Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf at Trent Lock Golf Centre in Long Eaton

Playing the 332nd and 333rd miniature golf courses on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

On the Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf course at Trent Lock Golf Centre

On Friday 28th March 2014 we headed to the Trent Lock Golf Centre in Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire to visit and play the 12-hole Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf course.

The course is next to the clubhouse and car park and is instantly noticeable on your arrival at the Trent Lock Golf Centre.

It's a great looking course and has some striking features including the giant pirate ship in the middle of the course, the two rafts players must use to travel between some holes and the Pirate Captain's Toilet on hole 8!!!

Photos of the course from our visit.

As a warm-up we played the good little 6-hole Putting Green next to the Pirate's Landing course. In our match-up Emily won 13-14 on the 553rd Minigolf course we've visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

The 6-hole artificial turf Putting Green at Trent Lock Golf Centre 

Emily putting on the Putting Green

In our main-event match-up on the 12-hole Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf course Emily also ran out the winner with a score of 34 to my 35.

Hole 7 was a killer hole for me - watch me get robbed of a number of shots on it.

Check out the Adventure Golf page of the Trent Lock Golf Centre website for details of the course opening times and prices.

Links:

- Trent Lock Golf Centre

- Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf

Related blog posts:

- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

- Playing Minigolf Through A Dunny!

- Fake Crocodiles! Or are they Alligators?

Videos from our visit:

- Firing through the cannon Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf 

- The Pirate's Toilet Obstacle at the Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf course 1 of 2 

- The Pirate's Toilet Obstacle at the Pirate's Landing Adventure Golf course 2 of 2 

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)

Another unplayed Minigolf course, but not visited by me

Christopher Gottfried celebrates seven years of the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour by not playing Minigolf in Newquay, Cornwall.

One of the greens at Newquay's 18-hole Mini Golf course

My brother, and founder member of the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, was recently in Newquay for a surfing holiday and spotted a sign for an 18-hole Mini Golf course.

18-hole Mini Golf just 150 yards away...

He followed it but was unable to play it as the course was closed.

A view of the 18-hole Minigolf course in Newquay

When sending through the photos Christopher commented “Newquay mini golf... Closed! Oh and an exclusive mini golf 'only' portaloo!”

The 'exclusive' Minigolf lavvy

One for me and Emily to add to our ‘to play’ list for when we eventually make it to the south west of England for a holiday roadtrip!

18-hole Minigolf and Breakfast Cafe in Newquay

From the photos it appears the course is a felted 'Beton' (or 'Concrete') version of Miniature Golf, more often found in continental Europe than here in the UK.

Related Blog Posts:

- Christopher Gottfried

- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

- Seven Years on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour!
- Visits to the Mini Golf course in Herne Bay
- Minigolf News - A Gottfried visits a closed Crazy Golf course!

Playing Minigolf Through A Dunny!

At the Glow Golf BlackLight Mini Golf course in Melbourne, Australia you play one of the holes through a Dunny!


Related blog posts:
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Australia
- Indoor Mini Golf courses