Adventure Golf at Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest

A look at the Adventure Golf course at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest.

Emily's friend, colleague and minigolf rival Darren Howe was recently on a family holiday at Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest and having caught the Crazy Golf bug from Emily had to have a game on the holiday village's Adventure Golf course.

Darren getting ready to loose a shot on one of the archery themed holes

Darren also managed to nab some of the nice scorecards for inclusion in The Crazy Golf Museum. A fine addition to the archives.

There are two 9-hole courses at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest - the Sherwood Trail and Archer's Way 

The Archer's Way side of the scorecard

Check out the Center Parcs website for more information.

Links:
- Center Parcs
- Center Parcs Sherwood Forest

Archery in Cwmbran

Playing in a mini 'backyard' Archery contest in Cwmbran.

It has become a great tradition on visits to our friends, the Kukielka family, in Cwmbran, Wales that we compete against each other in a sporting contest of some sort.

Over the years we've played Crazy-, Mini- & Adventure Golf, as well as Petanque/Boules, Finger Jousting, Darts and Table Tennis.

For 2014 it was to be Archery!

With a board set-up and a BBQ on the go I took the opportunity to get in some praccy as the last time (and one of the first times) I'd picked up a bow was while playing Archery Tag in Guildford in April last year.

Richard arching in Cwmbran

A random draw was made to decide the playing order for the six archers. I was drawn to be first, followed by Seve, Cindy, Emily, Jas and Leo.

Having a quick search online to find the official rules of Archery and the points scoring system we opted for the 5 Zone ('GNAS') method where you score by colour - White equaling 1 point, Black 3, Blue 5, Red 7 and Gold 9.

In both the 5 Zone and 10 Zone ('World Archery') scoring methods an arrow that is touching a line separating zones (known as a 'line cutter'), scores the value of the higher scoring zone

It was originally planned for each player to have ten arrows, but with two arrows getting lost over the fence during practice and the light fading it was decided to have eight each rather than breaking up play by retrieving already fired arrows from the target.

The very model of an Archer - Jas Kukielka

I managed to score a 7 with my first arrow before missing the target with my next two shots, but then hit two 5's in a row and a 1 and a 7 to finish for a total score of 25.

A highish score, but not a lot of grouping going on!

Next up was Seve - victor in the 2009 Boules tournament and 2011 Table Tennis contest - who scored a 1, 3 and 3 for a total of 7.

Seve was not the 'Best in the World' at Archery

Cindy was next up and scored an impressive 11 points and landed every arrow at least somewhere on the board, even if they didn't all score.

Not an arrow on the ground when Cindy's around

Emily was fourth to fire and the less said about her go the better as she scored 0.

No caption required

Jas was the penultimate player to step up to the mark, but apart from a purple patch in the middle of his go, scored a lot of misses to finish on 15 points. Still good enough for second-place.

Silver medalist Jas

The last great hope to topple me and surpas the clubhouse lead was Leo - 2010 Darts Champion - but it was not to be, as he managed to score 1 point. Much to the chagrin of Emily who was hoping for some sort of repechage play-off for last-place.

Receiving the coveted Gold medal from Jas

To win by such a big margin I must of been channeling the spirit of San Marino's top Archer - Emanuele Guidi - who I met at the London 2012 Olympic Games!

A great fun evening with a BBQ and some great gluten free Fish & Chips from the Fairwater Fish Bar in Coed Eva too. If we had a garden I'd certainly think about getting some Archery gear.

Who knows what the next Kukielka-Gottfried sporting contest will be...

Related blog posts:
- Playing Archery Tag in Guildford
- Cwmbran

Link:
- Website of Archery GB - the governing body for the sport of archery in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Playing Archery Tag in Guildford

Trying out the new sport of Archery Tag.

As a fan of all manner of sports and games, whether old or new, traditional or obscure, I'm always on the lookout for new ones to have a go of. Following my blog post on the 1st of January 2013 where I asked the question "What sport or game that we haven't tried already should we give a go in 2013?" I had some responses via the comments, Facebook and Twitter.

One of these came from fellow sporting polymath Oliver 'Lawrence' Florence who suggested we give Archery Tag a go. He had heard an upcoming event would be taking place in Guildford and so it'd be a chance to have a play of the game for free!

Me, Guy Martin (grey) and Oliver Florence (red) in Archery Tag action

After a busy day of Minigolfing in Beckenham, Croydon and Carshalton Emily and I headed to Guildford and the Spectrum Leisure Complex which was the host venue for the Archery Tag event. Our group had been booked in for the 7pm session so we took some time beforehand to watch the action in the busy sports hall from the spectator's gantry. 

Before we got stuck into the game our group decided to warm-up with some target practice using the specific Archery Tag equipment. The bow and arrows differ from those used in Archery and the main thing you notice is the foam pad on the end of the arrows, these ensure that if (when!) you get hit by a shot it doesn't injure the competitor.

Richard 'Michael Skaggs' Skeggs (left) and Oliver 'The Machine' Florence warming-up before the main-event

Our group was then ready to hit the court (arena, course, battlefield?) and after a briefing by the Archery Tag organiser - Joshua from Discover Archery - we were provided with protective face masks, a bow and two arrows.

The game mixes Archery with rules similar to Dodgeball, Paintball and Laser Tag with two teams of players taking up positions on either side of the battlefield and once the whistle goes it's a free-for-all of arrows firing at the opposing force. In a competitive match we were told that if you get hit you are eliminated from the game for a one-minute period before re-entering the fray. For our have-a-go session we were involved in two seven-minute games, played with 'no outs'. So it gave us a great opportunity to practice our aim and have fun, without the fear and threat of elimination.

The Archery Tag 'battleground'

Once you've used up your initial two arrows you can then collect any arrows from the floor and re-use them - just be careful not to get hit while retrieving them! The arena also had a number of inflatable bases and barriers to hide behind and you certainly needed to use them as the game is non-stop with a constant hail of arrows coming in from the opposing team.

Launching a shot towards the opposition

One of the great things about the game is that you can also get 'catches'! So, if you see an arrow coming towards you and fancy grabbing it from mid-air then that is perfectly allowable - and quite an achievement too! I managed a couple of catches in the two games and hit some of the opposition too. Fellow sports enthusiast Richard 'Richard' Skeggs got really stuck into the sport and planted a perfect shot on my face - thank goodness for the protective face masks! I did get a couple of catches off him to slightly make up for it though.

Richard Skeggs - the 'one man gang' of Archery Tag!

It was great fun and I'd definitely like to play a competitive match. Perhaps a Luton team could travel to Guildford, or vice versa...

Emily models the Archery Tag 'look'

Check out details of Archery Tag on the Discover Archery website.

Links:

- Discover Archery

- Discover Archery - Archery Tag

- Guildford Spectrum Leisure Complex

- Archery Tag

Related Blog Posts:

- A new sport or game for 2013?

- 2012 - A Big Year of Sport
- Behold...
- Underdog Day and meeting an Olympic Archer!