It’s raining balls

The players arrived with brollies at the ready for breakfast wearing the loud shorts and shirts and befitting of a golf course, though probably not the apparel you might expect to see on a fashionable Paris catwalk. Crimes against good taste aside, the breakfast lasted an extra 40 minutes, after which the monsoons abated and the brave could start thwacking balls into the middle distance. The ground may have been sodden, but the state of the driveways and the greens remained immaculate. Even though the skies remained grey, the drizzle did not constitute an excuse to call off play and the local swans remained unruffled and strangely unconcerned by the oncoming barrage of spherical projectiles. There may have been no Tiger Woods or Seve Ballesteros present, but what the players lacked in professionalism they made up for in enthusiasm with some gleefully digging themselves into bunkers faster than the soldiers of the first world war. Teams of three to four players were each assigned a starting hole and gradually trudged their way around the course, while others foreswore the stroll to race around in golf buggies. When the players eventually circled round to the ninth hole, they were presented with the furthest drive competition won by Zbigniew Bujalski while the closest to the pin competition held at the 14th hole was won by Ela Panas. Later on in the day, just before lunch, the Golf Academy was held for those who don’t know the difference between an iron and a putter. A few balls flew and many hundreds rolled down the driving range as the finer points of the golf swing were patiently explained to the beginners. Having figured out that the fat end of a club is supposed to hit the ball, we were taken off the range and presented with the challenges of the green. Just occasionally a ball or two would sink down a hole. Two competitions were held for the newbies among us, which were the longest drive won by Joanna Stankiewicz and the closest to the pin, which was won by ... erm ... me (Alex Hayes) – I swear it wasn’t a fix; I just seem to have let my hitherto unknown competitive spirit get the better of me. Honest! Other competitions, included Stableford won by Tomasz Pachecki, stroke-play net won by Dariusz Kościkiewicz and stroke-play/medal won by Marek Tymiński The heavens then opened up once more to summon all the players in for lunch.

Meanwhile somewhere else in Warsaw the 12th Eurobuild Tennis Tournament was being held and it’s certainly no overstatement to say that this year it was extraordinarily thrilling. As well as the men’s and women’s singles tournaments a doubles tournament was held for the first time in the history of the event. Arkadiusz Płociński and Łukasz Pobereszko from Real Management faced Grzegorz Soszka and Marek Rosiak from Super Sport Car in the doubles finals. The Super Sport Car team won 6:3.

For the first time the event was held in the Warszawianka tennis centre, which has both indoor and outdoor courts. This turned out to be a blessing as the outdoor courts were waterlogged. Not even one game was played outside. Starting at 8 o’clock, the players had the opportunity to take part in a training session held by Krzysztof Puna, a coach from the Gawłowski Tennis Academy. As usual the play in the women’s singles was both fierce and of a high standard. The title was defended by Zuzanna Wróblewska from JLL, who beat off rivals Monika Żywiecka from Griffin Real Estate and Małgorzata Frąckiewicz from Cushman & Wakefield.

JLL nearly took the men’s singles as well. In the semi-finals. Anton Bashtavy a 26-year-old financial analyst, who was making his debut in the tournament, beat the favourite, last year’s champion Tomasz Marsz, who is an associate of BSC Real Estate Advisors. And in the finals he faced off with Michał Kojecki from Euro House Development.

This tennis player, who is in his mid-50s but still incredibly fit, played a decisive and varied game quickly taking a three game lead over his much younger rival. However, the other player was also in excellent physical condition (last year he entered the Ironman competition in Belgium) and had superb technique (he played tennis internationally up until the age of 16). He started to make a comeback and would probably have won the entire match had it not been for a muscle injury which stopped play with a score of 4:4. The doubles and singles finals were watched by Kamil Fabisiak, the current Polish wheelchair tennis champion (in 21st position on the list of the ITF international federation). Earlier he played a demonstration game against Aleksandra Cytrynowicz, who was once among the top eight players in Poland.

The winners of the various competitions were handed their prizes during an evening award ceremony held in Warsaw’s Boathouse restaurant. It was a rock’n’roll party replete with hairdressers and makeup artists from the Denique salon who helped the guests recreate the atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s.