Why are Pirates called Pirates?

They just Aarrrrrrrrrrr.

Sorry. We’re in eye patch and cutlass mode having visited the rather wonderful Hoebridge Golf Centre in Woking, Surrey. As well as three golf courses it also has ‘Pirate Island’ an adventure golf area for kids (and slightly older kids, ahem) WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Just try getting round in level twos and you’ll soon be booking a putting lesson. That crocodile has a lot to answer for. Take a look here.

Martin Vousden on the dramas at Augusta

Thought for the Day:
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and when he grows up, he’ll never be able to merge his car onto a motorway

G’Day Mate
There is nothing more pleasing in sport, or life, as a tale of redemption – the hero who trampolines back from desperate disappointment or failure to eventually triumph (you can add the phrase ‘against all odds’ if you wish because most newspapers and magazines probably will). And so, despite huge sympathy for Angel Cabrera, who epitomised how to lose with grace, let us roll out the bunting and raise a glass or three to Adam Scott. Ever since he emerged as a pro golfer there have been predictions of a glowing future, replete with major championships. The most notable of these came from his coach, Butch Harmon, who famously said that Adam’s basic swing fundamentals were better even than those of Tiger, and he was right. Scott has always had a classically orthodox swing of perfect tempo. And the predictions appeared prescient as the young Australian made good progress, with a steady, if not spectacular accumulation of titles – nine wins in America, eight in Europe – with the most notable of these being the Player’s Championship. But that was in 2004 and the huge hole in his CV was his comparatively dreadful form in the majors. For a full decade he simply disappeared when any of the (more…)

Tom on Tour 2013

We’ve been following Tom Sherreard, from Chart Hills, on his pro quest since 2012. This year the the season has already taken him to Egypt and Spain on the Alps tour (are there Alps in Egypt? We’re confused…)

“A new golfing year has started and with this in mind I am writing my first blog of the 2013 season. Last year didn’t end quite as planned, falling short at the second week of European Tour School leaving me to play Alps Tour golf for a further year. Having finished 11th on the Alps tour last year I managed to keep my playing rights without having to go back to the Alps Qualifying School.

So far this year I have played three events on the Alps, the first two as part of a winter series in Egypt, finishing T17th and T14th respectively. The third event was played at Golf de Layos near the beautiful town of Toledo near Madrid. I played solidly all week apart from a couple of mistakes leading to two double bogeys. Despite this and the tough conditions I managed to finish on a total of 217 (+1) for three rounds, finishing in a tie for 12th. With three top 20’s in my first three events I feel happy with a solid start, however I know there is much more to give and the prospect of the 2013 season excites me; it’s just a case of getting in the grove and finding the swing again.

My next tournament takes me to (more…)

We’re about to assume the position.

Are we excited?  Just a bit.

Martin Vousden with Augusta on the horizon.

Thought for the Day
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened

Heading for Augusta
Hands up if you know what connects the following golfers: Russell Henley, Brian Gay, John Merrick, Michael Thompson, Scott Brown and Kevin Streelman. If you can identify them all as having won on the US PGA Tour so far this season, you’re a bit of an anorak. But then, it is that kind of season. They are joined as 2013 winners by Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods (twice), Phil Mickelson, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar. More relevantly, all of them will be at the Masters in just under a month – with the exception of Scott Brown, who won the Puerto Rican Open, which doesn’t have a full-point allocation for the Tour Championship and therefore doesn’t meet Augusta’s invitation policy. Hard luck Scott.

All of which is designed to let me off the hook by demonstrating how hard it is to predict the winner of any major, especially the season’s first, when there is comparatively little form with which to measure the runners and riders. In the last 10 years, for example, how many punters put their money on Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel, Angel Cabrera, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson or Mike Weir to have a green jacket draped around their shoulders? However, if we ignore those surprise winners and (more…)

We can feel a bit of a handicap tumble coming on…

We got this message from a very new customer who’s just taken delivery of his shiny new GoKart lithium. Here’s his report after his first round out;
“Just returned from my first outing with my lithium trolley (first electric trolley) ever. What a different game!!!! It was like having a caddie, all I did was keep on line every now and then… Very pleasant to walk 18 holes feeling fresh for the whole round and totally enjoyable, not that it wasn’t before! Its just different now!

To cap it all I shot 2 under gross off yellow tees, so all in all very pleased!!!”

With thanks to Adam D from Hinckley. A very tidy (currently) 5 h/cap golfer who may be picking up a bit of silver this summer…

Martin Vousden warming up for the 2013 season

Thought for the Day:
Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film

Almost there
With the greatest respect to all those involved in the Africa and Northern Trust Opens, which have just concluded on the European and US Tours respectively, the phoney war has ended and the real business is about to start. This week sees the first significant event of the year, the WGC-Accenture Matchplay Championship in Arizona. Its importance can be easily determined by the quality of the field it attracts, and for the first time in several months we have the world numbers one and two, Rory and Tiger, teeing up at the same venue. They are, of course, at the start of the early-season schedule that they hope will get their games in tune for the Masters, which is only eight weeks away. It strikes me as odd, though, that they choose to come out of hibernation for a matchplay event. These are so unpredictable and, in many ways, more difficult to win. Play your best golf and shoot a scorching 64, but meet an opponent who is one stroke better and you’re on the plane to the next venue.
Oh well, ours not to reason why.

Oh Dear
A friend assures me this is absolutely true. A pal of his is a keen golfer but not, how shall I put this, the most literate man in the world. Nevertheless he was delighted when his wife (more…)

Captain Watson, and a slow play rant from Martin Vousden

Thought for the Day:
War doesn’t determine who’s right but who’s left

Desperate times require desperate measures
There has been a lot of comment about the PGA of America’s decision to name Tom Watson as captain of the US Ryder Cup team for the contest at Gleneagles next year, and most of it has been positive. I suspect though, that this largely affirmative response is simply a reflection of the admiration and affection in which Tom is almost universally held, rather than a cool analysis of the decision per se. So let us try to be at least a little objective. By the time the competition comes around, if Tom were a UK citizen he would, at the age of 65, be an old age pensioner. Advanced age is not, of itself, a bar to such a job but what it means is that Tom will have not played on the US PGA Tour, from which his team will be selected, for a decade-and-a-half. Currently the US captain has four wild card picks, a third of the team, but Watson will not be teeing it up with the likely contenders for those picks week in and week out and therefore able to assess their abilities at first hand. Another worry is that, almost immediately after his appointment, Tom was asked his opinion of Tiger Woods, having been scathing in his criticism in the wake of Tiger’s marital problems. Both men say there will be no problem and Watson went on to say that Tiger will be in his team. To make such a call almost two years in advance, especially considering Woods’ pretty shabby record in the (more…)

A golfing roundup of 2012, with Martin Vousden

Thought for the Day:
The hardness of the butter is inversely proportional to the softness of the bread

That Was The Year That Was
It has been a great year for sport but a mixed one for golf. Here are my awards for the 2012 golf season

Bulging-eyed Raving Lunatic of the Year
The Ryder Cup was won by the Americans in less than two days. Until that final Saturday fourball when Ian Poulter launched his own one-man crusade, birdied the last five holes and gave his team-mates the sliver of self-belief they needed to romp through the singles and snatch the unlikeliest of victories.

Depressing Read of the Year
Hank Haney’s book The Big Miss revealed Tiger to be, at times, spiteful, aloof and mean-spirited. We may have suspected as much but did we really need to have it confirmed?

Event of the Year
The Ryder Cup – it’s the only contender.

Worst Shot of the (more…)

Do you bleed Golf?

There’s a new website we’re having a bit of fun with that’s worth a visit (once you’ve explored all the nooks and crannies here at the GoKart blog) – it’s called ‘I Bleed Golf’  It’s rare for us to find people who are quite as passionate about the Game (note capital G) as we are, but the guys at IBG are seriously addicted.

I bleed Golf wants to ‘honour and celebrate the conquests and conflicts of the amateur golfer’, but like us, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Apart from anything else, golf has a nasty habit of tripping you up if you do…so it’s full of stories from normal people like you and us.
One of their most famous shenanigans recently has been the show us your number! trend that had names like Faldo, Larrazabal and Cabrera-Bello posting their lowest ever scores on Twitter.

There are one or two ideas that I bleed Golf and GoKart are planning that will keep us both out of mischief (or in it) in 2013. But more of that next year.

So if you’ve got stories, pics, or general nonsense that you’d like to share with them, and us, then just get in touch. You can go to the I bleed Golf website here, you can have your say about this posting in the comment box below, or you can drop us a line here.