golfweloveit

Earlier this month the 2nd Footgolf World Cup was played over the Pilar Golf and Country Club outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The United States team won the team event.

The individual World Footgolf Champion is Christian Ortero from Argentina. The United Kingdom had three players in the top 10 – Paul Oliver, Ben Clarke and Dan Spice who ranked 4th, 5th and 10th respectively. Paul Oliver is now the number 1 Footgolf player in the UK and ranked 4th in the world. The former Director of Golf at Addington Court Golf Centre, Croydon he is now Director of Development for the UK Footgolf Association. I once kicked some shots around the Footgolf course at Addington Court and Paul powered round the course. having played Footgolf since, where my group abandoned after the 13th hole because certain players were complaining they were finding it hard to kick the ball because their trousers were too tight and those watching were teetering round the course in high heels I can conclude that it is a sport not for the fashion conscious.

What do you get when you bring the world’s best soccer players and professional golfers together? Footgolf! For the very first time, golf and soccer are collaborating to help kids in need in the Greater Orlando area.
On February 22, the Kate & Justin Rose Foundation and the Orlando City Soccer Foundation will host “Kicks Fore Kids,” a footgolf tournament at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Grande Lakes. This unique event will pair one celebrity golfer or soccer player with each three-some in a footgolf match played on a regulation footgolf course.“Kicks Fore Kids is a wonderful opportunity to bring two popular sports together to benefit our community,” said Kate Rose, president of the Kate & Justin Rose Foundation. “Partnering with the Orlando City Soccer Foundation brings together two foundations that have similar missions, helping children in need. The proceeds from this event will impact many children in the Greater Orlando area.” ”
We are very excited to host this footgolf tournament with Orlando City Soccer” said international golf star Justin Rose, who is vice president of the Kate & Justin Rose Foundation. “Combining the world’s best soccer players with golfers in a friendly competition should provide an entertaining event for participants and observers alike while raising money to help children in need. We hope everyone will come out and join us!”“This will be a fun event for the players and spectators are encouraged to come and walk the course with their favorite team or stay at a hole and watch all the teams come through,” added Kay Rawlins, President of the Orlando City Soccer Foundation.
“Kick off” for the tournament will be at 7:45 a.m. on Monday, February 22. If you’re interested search for Kicks Fore Kids Sign-Up.

Found on a financial website this week, wonder how many will just go into clubs and start swimming without permission?

“It is estimated that there are around 50 million lost golf balls in lakes around the UK, largely because of bad shots.

Most golfers don’t fancy going in and recovering these balls and so they’re lost forever unless a golf ball diver recovers them.

A lot of golf balls are valuable, so a golf ball diver recovers these balls and often restores them, and then sells them on.

The amount you’ll earn is dependent upon how many balls you can recover, plus you’ll need to be a strong diver to earn a living doing it.

It’s a business that you would set up on the side something to do at the weekends if you’re a keen diver and live near a golf course.

Recovering golf balls might sound easy, but don’t forget you’ll be swimming among weeds, fish, shopping trollies and who knows what else so it can be quite a struggle. People have died trying to recover golf balls.

Also, if you do end up golf ball-diving make sure you’re not breaking any laws, particularly trespassing laws. An accomplice of a golf ball diver was jailed back in 2002 for just this crime, not the greatest way to reward the entrepreneurial spirit.

Still, If you think British golf ball divers have it hard, spare a thought for some American divers. To recover golf balls some have to fight venomous snakes and alligators!”

This week saw the first meeting of the all-party, both House group Parliamentary Golf which has been set up by Karl McCartney MP,the Member of Parliament for the City of Lincoln. It is partnered by the Royal and Ancient and supported by MR Sport. The meeting on 19 January saw a lively debate about the peception of golf, access for those wanting to play and club financing and taxation.

Associate memberships, and the opportunity to attend and contribute to meetings are currently available at just £25. The forum is to tackle issues central to the sport of golf and drive economic development. Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of the Royal and Ancient said he was looking forward to working closely with the group to provide a strong voice for our sport.

Future meetings will be held at the House of Lords on 18 April, 4 July, 24 October and the Annual Dinner will be held on 22 November.

Full details can be found at Parliamentary.Golf and @ParliamentGolf on twitter.

Rory McIlroy became engaged again recently when he proposed to Erica Stoll, a PGA of America employee on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Liking the redhead minder walking closely behind.

I was in a TV studio this week and the warm up man wanted to rehearse us in different types of applause. “Imagine you’re at a golf match and “Jack Nicholson” has hit a nice putt but left it short” there was a smattering of polite clapping. Someone had obviously told him in his earpiece to continue with this golfing analogy but he continued to struggle to remember the name of any pro golfer. Eventually he remembered Lee Trevino and he said “applaud Supermex like he’s holed out of a bunker” the audience clapped harder. Then after some thought he said “Now Terry Wogan has holed the biggest putt you’ve ever seen” and the audience clapped and cheered hard. Interesting that his frame of golfing reference wasnt Rory or Tiger or Seve or Faldo but memories from his teenage years of watching Pro-Celebrity golf on BBC2. Peter Alliss apparently made 140 of these programmes which had viewers of about 8 million people on a Sunday night, and it seeped into the consciousness of the general public. It was the best reach out to golf this country ever made. To match the sport with top level entertainment. And yet these programmes cant be found on DVD, there are no you tubes, just our memories of a hugely entertaining programme.

Japanese drinks giant, Asahi Group, which owns the Buckinghamshire golf club in southern England, is to invest £2 million in refurbishing the golf course.

Golf architects Thomson Perrett & Lobb will lead the renovation project, which will be implemented over the next two winters, and will include building an irrigation reservoir, installing a new Toro irrigation system and rebuilding the existing green to tee cart paths. Lake work and a rebuild of the course’s bunkering will complete the works, which should be done by March 2017.

“A key part of our brief was to reduce the size of the course’s bunkers,” says TPL principal Tim Lobb. “The bunkers are way too large, and many of them do not really influence play. We’ll reduce the bunkers from a total size of 14,000 sq m down to 6,000 sq m.”

“Building a large reservoir will help us to save money and improve our sustainability and means we won’t be reliant on using mains water,” said course manager Andy Ewence. “Installing a new irrigation system will help us to produce tournament standard conditions throughout the year, while our advanced new sprinkler system will also reduce wastage. We will be able to target only the greens, surrounds, approaches, fairways and tees where water is required.”

“We have been working with the Buckinghamshire to implement a strategic review of the bunker positioning and style among other planned upgrades,” said Lobb. “At the forefront of all our design proposals is to create a strategic, interesting and fair golfing challenge for club members, visitors and tournament golfers alike. We look forward to commencing work on site this winter.” Contractor Profusion Environmental is in charge of the construction work, with AT Bone handling infrastructure works.

The original course at the Buckinghamshire Golf Club was designed by John Jacobs and is set in 226 acres of magnificent English parkland near Denham and close to the M25. The club is the headquarters of the Ladies European Tour.