Musings from the Jar
May 2023
Match Report: Spring Meeting MMXXIII
in partnership with The second Cookie Jar Spring Meeting was held on the 10th & 11th May at Moortown and The Alwoodley Golf Club. A two day handicap Stableford competition for 33 supporters, friends, and golf obsessives. Moortown & Alwoodley both hold a special place in the history of golf course architecture: Alwoodley being the first design by the great Dr Alister MacKenzie who would go on to work at Royal Melbourne, Cypress Point and Augusta National but not before Moortown which was his second creation and our first stop of the tour. The story is well documented in his seminal book; The Spirit of St Andrews (which we would highly recommend buying), however in short his first effort at Alwoodley was a universal success. Colt was requested by the club to come along and check the work that this young physician had turned his hand to, and provide [...]
April 2023
Match Report: Cookie Jar Masters Friday at Blackwell
The ‘Cookie Jar Masters Friday’ not only coincided with the Bank Holiday Good Friday, but also the best day of weather Britain had seen so far this year. Our 6th event and 4th ‘Mixer’, Masters Friday event saw 44 golfers from all over the country make a pilgrimage to Blackwell Golf Club for a traditional jacket & tie club lunch, 18 holes of golf and an evening of watching trees fall down at Augusta National. Everyone congregated outside the clubhouse to take in their first healthy dose of Vitamin D, mingle and enjoy some drinks. The course was looking sharp following a dreadful month in March which saw a truly biblical amount of rain fall. The normal anxiety about how people will mix and get on with one another quickly faded for the hosts, and seeing people come to their first Cookie Jar mixer on their own, strike up conversations [...]
February 2023
Tour Journal: Royal Hague (Koninklijke Haagsche)
A continued blog piece to coincide with our filming releases in The Netherlands... in partnership with Day 4: Koninklijke Haagsche (Royal Hague) Pulling into our hotel for the night in Wassenaar (an affluent suburb of Den Haag near the golf course), oddly enough it was the same brand of hotel we stayed in on our first night in Ghent - the sort of chain hotel in the Benelux region you would expect if Premier Inn and Village Hotels had a lovechild - ‘Van Der Valk’. We enjoyed a few scant minutes to throw our bags on the bed, a quick sink-shower and chuck a shirt on our backs. Bruce felt there was time to fill the bath and ring everyone in his phone book for twenty minutes, so after waiting patiently and exchanging pleasantries with Willem ahead of tomorrow, Sam headed back to retrieve Bruce from whatever was taking so [...]
Tour Journal: Noordwijkse Golf Club
A continued blog piece to coincide with our filming releases in The Netherlands... in partnership with Day 3 (Afternoon) - Noordwijkse Time was more than tight. I think all three of us are proud to say that we've never missed a tee time before, but this one was looking tighter than Rory’s episode at Medinah in 2012. We departed Kennemer 15 minutes before balls were meant to be in the air at Noordwijkse, Google Maps was showing the journey time as 20 minutes, and it later transpired that the Club was a further 3 miles past the pin location that we'd been aiming at... Bruce was his usual composed and efficient self, driving us safely and very much within the speed limit, whilst Sam rang Maarten to make some advance apologies. Fortunately, we had a small bit of leeway and it looked like we were going to make it. The [...]
Tour Journal: Kennemer Golf & Country Club
A continued blog piece to coincide with our filming releases in The Netherlands... in partnership with Day 3 (Morning) - Kennemer Day 3 of the Tour began with a shrill 6am alarm. Nursing sore heads, we quickly got dressed and packed up the car. This was the only day of the Tour where we would (attempt to) fit in 36 holes at two different courses - Kennemer and Noordwijkse, and two of the Jar were doing so on a heavy dose of Calvados from the night before. Thanks to some motivational quotes and general man-management from Tom, we said farewell to the lovely Utrecht house and the rubber hit the road just before 7am. One of the great features of Dutch golf is that these fantastic courses are all located (reasonably) close to one another, and so we were hopeful that in just over an hour’s time we’d be on [...]
January 2023
Tour Journal: Utrechtse Golf Club De Pan
A continued blog piece to coincide with our filming releases in The Netherlands... in partnership with - Day 2 - Utrechtse Golf Club: 'De Pan' Spirits were in the sky until approximately 5 km outside of Utrecht. The hour-long journey through the fairly anonymous Dutch motorway network had passed quite quickly, as we recounted the highlights of our day at Eindhoven, with Sam reminding the others in vivid detail how well he had played on the back nine to secure the win. Bruce was at the wheel when suddenly a light flashed up on the dashboard, warning that the tyre pressure had dramatically fallen. From the comfort of the backseat, Tom quickly dismissed this as a regular occurrence in modern vehicles and assured the others that the car was probably being overly sensitive. We decided to continue carefully to our accommodation in Utrecht just a few kilometres away. Parking [...]
Netherlands Tour Journal: Getting to Eindhoven
A continued blog piece to coincide with our filming releases in The Netherlands... in partnership with - Prelude - Rye Regular listeners of our podcast will know that a trip to the Netherlands to play golf has been a long term aspiration for the Cookie Jar Boys. In Sam’s case, it might be better described as a borderline unhealthy obsession, prompting more than the occasional outburst about how great it would be to see ‘The Old 9’ - the oldest clubs in the Netherlands, many of which were designed by the great H.S. Colt - soak in some Dutch culture, and enjoy a ‘shmoke and a pancake’ (said in his best Austin Powers’ Goldmember accent). So it was with a great sense of anticipation that our tour finally arrived. After the disastrous KLM debacle (of which more can be heard in the first episode of the Tour Diaries podcast on [...]
Half Par Holes by @halfparkid
@halfparkid (Peter) is a mysterious instagram character, who - like many - have built an anonymous social media presence around something he loves, able to share the finer details of bunkers, clubhouse lunches and green-to-tee transitions with a wider audience than just his school friends. Obsessed with British club culture and great architecture, we’ve been friends with Peter for a few years now and despite his diminutive frame, and bearing more than just a slight resemblance to the Superbad teenage tragic ‘McLovin’, there’s a huge golfing brain in there (as well as talent). Peter played full time for several years, competing all over the world, and until recently was ranked 600th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR). However, he now finds more enjoyment in the less competitive side of golf and the appreciation of the obscure. Here is his take on ‘half-par holes’... - Just before Christmas I was [...]
December 2022
Match Report: The Crump Cup of British Indoor Golf
Our second annual Christmas Party was held at Urban Golf on the 8th December at Smithfields in London, and what a wonderful way to celebrate a great year of golf with like minded souls. A bitterly cold winters’ day, with the rail strikes planned didn’t dent peoples enthusiasm with Tom & Sam both turning up late for their own party to be met with crowds of faces, some familiar and some enjoying their first Cookie Jar event. A link to our film from the evening can be found here This was however the first time we played competitively. An excitable James Day had pitched the idea of a one-club knockout - to be billed as ‘The Crump Cup of British Indoor Golf’ - earlier in October, however after (a frankly unnecessary) number of phone calls to finesse the idea, we realised the initial format he was proposing would have taken [...]
October 2022
3 reasons why Castle Stuart 3rd is one of the great short par 4’s
words by Sam When I was about 11 or 12, I used to draw imaginary golf courses. Each would be a strong contender to host a Ryder Cup. Excessively long and littered with penal hazards, demanding one heroic shot after the next. There would scarcely be enough space between the trees to walk your dog, let alone play golf. Wind the clock on 20 years and I’m stood on the 3rd tee of Castle Stuart. It represented a watershed moment in my appreciation for golf course architecture. We weren’t actually meant to be there. We had been en route to Boat of Garten instead. As the rain continued to thunder down on the M6, we did wonder if golf that day was slightly ambitious. The Secretary at the appropriately named ‘Boat’ almost laughed when we asked if we were still on. The sheer volume of water that had fallen [...]
