Love the setting of the Hawkstone Course, beneath the high red sandstone cliffs that house the Hawkstone Follies and echo with the shrill screams of Red Kites circling ominously overhead, waiting to pick the bones out of the remains of your round, should you slip or stumble into one of the many hidden perils that await....
The torrential cloudburst that heralded our arrival on the 1st tee, set the mood for the epic battle that was about to begin, as 6 mighty golfing warriors assembled to fight it out for the 2024 Sid Cup, in memory of Sid Mills, the football, cricket and golfing legend of Swindon.
The course itself is a delight to play, and has more geography per square foot than a 1970's teacher with corduroy elbow patches.
Hidden gullies and cliff edges, ravines and hollows are all skillfully and seamlessly used, to create the golf course that created Sandy Lyle.
The greens were true, the fairways lush and the bunkers heavy (especially as wet), but eminently escapable as long as you 100% commit to the shot.
In wet summers the course does suffer with water and I was concerned as the forecast was not good and annoyingly, turning out to be accurate.
The 10th hole, playing down to the iconic Hawkstone red sandstone bluff had a small amount of casual water, but a drop 5 yards either way was sufficient to deal with that. The rest of the course was fine, despite the regular return of the predicted "heavy showers".
The weather did treat us to a few episodes of glorious sunshine too, and during those all to brief episodes, the course was a picture.
Like the Championship course, The Hawkstone is heavily tree lined, but not so much as to punish the careful golfer. Unfortunately for me, I rather like to go for it, a bit too much, but accept the risk/reward ratio of 1 success to 3 disasters with good grace.
Sadly, although the 1st group finished all 18 wonderful holes, our 2nd group had to abandon their adventure half way down the 17th as a lightening flash, followed 1 second later by a roar from the mighty Thor, precipitated a mass evacuation from the course.
So the 2024 Sid Cup was decided over 16 holes and for the 4th time in a row, we had a new winner - sekuru McCarthy (Big Al), transforming his tour from zero (Oswestry) to hero (Hawkstone) in 4 amazing days.
We miss you Sid....
