Over the last couple of days, ten of the women from our golf club decided to play at 13th Beach which has reciprocal rights with our golf course. It’s a great way to play at other courses.

It was the first time I had been away from home overnight this year – my little mini break – even though only an overnighter and I enjoyed the experience. (I need to get out more obviously).

It was a while in the planning so I made sure my diary was cleared so that I could look forward to my first and only trip away in 2023.

I drove out to the course on the other side of Melbourne at Barwon Heads (took me a couple of hours with the crazy traffic) and met up for lunch before tee-off time at 1230.

We had organised golf karts for the first day to play the Beach Course which was a wild links course – blowy and vast. I hadn’t used golf karts in years and it made playing a lot easier. It also helped that my golf game had vastly improved. For whatever reason, the vast open fairways meant I could be a free with my swings without fear of losing a ball in scrub where snakes would lurk so I found that my drives and swings were straight and far.

After playing the Beach Course, we finished up around 5pm just enough time to meet up in one of the rooms to have some pre-dinner drinks and munchies. I was quite chuffed with my score of 42 points over the 18 holes.

The next day after a massive breakfast, we played the Creek Course which was a lot smaller but as picturesque. I enjoyed looking at each hole and seeing the bird life and different trees such as banksias. There were signs out for snakes and as it’s the season where they’re out and about, it’s not a time to go looking for lost balls in the scrub. In Australia, every snake is considered poisonous so it’s best to stay on the fairways as much as possible. Unfortunately at our club, we don’t have the vast fairways so invariably I end up losing two balls every round.

The second day, I got 41 points over 18 holes and ended up winning the competition and received 4 golf balls and a 13th Beach green marker for a prize. Let’s hope I can play this well back at my own golf course!

Over the two days, I took video footage and created a full video of our time for the ladies and shared it in our WhatsApp group. I’ve cut down the video (to not show their faces) here.

I’m enjoying golf so much. It ticks all the boxes with me. It’s physical, mental, social, it’s something that challenges me to continually improve on. It’s frustrating as all hell but I love it.

Currently, I’m on handicap 38 but I intend to get it down to mid-20s at least so I can start playing in competitions, intra-clubs and other fun events.