Packed & Ready To Roll

As I sit in my study this Sunday morning updating the blog I look out onto a very miserable scene - rain falling like stair rods from a very leaden sky.  Can it really be that in 24 hours, I will be basking in 30 degrees of Middle Eastern sunshine?  Well yes but more on that in a minute.

First I have to reflect on a moment last night when I actually collected a piece of Skipton Golf Club silverware, the Harold Ideson Trophy, with my beautiful daughter Sarah.  We have been trying for ten years to win a competition playing as a pair and finally this year all the dedication, hours of practice and hard work paid off!  Yeh, right!! Actually it was some great play by Sarah in the final few holes that won the day and so the Coy name will be recorded in perpetuity on one of the Club's Honour Boards.  But onto more important things and my week ahead working on the DP World Tour Championship.

I received my last communication from Jenni Hoskins, the Chief Marshall, a couple of days ago asking me if I could work on Wednesday (normally a day off) driving the players to wherever they wanted to practice on the course?  Is the Pope Catholic?  It wasn't difficult to reply with a big yes! 

I often reflect on the challenges that the role of Chief Marshall brings and Jenni and her team handle them all with a smile on their faces.  It can't be easy when you are dealing with in excess of 270 volunteers from around the world, many of us Prima donnas, who sometimes forget they are there to do a job and not just to watch their golfing heroes!  I always look forward to that welcome hug from Jenni when I arrive.

Now the only thing I have to do is arrive!  I am able take up this volunteering role because Sarah allows mum and dad to benefit from her British Airways travel concessions.  These are great when they work but they are generally based around standby travel.  In other words you turn up at the airport but have no guarantee of a seat!  This was particularly brought into focus last year when all three BA flights out to Dubai were chokker on the Sunday and I ended up travelling out with Virgin Atlantic!

Hopefully today will be different as Sarah is actually operating out to Dubai on the flight that I am hoping to get.  Even though she is one of the two flight crew, it is no guarantee of a seat and I know again today that all three flights are extremely busy.  As many of you know however, I am the eternal optimist.

Update from London Heathrow this evening, hopefully with a boarding pass in hand?

I couldn't resist including a couple of photos from last night and one with me, Jenni Hoskins and her team from last year.