115 - Cheap Shots...

Today’s Golfer have a sneaky little offer on that allows players like me to get a game on decent courses without the need to take out a second mortgage. The 2-FORE!-1 Golf offer provides discounted rounds at nearly 1,000 courses across the country apparently. “There must be a catch?” I hear my one visitor exclaim, well there is but it is only small.

In order to get the cheap round first you must dip your hand in your pocket and buy a 2-FORE!-1 Golf voucher for just £3.50 online and then book a round at one of the participating courses mentioning to them that you are using your voucher. Erm, that is it. It is either a free round for a friend or half price round for both of you. Sounds pretty good.

Just on the Today’s Golfer website today and there was a feature on the offers they have in Merseyside at the moment. This part of the world is known as the ‘Golf Coast’ apparently and has its fair share of top quality courses although I couldn’t see the likes of Royal Birkdale on the list (although the likes of the Nicklause Course at Carden Park Golf Resort near Chester is there I suppose).

The article mentioned some courses that my friends have played (and enjoyed) over the last few summers so I could well be tempted to give the likes of Leasowe on the Wirral, Childwall GC (where I attended the recent Woolton Village Golf Society presentation night – more on that another time) and Eccleston Park in Rainhill a crack when the weather finally gives us all a break.

At the end of the day, we all want to play on pristine courses, free from tracksuit wearing halfwits sharing a bag of clubs, unfortunately that usually means paying through the nose but this offer provides a good compromise I reckon. If you are interested in the 2-FORE!-1 Golf offer simply visit the Today’s Golfer website or phone 08451 241 000 for more details on how to purchase your vouchers.

114 - Three Stripes, Dozens Of Items...

After writing recently about my new Adidas rain suit I realised that I have a lot of golfing clobber from the German manufacturer with the three-stripe logo. I had a quick check of my course attire and discovered that most of it was made by Adidas yet I haven’t made conscious effort to buy their stuff. Why have I suddenly got a wardrobe full of Adidas?

It is no secret that Adidas make good stuff so I’m happy with the seemingly subliminal purchases I have made over the last twelve months I just didn’t realise how much I had picked up. I have bought jumpers, polo shirts, outer layers, pants, shoes and recently a rain suit all from the same company and all apparently subconsciously.

I can’t recall any of the adverts which no doubt litter Golf Whine Monthly trying to persuade me that the latest gear from Adidas will give me the edge on the course, will make me stand out in the clubhouse and will have women literally throwing themselves at me at the awards dinner. Maybe the German’s have mastered the art of the subliminal advert?

Actually, it is more likely that I have picked up all this kit because there are always tons of offers on for their stuff – I do like a bargain don’t you know?

I know that anything from Adidas will be decent quality and has the right image so buying their gear is usually a no brainer, especially if it looks good and comes in the right colours (always an important fact).

It is obvious that Adidas make golf clothing but I wondered if they produced clubs like other mass sport manufacturers do, Nike for example. A quick look on the Internet turned up a surprising answer; Adidas own TaylorMade. It turns out that the German company snaffled up TaylorMade in 1997 and has spent the last decade rebranding the club manufacturer to become one of the biggest names in golf.

This rebranding and collaboration has been so successful that in 2005 the company officially became the number one name in drivers with more tour pros using their woods than all the other major brands put together. In 2006 TaylorMade-Adidas Golf as the combined company is know made $1billion in revenue.

Now I know that TaylorMade is part of the Adidas family I’m surprised I haven’t been hoodwinked into buying an R9 driver, R7 irons, a Rosso putter or some Burner golf balls. Wonder if the usual suspects have any offers on at the moment...

113 - New Year, Old Story...

Happy New Year to my regular visitor (that isn’t a typo by the way, there is only one of you and I’m starting to suspect that it isn’t actually a person rather a search engine web crawler checking my page is still up in the remote chance that someone happens to do a search for a cruddy golf website written by a barely literate neurotic).

Anyway, happy New Year. To keep the feel good factor going I’d like to announce that I’ve already broken my New Years resolution. I vowed to play at least one round of golf a week regardless of weather conditions, availability of playing partners or work commitments. I lasted less than a week.

I had hoped to get 18 holes in this week, taking advantage of the empty courses as the fair-weather (sensible) players stay at home leaving the brave souls (idiots) like me to savour the crisp winter air, temporary greens and frozen fairways. The recent turn in the weather has emphatically put an end to this plan.

The temperature in this part of the world has dipped ever so slightly – when I say ever so slightly I actually mean a lot, an awful lot. Today for example it touched minus seven with the icing on the cake coming in the form of four inches of beautiful, fluffy snow. I love snow, it is probably my favourite type of weather but it does tend to ruin a game of golf I suspect.

The forecast is for more heavy snow over the next couple of days so the only reason to smash my Srixon’s down the fairway would be to use them to create a snowman. Once the snow clears the temperatures are predicted to plummet yet further too so the ball will ping off the fairway as if it was hit down a motorway.

All in all it isn’t the best weather to be playing in so it looks like I’m going to be forced to swerve golf for the next few weeks, at least on the course that is. I will be making a long overdue return to the driving range to hone my ball slicing skills though. There is nothing more soul destroying as fizzing shot after shot into the far right corner of a driving range – I can’t wait!

Feel free to drop by over the coming weeks to see if I’ve made any progress whatsoever or if I’m still utterly, utterly clueless. Chances are I’ve actually regressed but at least it might be mildly amusing watching me go postal on these pages I suppose.