Last week on Friday, I played at Heidelberg Golf Club which is north east of Melbourne to represent our gold club, Woodlands, as part of a team of six.

I’m not going to lie, I was a bit daunted to be invited to play because I’m still relatively new to golf and my handicap is high.

However, the Meg Evans Cup was established in honour of Meg Evans who was a member of all three clubs early in the 20th century and had won many championships for both Victoria and Australia. The Heritage Committees of all three clubs, Woodlands, Heidelberg and Kew play a game and represent the Plate to the winning club.

It was the first time I had played at Heidelberg and while others hired a motorised kart, I thought I’d just push my golf buggy around but in hindsight, I should have got a kart too. Heidelberg has HILLS! I felt most of the time, I was bent over horizontally pushing my buggy up steep slopes and the kind of golf I had to play was a lot harder. I had to hit them high in order to get to some flat terrain so the ball doesn’t dribble down due to gravity.

Although we used the cards, and not the MiScore app, I didn’t want to know the other’s scores except for who I was marking. In that way, I had less to think about because all that was on my mind was having a good shot, with distance, that can get nearest to the green – or some flat land.

When I play golf, I don’t play safe. I know I should but I don’t. I figure if I can get enough distance closer to the pin, if I’m in some trouble, such as the rough or in a bunker, I still can use penalty shots OR simply get myself out of the trouble (there’s 50% chance I do so I take that risk).

I did that on a Par 3 at Heidelberg. I was high off the tee, below there was rough and to the right of the green, a lake. I had ONE shot, one drive to get it to the green and I just went for it. Smashed it as hard as I could and thankfully, landed ON the green. Everyone hooted and hollered, then a 2 putt and I got it in Par (ACTUAL par!). I still had a couple of extra shots on that though as my high handicap gives me these extra.

Overall, my final result was that I got 40 points which was the highest score of the day especially on a course I’ve never played before and that EXHAUSTED me because most of it was uphill. Plus I also wiped one hole.

Did we win the Plate and take it back to Woodlands for 2023? Unfortunately no. There was a miscount initially and we thought we had won it but Heidelberg pipped us at the post. An enjoyable day meeting other members and enjoying refreshments and a round of golf and looking forward to playing this again in 2024 if they’ll have me!