I'm not normally a tea drinker, but the advertising offer of a 'Nice cup of Tea' drew me in.
I must say it was a very nice cup of tea indeed.
I may start drinking Tea more often, as it may have played a part in fuelling the victory Chris Harding and I had in the Weymouth Open Team Tournament that afternoon!
On Monday 10th of October 2011 I headed to St Georges Square, Luton to take part in the Guinness World Record attempt for the most people to ‘High Five’ simultaneously. The event was held to mark World Mental Health Day and was organised by the Make A Difference (MAD) group.
The previous/current record stands at 1,790 people simultaneously High Fiving, but the MAD attempt counted over 2,100 people taking part.
On Saturday Poole Park 8th of October 2011 we made a stop off at Poole Park in Dorset to revisit the Crazy Golf and Putting courses there and also to finally meet minigolf friend and twitterer/facebooker extraordinaire Mick Gisbourne.
One of THE reasons I became a Professional Minigolfer is once again on telly this week - the excellent Grudge Match!
The show features great sporting rivalries and the Crazy Golf episode features the epic rivalry (that exists to this day) between Tim 'Ace Man' Davies and John 'Big Top Ted' McIver.
I have entered the Putter King Minigolf Hole Design Contest with my hole 'The Jewel in the Crown' which incorporates the Putter King's 'regal' theming into a very tricky uphill hole with a raised green, where the hole is enclosed by a Crown!
You can check out the Design at The Jewel in the Crown - Submission. Please click on the thumbs-up symbol at the bottom of the page to vote for my hole design too.
Ahead of the upcoming 2011 UK Rock Paper Scissors Championships a bunch of Minigolfers, some of whom will be competing in the tournament, faced-off in The Weymouth Preliminaries Rock Paper Scissors Contest at the Weymouth Annual Octoberfest Beer Festival.
The tournament saw five competitors square-off in 'best-of-3' matches. The results and order of play were a little hazy, possibly due to the effects of the environment that the contest took place in!
Firstly, a 'random' draw was held to see who would face who in Round One, and then battle commenced...
Results:
- Oliver 'The Machine' Florence lost to Richard 'The Rock' Gottfried 1-2
- Emily 'Lemony' Gottfried beat Paul 'The Terminator' Jones 2-1
- Kevin 'Alex Kidd' Moseley - bye to Round Two
- Oliver 'The Machine' Florence lost to Paul 'The Terminator' Jones 1-2 in a 'Best Loser Match'
- Paul 'The Terminator' Jones lost to Kevin 'Alex Kidd' Moseley* 1-2
(* Kevin 'Alex Kidd' Moseley was given a 'Public Warning' for playing an illegal throw of 'Sausage' in the first game)
- Richard 'The Rock' Gottfried beat Kevin 'Alex Kidd' Moseley 2-1 in the 'Final' - see below for footage
The 276th and final Miniature Golf course played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour roadtrip from Southsea to Felpham was at the Blakes Road Putting Course.
The 18-hole layout was tricky indeed, with Emily scoring a 52 to my round of 50. A very close battle on the Irregular Mini Golf Tour.
A wayward shot left Emily with a tricky next Putt!
Felpham is walkable from Bognor Regis and the course is worth a visit if you're in the area.
It's also another Miniature Golf course that has a Brown Tourist Sign to lead you to it.
As an aside, if you do visit Felpham then the Beachcroft Hotel is very close to the course and the restaurant there does some very good food. We dined there with both the 'Gluten Free' and 'normal' options after our round of Minigolf and before the long journey back home. Very tasty it was too.
The 275th Miniature Golf course played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour was the 18-hole Arnold Palmer Mini-Golf course at Waterloo Gardens, on the esplanade in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.
We visited and played the course on Sunday 2nd October 2011.
The course is in excellent condition and in a great location. With the very warm weather on the day the course was also very busy every time we walked past it, but we managed to find a time when we wouldn't have any large groups in front of us and jumped on for a round as part of our Irregular Mini Golf Tour competitions.
In our match-up Emily beat me 39-42 with a start of two Aces in a row. However this was followed by two 3's, but she still scored an 'out' of 18. Some excellent play on an excellent Crazy Golf course.
Unfortunately neither of us managed to win a FREE GAME on the Lucky Last Hole.
As the regular summer season was over the Putting Course at Marine Park Gardens was closed until next year. However, the visit to the course as part of the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour was a bonus as it had not been on our 'to visit' list until the man at the Crazy Golf & Putting Kiosk in Hotham Park had told us about it. He'd also informed us it wasn't going to be open to play, but we still had to go and have a look ahead of any future visits to Bognor Regis.
The course does look to be in good condition, with plenty of lumps and bumps to make the Putting tricky.
Hotham Park in Bognor Regis, West Sussex is home to two Miniature Golf courses. One is a 12-hole Crazy Golf, the other is an 18-hole Putting Course. We visited and played both on Sunday 2nd October 2011. They became the 273rd and 274th played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.
The Crazy Golf course was not like any other course going by the name 'Crazy Golf' that we had seen or played before! It's more like a Pitch & Putt style of Miniature Golf, with a 'green' to aim at from a patch of grass, or concrete slabs. Some of the holes are really bizarre (crazy!), including the Bridge that you've got to putt over!
Only one of the twelve holes actually resembles a Minigolf/Crazy Golf course as most people would know it.
In our Irregular Mini Golf Tour Match-up on the Crazy Golf course Emily defeated me 45-50.
In our Irregular Mini Golf Tour Match-up on the Putting course Emily defeated me 46-54.
The park also has a Miniature Railway and part of the track runs next to the Crazy Golf course.
The Minigolf courses (and some other leisure facilities) at Hotham Park and Marine Park Gardens in Bognor Regis, and others at Felpham and Littlehampton are operated by Inspire Leisure. The scorecards have a good list of all the other courses in the area, which was very handy indeed. The very helpful man in the hut at Hotham Park told us that we were lucky the weather was so nice and hot as the courses had actually closed for the season the weekend before. He said that the Marine Park Gardens course would still be closed, but that if we made it to Littlehampton the Adventure Golf course (and Pitch & Putt) there would be open as it's a year round course.
I’m a Champion Miniature Golfer on a tour of the UK’s minigolf and crazy golf courses. Coeliac living a gluten free life. Train nerd. Retro gamer. Urban explorer.
