Benidorm : The full story !
Benidorm: The Mature Ryder Cup (with worse knees and better stories)
Day 1 — Friday 10 October 2025 — Travel: Men, Bags, and Dubious Promises
There’s a flavour of honesty unique to 2 a.m. outside a golf club: no peacocking, just men, bags, and the distant memory that stretching used to be a thing. Green Drive glowed under sodium lamps while trolleys clanged into the coach with the grace of a cutlery drawer being mugged. Our organiser—clipboard calm, thousand-yard stare—counted heads like a headteacher who’s seen every excuse and all the sequels.
The WhatsApp sprang to life (planes, beers, golf balls, one unexplained aubergine). At the airport: two tribes—those attempting nutrition (one yoghurt, five pastries) and those conducting a peer-reviewed lager-as-hydration study. Jet2 clocked the snore triangle forming in rows 16–18 and got us off on time out of pure self-preservation. Tactical naps commenced: heads back, mouths open, a woodwind section of regrets.
Alicante greeted us with a sky the colour of unpaid invoices. Perfect: cooler air means fewer excuses. We did the ritual where grown men pretend to recognise their own black suitcase, then saluted the coach driver like he’d rescued us from a small war. Benidorm rolled into view—neon eyebrows raised, already writing our reviews.
At Sandos Mónaco, the all-inclusive wristband clicked on and common sense left through a revolving door. Rooms became boutique pro shops hit by a tidy tornado. “Take it easy tonight,” we swore. Ten minutes later we’d discovered the bar staff were weapon-grade efficient and “reconnaissance” meant karaoke, neon, and the birth of Unlicensed Travolta: hips on a mission, feet on strike. There is video. It will outlive us all.
Alarms set. Outfits laid out like parade kit. A rehearsal waggle in the mirror. Tomorrow: golf. Tonight: denial. Sleep arrived like a three-putt—late, annoying, ultimately our fault.
Day 2 — Saturday 11 October 2025 — Levante: The Tax on Ambition
Breakfast theatre: omelette zealots, pastry poets, caffeine clergy. Pairings read with courtroom gravity. Dirty Den vs Mick’s Marvels. Smirks sharpened. Caps lowered. Today mattered.
Levante (Villaitana Levante) is a beautiful liar. From a distance: skyline drama; up close: fairways that pinch mid-flight, greens that roll like truth serum, wind that lies and then changes its story under oath. The practice green dished out character development—three from four feet buys humility; a dropped 25-footer buys delusion.
First-tee hush. Driver pops. Some balls soar nobly; one performs a low, interpretive negotiation with the ladies’ tee marker and receives parole. Supportive heckling commences.
Levante asks: can you commit to a line, can you miss on the correct side, can you love a boring four more than a heroic six? The sensible looked clever; the theatrical learned Spanish for “unplayable.” Individuals did their day-one chaos routine—purple patches, therapy holes. But the teams told a simple truth: Dirty Den played grown-up golf; Mick’s Marvels had moments; restraint banked points you don’t brag about but remember. No scores, no decimals—just the feel: Dirty Den ahead.
Evening wobble: two wallets/phones evaporated—mislaid, lifted, or sacrificed to the gods of neon. The group tightened. Cards cancelled, trackers pinged, hotel staff sainted. Prize-giving, marshalled by the ex-lead firefighter (parade-ground voice, surgical timing), restored order and laughter. Pockets were double-checked before bed. Evolution! (At last.)
Day 3 — Sunday 12 October 2025 — Alenda: Chess, Not Boxing (and the clincher)
Alenda looks friendly in photos. That’s the trap. What you can hit isn’t what you should hit, and every slope is a quiet nudge toward consequences. Breakfast split us into two sects: Fairways & Greens FC (lay up to a number, two-putt like a metronome, call a par “handsome”) and YouTube University (driver where 4-iron begs, hero corners, thumbnail wedges). By the 4th, smugness and horticulture were evenly distributed.
A mid-iron actually sat pin-high like a well-trained spaniel. A bunker shot clipped the lip, reconsidered its life choices, and finished kick-in. A three-putt delivered a TED Talk on hubris. Par became a personality; those who adopted it prospered.
This was the day the main rivalry ended. Mick’s Marvels threw honest punches; Dirty Den answered with metronome golf and zero ego. By the clubhouse, everyone knew: Mick’s Marvels had lost the team match after the second golf day (today). No scoreboard plastered on a wall, just the shared understanding that the big fight was over. The banter pivoted from “we’ll get you tomorrow” to “see you in the side events.” Same volume. Different key.
Evening: lighter shoulders, louder stories, and a solemn vow to behave. Which we immediately broke.
Day 4 — Monday 13 October 2025 — Poniente: The Short Assassin & The Andy Moore Trophy
Poniente posts a short yardage and then mugs you with elevation. It’s a lie detector with views. Elevated tees tempt your ego; par-threes purr “go on then” and invoice you in sand.
No ribbons, no speeches—that’s not our style. Everyone knew what Monday meant. The Andy Moore Trophy would appear after the golf: the gloriously cheap, slightly wonky, obviously glued-back-together relic that becomes the heaviest thing in Spain for one minute a year.
On course, modesty beat swagger. Club down; swing normal; putt bravely. A lay-up that looked cowardly paid out with a stone-dead wedge. A punch-out threaded a gap so small it needs planning permission. A chunked chip redeemed itself with a ten-footer that made a man believe again.
Back at Sandos, our ex-lead firefighter kept prize-giving tidy: no sermon, no violins—just a blunt line about a mate from trips past, a nod that said “we remember, we crack on,” and the handover. No names, no scores (not for the public page). A handshake, a grin, and the Andy Moore Trophy—a bit battered, a bit off-centre, very clearly acquainted with glue—changed hands. Exactly right.
Day 5 — Tuesday 14 October 2025 — Individuals Day: One Flag, Twenty-Odd Agendas
With the team title settled, the day belonged to the Individuals: one trophy, many delusions. The hotel breakfast looked like pre-exam snacks—bananas for virtue, pastries for courage, coffee for survival. Micro-routines appeared: coin placed tails-up on the ball, glove pulled on like it owes you money, the whispered swing thought (“don’t be a hero,” which everyone promptly ignored).
The course (still Alenda-Poniente headspace in our skulls) rewarded grown-up golf: fairway, green, two-putt; the sort of round you can’t brag about but can’t argue with. Yet there were auditions for highlight reels. On a par-five, a lay-up turned into a laser-guided wedge. On a short four, someone tried to drive it and found a postcode usually reserved for goats. A lag putt travelled through three zip codes, hit every footprint between here and Tuesday, and cozied up to the hole as if tipped.
The comedy was premium. A man announced “smooth eight-iron” and swung like he was starting a lawnmower—somehow pin-high. Another declared “no hero shots today” then attempted a 60-yard flop over two bunkers and an existential crisis. We applauded the theatre, then quietly made par the boring way.
Back at base, the ex-lead firefighter executed a no-nonsense ceremony: a few clean gags, a tidy nod to the day’s composure merchants, and zero faff. The Individuals champ (name withheld, because that’s the gag) wore the expression of someone trying not to smile too widely in case it scares the gods of golf. He failed. Good.
Day 6 — Wednesday 15 October 2025 — Four-Man Teams: Chaos, Tactics, and a Texas-ish Scramble
Today was the four-man event with local rule: if anyone tries a Bryson line, the rest must laugh first. Four brains, one decision, and a committee meeting on every tee. It was glorious.
The rhythm is addictive: best drive (cue arguments), best approach (cue diplomacy), then everyone gets a go at glory with the putter (cue betrayal). Team chemistry mattered. Some pods hummed—one talker, one calculator, one realist, one chaos merchant. Others were four chaos merchants pretending to be two.
Strategy highlights:
- The “two safe, two silly” tee-shot policy that produced a career 3-wood and a lost ball within six seconds.
- The agreed “no hero over water” rule abandoned instantly when someone saw a green you could nearly reach.
- The putt read by committee that went in because no one touched it—accidentally perfect.
We saw a bunker shot that should be in museums, a recovery that snaked under branches like a trained ferret, and a drive launched with the encouraging shout “send it” followed by the clarifying whisper “where?” Laughter did the miles today. The golf wasn’t bad either.
Scores? None published. Memories? Abundant. The podium shared a photo that will look more athletic every year it’s re-told.
Day 7 — Thursday 16 October 2025 — Font del Llop: The Curtain Call
Font del Llop is a stunner with a spine—rolling land, framed shots, greens that nod if you’re polite and shrug if you’re lazy. It’s the right place to finish: honest, pretty, unforgiving if you fake it.
By now we’d remembered who we are. Drivers exhaled. Irons behaved. Wedges either floated like butterflies or clattered like saucepans; both produced stories. A fairway wood off a skiddy downslope actually listened for once and got applause usually reserved for musicals. A bunker shot clipped the flag and stayed out purely to keep us humble. A timid putt fell dead centre and shamed all its braver cousins.
The team story had already been written—Dirty Den beat Mick’s Marvels convincingly, clinched back on Day 3—so today was for punctuation: a tidy finish, a last clean strike, a final sensible lay-up that felt like wisdom. Prize-giving on the terrace mixed village-green warmth with drill-hall timing. The ex-lead firefighter did his thing—brisk, funny, sorted. Tokens handed, nearest-the-pins applauded, longest drives honoured (and lightly doubted, as tradition demands). Fines were merciful. Toasts landed perfectly: to the organiser, the birthday, the bar-staff saints, and mateship—the only reason weeks like this work when life throws a wobble.
We ate like champions and talked like grown-ups. One last pocket inventory, one last wrestle with a suitcase zip, one last balcony look at a city that tolerated us with suspicious grace.
Day 8 — Friday 17 October 2025 — Home: Wheels Down, Stories Up
Airports again, but different faces: less pallor, more peace. Bags carried a smidge of contraband sand and a suspicious amount of confidence. Jet2 whisked us home while the group chat detonated into a museum of the week: swings, plates, sunsets, and a dancefloor clip we’ve all promised to delete and absolutely won’t.
Back home, people asked, “How was it?” We said, “Brilliant,” because that’s faster than explaining the programme. We learned—again—that a par can be louder than a brag, that clubbing down is a love language, that inventorying pockets is cheaper than therapy, and that the best part of a golf trip isn’t the golf. It’s the chorus you bring, and the certainty they’ll still be there when the next invite lands.
Final word: No scores needed. We all felt it: Dirty Den beat Mick’s Marvels convincingly, clinching the team match after Day 3. Everything after was gravy—glorious, chaotic, hilarious gravy—held together by a glued-up trophy, a few good choices, and a lot of good people.
