golfweloveit

On a recent visit to arty, trendy Shoreditch in London’s East End I happened upon something special called Junkyard Golf. Thanks to Liv and the staff for giving me a guided tour around one of the fastest growing leisure outlets in the UK. It was impressive how busy it was for a weekday and the complete diversity of people coming in to play. There were a lot of women there. Some on dates, several in hen parties, a family of three generations of women celebrating the youngest member’s 21st birthday. And what was interesting was how engaged they all were with the activity. The security staff were vigilant and present but there wasn’t a hint of rowdiness or drunkenness even though there was a busy bar serving cocktails and mocktails, beers, soft drinks, fast food and snacks.

There were three courses to play of varying difficulty. Shrieks of laughter and chatter but it was lively and buzzy and pleasant. Several large groups of workmates from nearby businesses were sitting talking together waiting for their slot to play and well dressed businessmen from the city of London came in together during their lunch break. It gave them recreation, something to do away from their workplace, devices and social media  in the middle of their working day a time out to refresh their minds and that is a valuable mental health reason. This type of golf can be played quickly and can be fitted into a break in the working day as the venue is right in the heart of many businesses and workplaces. As a night time venue it is very popular as the team work up theme nights, Halloween and Glitter Ball dress up nights were sell outs.The Valentines Night promotion was very popular and Junkyard Golf decided to donate the £30,000 takings to its designated charity Love Support Unite which raises funds for education, health care and skills training in Malawi. All the venues in London, Liverpool, Oxford, Leeds and Manchester also sell popular Mega Love Specs which turn every light into a rainbow filter of love hearts useful again for festivals gigs and parties. Every penny from the sale of this product goes to Love Support Unite.

Apart from being entertainment even skilful golfers have found Junkyard Golf interesting. The best and most effective way to lower your handicap is to improve your putting and Junkyard Golf’s challenges make improving this less boring. The city venues are easily accessible for regular golfers to come in and practice and improve their stroke.

Junkyard Golf was started by two young entrepreneurs as a pop up business and has grown to venues in five cities but has so much potential as a leisure outlet that I think every town should have one. The courses are basically full of old tat such as burnt out cars, auto junk and things from the scrapyard for you to play out of. In London there are four courses which all need creative thinking  – Pablo is a polluted jungle with skulls of failed players and creepy forest animals, Bozo has scary clowns, a hall of mirrors and is a nasty old circus Bruce is about the movies and Gary is about garage it has 90s grunge music playing and a lot of scrapyard items to navigate. The halfway hut of each nine hole course is a photo booth which can send a gif of you posing to your mobile phone.

It’s golf – but not as we know it.

The Jonas Brothers this week released Sucker, their first single in what, five years. What have they been doing all this time? Every picture tells a story. They didn’t want to get changed from the golf course so they could get back to it as soon as the photograph was taken.

Join in the singalong Car Pool Karoke with James Corden and the Brothers here:

Paul Casey became the first man in the tour ament’s 19 year history to have a repeat win in the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort Tampa when he shot -1 72 in the final round to beat Louis Oosthuizen and Jason Kokrak by a stroke. A strong par made from a fairway bunker at the last sealed the win. He said that last year’s win T the Valspar had raised his confidence after eight winless years on the PGA Tour.

”It feels different this year, but not any less cool” he said.

The move of The Players Championship from May back to its original date in March meant a challenging change of conditions in the final round. It was very entertaining to watch for all sorts of reasons. Jim Furyk bidding to become the oldest winner eventually missed a 6 footer and was leader in the clubhouse for some time. Jon Rahm and his caddie appeared to have a disagreement, Dustin Johnson couldnt make a putt under 10 feet, Jason Day played messilyand Tommy Fleetwood who played with some brilliance made an eagle on 16 after hitting his approach to 3 feet and the  hit his ball in the water on 17.

And then there was Rory who was doing his best not to let the frustration of constant runners up finishes get to him. All year he had not been outside the top 6 in every tournament he had competed in. He revealed that he had been figuring the mental side of the game out for himself. It showed. He looked serene and competed with imperious driving and thought his way round the course well. He had four birdies in the final 8 holes and on 16 took the lead playing a 6 iron out of the sand from 180 yards to 14 feet and made the putt. He won by one shot. (3 said

“I needed to show a lot of character out there,” he said. “I think all the experiences I’ve had over the last few weeks in terms of trying to win and not getting over the line definitely helped me today.”

A blistering final round of 64 allowed Francesco Molinari to storm from behind to win the Bay Hill invitational finishing two hours before the final group came into the clubhouse. The final leaderboard had international players taking the top five places with Matthew Fitzpatrick runner up and three players tied on -9 – Tommy Fleetwood, Sun Jae Im and Rafa Cabrera Bello.

It’s Molinari’s fourth worldwide win in 10 months and first since becoming Open Champion. He started the final round five shots back with four birdies on the front nine to be out in 32. Back to back birdies at 12 and 13 were followed with an adventurous 16th hole whee he nearly holed his secind shot for albatross. He ended up making 7 birdies in his bogey free round of -8.

Molinari said: “This is incredible. It’s up there with the best wins I’ve had. Arnold Palmer was a special player but most of all a special person and a global icon for the game. To win here is really, truly special”.

During the first round of the Honda Classic yesterday Rickie Fowler was granted a drop by a rules official and decided to do it a little bit differently, but still under the new knee high version of the Rules of Golf.

Keith Mitchell sealed his first win on the PGA Tour with a birdie on 18 at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens Florida beating Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka by a stroke. Fowler had a late charge to -8 with 3 birdies in the last 4 holes including a 45ft putt which he holed out on the 17th. Mitchell found himself in the upslope of a fairway bunker on 18, laid up with his second then hit a wedge to 15 feet below the hole and holed his putt for a win which had looked unlikely when he began his final round with two bogeys.

To add to the entertainment Vijay Singh was in with a chance to become the oldest man ever to win a PGA Tour title at 56 when had a birdie out for a share of the lead on 15 which he missed, and he fell back to place 6th. Sam Snead still holds the record of oldest man winning the Greater Greensboro Open when he was 52.

Dustin Johnson said he was “really happy” with his 20th tour victory this weekend at the WGC-Mexico Championship. His final round of 66 beat Rory McIlroy by 5 strokes, who was in the top 5 for the 4th consecutive start.

That’s about as excited as he ever gets. He was more interested in the implications of this win. It grants lifetime exemption on the PGA Tour, in particular from a rule which protects sponsor’s interests. The “strength of field” requirement requires players to add an event which they haven’t played in for the previous four years if they havent played in 25 events the previous season. “I was definitely thinking of that, it was my biggest concern, because I couldnt find somewhere I was going to add a tournament this year”.

All well and good until he was told that he can’t take advantage of this until 2022, because the second part of the exemption states that it must be 20 victories and 15 active years on Tour. Dustin has only been playing on the PGA Tour for 12 years and he has won every year.