Minigolf Report: Gottfried’s begin new Minigolf Season at the 2014 BMGA Star City Open in Birmingham

Luton Minigolfers Richard and Emily Gottfried teed-off in the first event of the 2014 British Minigolf Association (BMGA) Tour season on Sunday 26th of January at the BMGA Star City Open competition at the Adventure Island Mini Golf centre at Star City in Birmingham.

Richard scored a three-round total of 101(-7), having scored 36, 33 and 32 to finish in 11th place in the 40-player field.

Richard Gottfried playing Hole 9 at the Adventure Island Mini Golf course at Star City in Birmingham

Emily scored a three-round total 109(+1) after rounds of 40, 36 and 33 to finish in 20th place overall.

Emily Gottfried plays Hole 2 of the Lost Hut Trail course at Adventure Island Mini Golf in Birmingham

The 2014 BMGA Star City Open tournament was played over three 18-hole rounds on the Lost Hut Trail course at the Star City venue, and was won Oxford’s Michael Smith. Cambridgeshire’s Adam Kelly was runner-up, with Kent’s Andy Exall third.

Richard still jointly holds the official BMGA course record of 28(-8) on the Lost Hut Trail which he set in 2010 at the BMGA National Open.

Richard and Emily are now in their eighth-year as BMGA Tour players. Last season Richard finished the year in 11th place of 163 players in the 2013 BMGA Official Strokeplay Order of Merit Rankings, with Emily in 48th position.

Ends

How to join the British Minigolf Association

Details of how you can join the British Minigolf Association for the 2014 Tour Season. Membership is available as a BMGA Tour Pro, or in a free online option.

British Minigolf Association Tour Players at the Midlands Opening Tournament in Dorridge 2012

The British Minigolf Association (BMGA) is the National Governing Body for Minigolf, Crazy Golf and Adventure Golf sport in the UK and offers two membership options for players - 'Free' & 'BMGA Tour Pro'.

- The 'Tour Card Membership' costs £20 for the season (rising to £25 if purchased from the 1st of February 2014) and entitles players to discounted pre-event practice rates at tournament venues on the calendar (some venues will offer these rates all season) and priority entry to selected events (subject to availability) before entries are opened to non Tour Pro members and the general public.

- The 'Free Membership' option is available via an online registration on the BMGA website and allows members to receive regular newsletters on forthcoming events, ranking updates and results from competitions on the BMGA Tour.

The 2014 BMGA Tour season tees-off on Sunday 26th of January with the Star City Open competition held at the Adventure Island Mini Golf course at Star City in Birmingham.

If you have any questions about British Minigolf Association membership or official tournaments please contact the BMGA via its website.

Check out these videos from the 2013 British Minigolf Association Tour

Videos from the BMGA British Masters Minigolf Tournament in Worthing and the BMGA British Club Championships in Basingstoke during the 2013 British Minigolf Association Tour season.

Filmed by the team at 2 Dog Imaging the first video shows action and highlights from the 2013 BMGA British Masters national miniature golf tournament that was won by Adam Kelly and held at Worthing's Splash Point Mini Golf course in Denton Gardens.

Filmed by Craig Rodhouse from the Pub Sport Portal the second video has action and interviews from the final event of the  British Minigolf Association 2013 season, the BMGA British Club Championship Minigolf tournament held at Basingstoke Golf Centre in Hampshire.

Links:
- British Minigolf Association
- 2 Dog Imaging
- Pub Sport Portal

Related blog posts:
- How to join the British Minigolf Association
- Film of the 2013 BMGA British Masters Minigolf Championship in Worthing
- Check out Minigolf on the Pub Sport Portal

The Cereal Quest breakfast cereal blog

The Cereal Quest blog - one man's quest to eat every type of breakfast cereal available in the UK.

Fellow Crazy Golfer Phil Botto is renowned in the Minigolf world as the man who plays the World Crazy Golf Championships with a different 'themed' Putter each year!

In previous events he's used everything from a Black & Decker Strimmer to a converted camera tripod, a bit of wood and even a ukulele!

At the 2013 World Crazy Golf Championships in Hastings he used a very irregular club made out of cereal boxes!

Phil is on a "Cereal Quest" to eat every main UK cereal and he's into his second year of the adventure! He's documenting the quest on his fun blog/diary and raising money for The Trussell Trust - a UK charity that that works to empower local communities to combat poverty and exclusion in the UK and Bulgaria.

Check out The Cereal Quest website for more details and posts. You can view a list of Cereals he's scoffed so far (in a chronological order) here.

My favourite breakfast cereal is a gluten free one made by Barkat and called Chocolate Pillows. I view them as less of a breakfast item though and more of a chocolate snack!

Once Phil has eaten his way through the 'mainstream' cereals he may consider giving the gluten and wheat free ones a try. I notice from the very first blog post on The Cereal Quest that he's an IBS sufferer, he may find that the gluten and wheat free breakfast options may alleviate some symptoms...

Links:

- The Cereal Quest website

- The Cereal Quest's Just Giving page

- The Trussell Trust

Darts in London - Arrers and Ablutions

Playing some darts at the White Horse and Bower pub in London.

First off Happy New Year to all.

For my first blog post of 2014 I’ve avoided two of my normal topics – Minigolf and Gluten Free stuff – and the suggestion from Anthony Pope on Twitter for a blog about #PacketHam, to bring you a post about a recent visit to a pub in London last year for a game of Darts.

Quite apt too, considering the PDC’s Ladbrokes World Darts Championship has just finished and this weekend sees the start of the BDO’s Lakeside World Professional Darts Championship.

On the 17th of December Emily and I met up with friends and fellow Minigolfers (and sometime bloggers) Oliver ‘The Machine’ Thomas and Seth ‘Clockwork Purple’ Thomas in London for some pre-Christmas drinks. We all wanted a game of Arrers and so we consulted the excellent online resource that is Justin Irwin’s Capital Arrows website.

One of the latest listings was for the White Horse and Bower pub at 86 Horseferry Road in the section on pubs with dartboards in Victoria and Pimlico.

At the Darts

Arriving at the pub in dribs and drabs we couldn’t instantly see the dart board, but after Emily asked the man behind the bar where it was we were shown it was at the back of the pub behind a screen. As Capital Arrows said, it was in a secluded spot.

If you do head to the White Horse and Bower do take your own darts as the pub issue ones were not a matching set. Ever the mercilessly competitive character Oliver had brang his own darts, while Seth and I hadn’t. Oddly for a Darts meet-up in December Seth had also failed to bring his Pool Cue! Emily hadn’t brought any darts with her as she was to play the part of Tony Green for the evening.

In the three-player tournament the first round of qualifying saw all three of us playing in a 301-match. Oliver and his own darts won, meaning Seth and I had to battle it out to meet him in the final.

Seth got the win against me after some dismal efforts at getting the double, setting up a clash with The Machine.

The final saw the players face-off in a best-of-three legs match that was quite the battle. In the end Oliver chalked one up in the win column with a victory over Seth and his new purple dyed hair. A precursor to the colourfully coiffed Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright’s loss in the PDC World Final perhaps.

A great fun start to the evening that was only marred by the fact that the only working lavatory in the White Horse and Bower pub on our visit was the disabled facility! All the other toilets were out of order!? This was unfortunate on a number of levels as the disabled toilet was right behind the Oche, so our matches were interrupted on a number of occasions by other patrons doing their ablutions.

We Minigolfers love our darts and we’ve played a number of events amongst ourselves both on and off the BMGA Tour, with outdoor ‘Links Darts’ at the seaside in Hastings and a couple of Christmas tournaments too. Our great Minigolf rival, Links Darts Champion and friend Sean ‘The Sandman’ Homer also rocked up to a PDC qualifying event for the UK Open tournament once!

Tim 'Ace Man' Davies at the Oche at the now demolished White Rock Gardens Adventure Golf course in Hastings. Venue for the first, and to date only, Links Darts tournament in 2008. Also pictured are Ace Man's opponent Rich 'The Bass' Hopkins (in black) and Sean 'Freebird' Homer (in orange, scoring) look on.

Check out the links below for further details about the great sport of darts.

Links:

- Justin Irwin’s Capital Arrows

- The White Horse and Bower pub on the Shepherd Neame website

- Darts-related blog posts on the Ham & Egger Files

- Professional Darts Corporation (PDC)

- British Darts Organisation (BDO)