Pulling into the car park at the Golf Centre the sight of the huge Pirate Ship struck me straight away! It's massive, bright and colourful and will surely lure people to play the course.
For adults it's £7.50 a round, which seems to be the going rate these days for an 18-hole round of Minigolf on the new wave of Adventure Golf courses. While not cheap, the Milton Keynes course was actually very good to play and the £7.50 seemed worth it. While I had the course pretty much to myself as it was 6pm on a cold Thursday in December, I imagine that the course is going to be very busy in the spring and summer. What is good though is that there are floodights so the last ticket sold for the course every day is at 8.45pm.
Photo: The view from the Car Park
Photo: Hole 1 - Putting into the Pirate Ship
Photo: Inside the Pirate Ship - Indoor Black Light Glow in the Dark Minigolf!
Photo: Hole 3 - and the Driving Range
Photo: A pair of Pirates having a fight over some treasure on an island!
We've played similar courses to the Pirate Island Adventure Golf, most notably at Celtic Manor in Wales, but each of the holes were new ones to me. I really liked the first two holes, which made good use of the Pirate Ship. The island hole which required the use of two 'do it yourself' rafts was also very well designed and made. The whole look and feel of the course has been well crafted and you wouldn't think you're in Milton Keynes!
Photo: Hole 11 - A Snake
Photo: The Island and a Raft
Photo: A loop di loop
Photo: A BIG Minigolf Skull
Photo: Another Crocodile/Alligator for my collection
Photo: Sailing back to shore
In my one round I managed to hit a couple of holes-in-one and scored a 54(+18), but one-under using the course par of 55.
Later that evening I returned with fellow Minigolf 'Pro' Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley, where we had a close fought challenge match with me coming out the victor with a score of 52 to Marc's 53.
On Thursday 15th December 2011 me and Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley met up in Milton Keynes for a "Best-of-Three, no wait make it Best-of-Five Games Series" for the title of MK Winter Sporting Challenge Champion! We had planned to play a lot of Quasar Laser Tag at the Tenpin Mega Bowl at MK Leisure Plaza, however there were no spaces in games until 9pm! So with time to spare we headed to the brand new Pirate Island Adventure Golf at the Abbey Hill Golf Centre for a game of Minigolf.
Photo: Not me & Marc having a Pirate Battle on a Minigolf Island!
As I had arrived in MK before Marc, I had managed to get a game in beforehand (making it minigolf course #281 played on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour!). Not that my warm-up game helped too much in our challenge match. Under floodlight conditions we hit the 18-hole course and it's excellent Pirate-theming for a match played in very cold conditions.
Photo: Marc Putting on a Double Plateau Hole
Photo: Richard on a Raft attached to a Minigolf Island
To say the match was one-sided in the early stages would be an understatement as Marc, the BMGA British #89, raced ahead over the Front-9 holes.
Video - Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley Plays the 10th Hole at Pirate Island Adventure Golf:
Photo: Marc has a testing second Putt on the 18th hole
But by the 17th hole the match was level on both Strokeplay and Matchplay! I stepped up first and hit a two, Marc played his first shot which ended in the rocks, played his second and waited... and it ran just passed the hole and he had to settle for a very unfortunate three. The final scores - Richard 52, Marc 53.
Game One - Winner - 'Squire' Richard Gottfried
Following the Minigolf match we decided to head back to the Mega Bowl to have a warm game of Quasar.
While we were waiting for the 9pm game slot we decided to have a game of the Crazy Golfers Favourite - Air Hockey. Despite leading for most of the (10-minute!) match I lost 8-9 after scoring an own goal in injury time. The game conditions were quite interesting, with just two of us and with no Emily to fetch #TheMan when the Puck went flying off the table there were a lot more throw-ins than usual!
Game Two - Winner - Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley
With 9pm approaching we headed to the check-in desk, signed the disclaimer (no running, no swearing, no fighting, no rifle-butts to the face etc.), found out that it would just be a one-on-one match and then waited to be called through to the Briefing Room. While we were waiting to go through Marc had the opportunity to have his photo taken with one of his Minigolf heroes!
Photo: Marc and his Minigolf Hero
Once in the Briefing Room the man said that before we could play we would have to watch "The DVD"! He seemed quite apologetic that we'd have to sit through it, however Marc and I were quite excited as in all the times we've played Laser Tag we've never had a briefing through a TV/DVD! The video was very informative, told us we were playing "Q-2000" and that once the film was over we'd be led to "The Vesting Room"!
The Milton Keynes Quasar Arena was very maze-like, with narrow passages leading to a central hub. With the game beig a solo battle the bases were unfortunately not in play. The game saw each of us trying to track the other down and in the quite big arena you had to take your opportunities and use the element of surprise on your opponent. Marc managed to do this and scored more hits, ending the game with a win for the REDS.
Photo: RED Marc and GREEN Richard
In the Quasar Stats for our game Marc was playing as RED 9 while I was GREEN 12. Marc won with a Hit Ratio of 0.9% after firing 855 shots and scoring 1,600 points! Inconceivably I was shown to have fired 4,003 times in our battle and ended with a Hit Ratio of 0.1% and 1,000 points!?
In the Never Ending Laser Tag War waged between the forces of the REDS, BLUES, GREENS, and YELLOWS players in the Laser Tag Rankings have taken part in Laser Battles in 'laser-war-torn' places including Birmingham, Hemel Hempstead, Bristol, London, Peterborough, Crawley, New Brighton, Cannock, Whitstable, Skegness, Rayleigh and Milton Keynes.
Updated Laser Tag Rankings following the MK Battle:
Click to enlarge image
Game Three - Winner - Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley
With the series at two-wins-to-one in Marc's favour we headed to the Pool tables. The table we played on seemed to have a bit of a slope and was also a bit troublesome if you were shooting from one end of it, as you had to open the door to the Hurricane Simulator arcade machine to get any sort of leverage!?
The other Pool table was out of order, but happened to be the one with any chalk in the chained up chalk holder!
In our match Marc won, with me still having three balls left to pot when Marc nailed the black for victory.
Game Four - Winner - Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley
After playing Pool we (I) tried to make the series a best-of-seven event, but Super Mario Kart wouldn't accept any of our coins and someone had jammed a pound coin and a ten pence piece in the coin slot of Out Run 3, putting paid to any chance of another win for me.
Overall Champion of the MK Winter Sporting Challenge - Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley
Ultimate MK Games Champion Marc 'The Roller' Bazeley said "I knew it was going to be tough, especially after the minigolf. But I always believed in myself and that belief was justified."
Perennial Runner-Up ‘Squire’ Richard Gottfried said “Well done to Marc on his big win at the games. It was well deserved indeed and he was unlucky not to beat me at the Minigolf too! I’m looking forward to some more games of Laser Tag and visits to #TheButtons soon.”
The new Pirate Island Adventure Golf course at Abbey Hill Golf Centre in Two Mile Ash is well worth a visit and we'll be heading back again. Hopefully we'll get to play the Quasar with more people next time too.
Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd wins the 'Rivernear Worlds Professional Crazy Golfers Darts Championships' in 14-player field
Shepherd makes it three wins in three years at Crazy Golfers Crimbo Shindigs!
Photo: The un-Bronze Bully Prize!
On Monday 19th December 2011 thirteen of the World’s best Crazy Golfers and Snooker Ace/Juggler Richard '147' Linden met under the Arrivals Board at Victoria Station (how romantic) before heading to Rileys Victoria for an evening of shenanigans in the 2011 Crazy Golfers Christmas ‘Do’.
Previous years have seen the group play Minigolf in 2009 (a busman’s holiday) and Indoor BIG Golf on a simulator & a bit of Putting in 2010. But for the 2011 Open Invitational event there were a few new options suggested, including Tenpin Bowling, Darts, Laser Tag and Table Football.
With Bowling Alleys either charging too much (read 'extortionate'), or not bothered about the potential booking from the group it was decided that Darts would be a good option and after some research on the Bachelor of Darts’ Capital Arrows website the venue for the ‘Do’ was found and a booking made for three Dart Boards at Rileys Victoria. What was even better was the Boards were free to book!
The 14 players would be vying for the Christmas Champion Title and the un-Bronze Bully in the ‘Rivernear Worlds Professional Crazy Golfers Darts Championships’! Players got into the festive/darts spirit by donning Christmas hats and gaudy shirts for the night out.
Photo: Action from Board 3. Trevor 'The Wraith' Robertson on the oche in his match against Emily 'Ah Bristow' Gottfried. Alan 'Stormin' Norman is the scorer
At 7pm the players began practising their throws and the competitors could get an early idea of who the opposition would be. While the praccy was underway a draw/bracket/format was organised by EmilyLemonyCoach, TevorTheWraithSmeethino and Brad.
Of note is the fact that Seth ‘Zen’ Thomas had brought his own Snooker Cue, which many players thought was a Javelin in a case when they met at Victoria. Unfortunately with so much ‘arrers action going on the group never had time to play any Pool or Snooker. Perhaps next year...
Photo: Seth 'Zen' Thomas and his Pool Cue in a case at Victoria Station. Also pictured, Alan 'Stormin' Norman (l) and Steve 'F1' Gow
One of the early favourites for the tournament victory was Gareth ‘Colleen’ Holmes, who while not present on the Minigolf-scene of late (since a devastating tackle from Brad at an Air Hockey table in Hastings which put him on the disabled-list), was thought to be a challenger as someone said he’d “played a bit of Darts before.” Where he’d played, how long ago and against who is still unclear!? On the walk to Rileys ‘Oh’ Chris Jones had also stated that he’d played before and wasn’t bad, however he then said "But that was 32 years ago!"
Photo: Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd on the oche, with scorer Martin 'Smashin' Robertson
With the competition format decided a draw was then held to decide the groups for the event.
All of the matches, except the final, would be played as one-leg shoot outs of 301 straight-in, double-out games. The final of the ‘Rivernear Worlds Professional Crazy Golfers Darts Championships’ would be played in a 501 game.
For the qualifying round the 14 players were drawn into three Pools and each assigned to a Dart Board to play round-robin matches. The top two players from each group would then qualify automatically to the last-8, with the three players who finished third in their groups meeting one another in a play-off to decide which two would qualify as players 7 & 8.
The remaining players would be placed into a Loser’s Pool to play-off in a round-robin format to decide places 9-14.
The top-8 would play in a knockout format to decide who would make the semi-finals and the losing four players would then play for positions 5-8. There would also be a 3rd/4th place match prior to the Grand Final.
Pool A / Dart Board 1
Seth ‘Zen’ Thomas
Jon ‘The Stance’ Angel
‘Oh’ Chris Jones
Gareth ‘Colleen’ Holmes
Richard ‘147' Linden
Pool B / Dart Board 2
‘Squire’ Richard Gottfried
Brad ‘The Fist’ Shepherd
Martin ‘Smashin’ Robertson
Lionel ‘The Spoon’ Bender
Pool C / Dart Board 3
Emily ‘Ah Bristow’ Gottfried
Trevor ‘The Wraith’ Robertson
Alan ‘Stormin’ Norman
Steve ‘The Rant’ Gow
Marc ‘The Professor’ Chapman
Due to unforeseen technical issues, the pre-prepared 'Walk-on' music for each player ahead of their matches was unavailable. It wasn't a big problem though as it would likely have been drowned out by the Christmas tunes anyway!
Automatically qualifying for the quarter-finals from Group A was Seth, with Martin and Brad joining him from Group B. Alan was the automatic qualifier from Group C.
In Group A and C there were players tied for the second and third places so a three-way 9-dart play-off was required to decide who finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in each group. In Group A Gareth won with a score of 156 to qualify as group runner-up. Jon was third, scoring 113, and would go into the play-off pool for the third place players, joining Richard G and the third player from Group C. Richard L scored 70 and finished 4th in Group A.
In Group C Emily won the 9-dart play-off with a score of 127, with Steve qualifying for the three-way play-off against Richard G and Jon, having scored 117. Despite hitting treble-20 with one of his last three darts Marc scored 108 to finish fourth in the Group.
The highest three-dart score of the whole tournament was made by Trevor ‘The Wraith’ Robertson in a first-round match when he hit a great score of 111.
Before the matches in the last-8 could commence, the players who would be ‘seeded’ 7th and 8th needed to be decided. In the three-way play-off Richard G beat Steve, Steve lost to Jon, and Jon beat Richard G, meaning Jon qualified as number 7 and Richard as number 8. Steve would join Marc, Richard L, Chris, Trevor and Lionel in the Loser’s Pool for the ranking matches for places 9-14.
In these matches both Marc and Steve managed to complete their games before the Grand Final got underway and finished in 9th and 10th places respectively, with Marc winning four of his five round-robin games. Steve won two and lost three in the round-robin pool. Steve also managed to play the most competitive matches in the tournament, stepping up to the oche to compete in eleven matches overall!
Lionel, Chris, Trevor and Richard L did not complete all of their round-robin games and were tied in 11th place (or 11th, tied 12th and 14th to be ever so precise).
In the last-8 matches Emily lost to Richard G in a grudge match between the two Lutonians. Brad beat Martin in a re-match from the group stages. Gareth lost to Seth and Jon beat Alan.
In the games to decide the rankings from 5th to 8th place Emily lost to Martin who found some of his first-round form to get the win. Alan beat Gareth in an all-London encounter. Martin lost to Alan and Emily lost to bookies favourite Gareth.
In the semi-finals Richard G once again lost to Brad, as he had in their group match, with Brad progressing to the Grand Final. Earlier in the day the two had stumbled across a Pub in Wood Green advertising their Dart Board and had a few games, with Richard winning five-out-of-five, but he could not find the double against Brad in the semi-final.
Photo: Semi-Finalists Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd and 'Squire' Richard Gottfried
In the second semi-final Seth beat Jon to book his place in the Grand Final against Brad.
Photo: Semi-Finalists Seth 'Zen' Thomas and Jon 'The Stance' Angel
Ahead of the Grand Final Richard and Jon met, in another re-match from earlier in the evening, to decide who would finish as the Bronze medallist. In the 301 contest Richard picked up the victory to claim a place on the Podium.
Photo: The Finalists Seth 'Zen' Thomas and Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd. With scorer Gareth 'Colleen' Holmes
With the un-Bronze Bully up for grabs, a fair few drinks imbibed and hunger setting in, the atmosphere for the final saw the other twelve players reaching a sort-of mild fever-pitch.
In the 501 straight-in double-out contest Brad ‘The Fist’ Shepherd managed to defeat surprise finalist Seth ‘Zen’ Thomas by hitting double-2, leading to a big cheer from the crowd as Brad realised his dream of winning the competitions at three Christmas ‘Do’s’ in three years! Marc the announcer declared Brad the winner and Gareth the scorer presented him with the coveted un-Bronze Bully to shouts of “Bully! Bully! Bully!” from the uproarious audience.
Photo: 2011 Rivernear Worlds Professional Crazy Golfers Darts Champion Brad 'The Fist' Shepherd
With the matches over and the promise of some sore heads & throwing arms and bruised egos the next day, the merry minigolfers made their way to all corners of London and the Home Counties (and Canterbury) all looking forward to a Merry Christmas and dreams of toppling Brad’s reign as Crazy Golf’s Crimbo Champ in 2012!
Suggestions for sporting contests for the 2012 Crimbo Contest already include:
- Draughts/Kick-boxing
- Ludo/Fencing
- Connect-4/Arm-Wrestling
- Ping-Pong/Sumo
Other ideas more than welcome, please leave comments below...
Final Rankings and Win/Loss Records for the 2011 ‘Rivernear Worlds Professional Crazy Golfers Darts Championships’
More photos from the event:
Photo: Lionel 'The Spoon' Bender hits the Bullseye!
Photo: Snooker player and Juggler Richard '147' Linden reaches his 'perfect' score!
Photo: Marc 'The Professor' Chapman takes a closer look at Bully (censored version)
The 'Rivernear' Darts Tournament was the biggest in the history of Crazy Golf! In 2008 the first-ever (and only one to date) Links Darts tournament was contested at Planet Hastings Crazy Golf course at the end of the first day’s play of the 2008 BMGA British Minigolf Championships. That contest was won by Sean ‘The Sandman’ Homer. Perhaps the 2012 minigolf season will throw-up a meeting between Brad and Sean in a battle of the two ‘codes’ in a Grand Slam of Minigolf-Darts!
On Saturday 10th December 2011 nine Crazy Minigolfers, including me and Emily, headed to New Malden's 18-hole Jurassic Encounter Adventure Golf course to compete in the second bi-annual Oliver Florence Birthday Invitational Minigolf Tournament
The format for the 30th Birthday edition of the contest saw two contests take place, with a Doubles Pro-Am competition and an overall individual winner to be crowned - Scottish International Minigolfer Guy Martin headed into the event as the reigning and defending champion and a 20/1 shot in the pre-tournament betting. However, the final pre-tournament odds* saw Martin de-listed and therefore an 'other' at 10,012/1!?
In the 18-hole contest I won the individual contest by one-shot from AMF Asian Open Runner-Up Richard 'Gentle Touch' Skeggs. I scored an imperfect Par of 36.
Photo: Birthday boy Oliver 'The Machine' Florence takes an action photo of defending champion Scottish International Minigolfer Guy Martin who was about to score a dreaded seven on the fourth hole!
Photo: Emily 'Lemony' Gottfried takes a snap of Birthday boy Oliver 'The Machine' Florence Putting at the Jurassic Encounter course
Photo: 'Squire' Richard Gottfried taking a shot
Photo: A tricky second Putt awaits Seth 'Clockwork Orange' Thomas
Photo: Seth 'Clockwork Orange' Thomas lines up the plant pot putt
Photo: With the crowd looking on Seth 'Clockwork Orange' Thomas hits his 'recovery' shot (it didn't go in)
Photo: Emily 'Lemony' Gottfried Putting on the 18th hole
Photo: 'Squire' Richard Gottfried spots another fake Crocodile/Alligator to add to his collection!
*The final 'odd' odds were:
- Florence 5/2
- Thomas 3/1
- Gottfried 7/2
- Cooley 6/1
- Skaggs 7/1
- Jones 10/1
- Clark 12/1
- Rutheringtons 33/1
- Pragnell 1,001/1
- Other 10,012/1
