once again, the Bucks proves itself a perfect Trilby Tour course and once again the Trilby Tour proves itself the very best way to spend a day in the sun.

Dave Lee