Saturday I made plans to golf with a friend / colleague as her family are members at a club up in Oostende right on the sea, and we were planning to go to the beach to enjoy the warm weather in the late afternoon. It was one that I drove by when I went to the sea in December and was excited to get the opportunity to play. But, unfortunately they had a tournament going on during the day so couldn't get on the course until after 3:30PM, so we decided to go to the beach first. Unfortunately, it was about 4 degrees C cooler up by the sea than in Gent, so it was a bit too chilly to go to the beach so when I arrived I was told, "We are going to have some wine on the terrace first before we go out for lunch." So we headed out to the patio and sat in the sun and it felt so warm without any wind. Her and her parents decided to make lunch there and stay because the place we were going to lunch was by the sea and would have been too chilly to sit on the patio. So we started with these massive shrimp that were delicious and probably fresh bought that morning. Then her dad brought out another bottle of wine and we just relaxed and enjoyed the sun and wine. For lunch we had steak, salad, and of course fries. They also made some pigeon that was delicious. After lunch her dad brought out this bottle of red wine that was from this specific region along the southern coast of France and it was delicious. I love how 'to the terrace for some wine' turned into 4.5 bottles of delicious French wine.
Then it was off to the golf course as the 3:30 in the afternoon quickly arrived. I made the mistake of telling them I used to be a scratch golfer so all day that's all I heard - "you are a zero!? Are you sure you want to play with us? You never told me you were a zero!?" I had to keep repeating I used to be, now I am a 5 or 6. So, I had to make sure I played well otherwise they would think I was lying!
The course was neat, pretty short but quite challenging with a strong wind ripping off the coast line the entire time. Of course as soon as we tee off it starts to get cloudy and the wind picks up and blew a constant mist from the sea over us. The mist was so thick it looked almost like fog and we could barely see the sea even though we could hear the waves crashing and were not that far away. Here is a pic but I do not think it does justice. The par 3, 8th hole is sort of there signature hole because you climb up to the tee box and it gives the best view of the sea. The wind was ripping off the coast and I stuck a blistering 6 iron to 12 feet :-). Just barely missed the putt though...
We played ten holes as that put us in the closest position to get back to the club house where we decided to go grab a drink. Again... turned into a couple drinks, then dinner and I had an incredible fish dish and more delicious wine and even an Irish coffee (you would have loved it Dennis). We sat down at a table and her parents made all 4 of us change seating positions to give me the seat with the view of the golf course with the sun setting over the sea. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of it but it was beautiful! Overall, such a great day, reminded me of the good ole days where I hung out at the golf club all day!!
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