Sometimes, from time to time, I’m a lucky man. Well, I’m healthy, live a proper life, have enough money for traveling, have a great girlfriend, an interesting job and basically everything to be lucky. But sometimes, as I said, I’m even a bit luckier… and I really appreciate it!

Yesterday I was invited to take part in a corporate golf tournament at the famous London Golf Club. No doubt, I was totally excited and couldn’t wait for the day. The weather is not very good currently but I didn’t care: this was supposed to be the day when I was about to play the Heritage Course, that Jack “The Golden Bear” Nicklaus had created, and I loved the idea – with rain or without.

Getting to the course was a bit of a marathon, but I don’t own a car and I guess that’s the fair punishment. Using the M20 and M25 would take 30 minutes from where I live but the train (plus taxi for the rest) took me nearly 2 hours to get me out of the city… but that’s London, you can’t complain, you knew it better.

Anyway, I got to the course, entered this famous club house and knew: that’s gonna be a beautiful day! And it was! The other people who were invited as well and the hosts, managers across-the-board of a well-known big bank, were very nice people and we all together enjoyed the joint breakfast in one of the club’s old club rooms.

After a short period of preparing clubs, clothes, accessories and a bit of practice, we were heading to the first tee of the Heritage Course. There is another course, the International, but I was told that the Heritage is much nicer and is the “member’s only” course. Plus, it is a European Tour venue and whenever there is a professional tournament, they play the Heritage. I was playing together in my group with two other guys, one with handicap 12, the other with handicap 28.

The course is a real beauty! A nice combination of open field, heather and parkland character, nice undulations, many deep bunkers and lots of water! I haven’t played much in the past months so I was a bit rusty I have to admit. In the end I lost at least 6 or 7 balls, had one bunker where I needed 5 strokes to get out and I had way too many double-bogeys. Shouldn’t be an excuse, but playing a course that you don’t know with rental clubs that you don’t know, is never an easy endeavour.

We all were really lucky because the sun came out the time we went to tee no 2. I totally enjoyed being out there, didn’t care about losing balls in the rough because it was Wednesday and I was playing golf in one of the finest clubs of the country, and you bet looking for some balls in the rough is far better than sitting in the office the whole day, I can tell you!

Have a look at these impressions of the course. Isn’t that gorgeous?

The bank that invited me to the tournament has a corporate membership here and all of their staff can play how much they want. I’m thinking about quitting my job… :)

It was a beautiful day, as you can imagine. After a 19th hole beer and the following dinner I went home and am still dreaming of it. Here is a short video that outlines the setting of the last 4 holes of the course.

Next week I’ll play another upperclass course, The Grove. I keep you posted.