We will meet again

I’m sure there was an old thread somewhere about 606ers who have met, whether for golf or just for the sake of meeting.

In anticipation of this all being over (eventually) maybe there should be a wee bit of effort on each one of us to organise to meet others for game.

Who have you met? Who would you like to meet?

For me I’ve met


Plunky
Ladyputt
Puligny
As well as former members
Driveforshow
No shanking tonite
Doonthewater
and off the course for a beer Londonjohnno


In terms of who I’d like to meet for a round? I’d turn it round and say there isn’t anyone I wouldn’t want to meet for a round. Top of the list would have to be a 3 or 4 ball that included Super and Mac though.

What about the rest of you?

Super owes me a round on TOC.

Next time you are up for the Tassie JAS.

I attended the meet on the old thread. I think dynamark was there along with Bertie Beef and Jeff Carnage. We played down in Surrey/Sussex somewhere. There was a character on the old thread who was forthright in his views, but I can't remember his name. Good player though. Edit. Just found an old post along the same lines HERE and someone chipped in with his "first" name. Boa.

Before I hung up the clubs, I had a very enjoyable day at my old club with BlueCoverMan and 1Grumpy golfer but that's it from the current forum.

Back MANY years ago now, before the advent is forums, I used to get my online golf fix from the internet USENET news (whatever happened to news groups?) - and there was a fairly active uk.sport.golf group. We started in around 2000 with a local get together on the same day - one in the North and one in the South (I think the one n the South was somewhere near Luton?) - on the day we decided to play a Ryder cup style event annually somewhere in the midlands between North and South and I attended that for about 10 years running before it finally died out. Played some great locations including Hill Valley and Hawkstone Park.

Davie

How come you have stopped playing?

McLaren wrote:Davie

How come you have stopped playing?

Combination of reasons Mac. It was getting very expensive; though that wasn't the prime reason, I could have still afforded it. I took early retirement last year due to redundancy which should have meant more time for golf (and could have gone down to 5 days membership) but the fact was I wasn't as competitive as I used to be and simply just wasn't enjoying it anymore. Over 12 months since I've played now and not missing it a bit (though I do miss the club and people).

Davie wrote:

McLaren wrote:Davie

How come you have stopped playing?

Combination of reasons Mac. It was getting very expensive; though that wasn't the prime reason, I could have still afforded it. I took early retirement last year due to redundancy which should have meant more time for golf (and could have gone down to 5 days membership) but the fact was I wasn't as competitive as I used to be and simply just wasn't enjoying it anymore. Over 12 months since I've played now and not missing it a bit (though I do miss the club and people).

It's a good reason. Can't imagine playing if I couldn't play to the level I wanted to.

Super

I can't play at the level I want to but still enjoy trying to get there. Ideally I would be playing off scratch.

McLaren wrote:Super

I can't play at the level I want to but still enjoy trying to get there. Ideally I would be playing off scratch.

If your level dropped considerably from the level you are at now though and physically you weren't able to see a way back, would you still do it?

It would certainly massively harm my enjoyment of the game. No way of telling if I would actually give it up. Although I can't think of many people I know that have given up due to performance decline, unless they have become physically incapable of playing.

Most golfers just seem to soldier on no matter how bad it gets.

I used to play golf a lot when I was younger.
Really enjoyed it. Late teens/early 20’s just wasn't enjoying it as much, got into other things and stopped playing.

Probably played once or twice in the last 20 years.
Know quite a few people that play. Was going to have a game or two this summer, that’s probably not going to happen.

Would probably only play once a month or so.

Depends how well I was playing

Probably be useless as it’s been such a long time away from it.

McLaren wrote:It would certainly massively harm my enjoyment of the game. No way of telling if I would actually give it up. Although I can't think of many people I know that have given up due to performance decline, unless they have become physically incapable of playing.

Most golfers just seem to soldier on no matter how bad it gets.

That was it - it was killing my enjoyment too. I'd first considered packing it in a couple of years previously but decided as you say to "soldier on" and gave it another couple of years but it wasn't to be

super_realist wrote:Next time you are up for the Tassie JAS.

Aye, indeed let’s try next time, I’ve been thinking for a week or 2 now that the 2020 Tassie is going to get canned as I don’t see us being all completely lockdown free by Sept, hopefully we will be ok for golf by then but we shall see. Of course there’s a lot of off course camaraderie at the Tassie which will clearly be much muted this year if it does go ahead so it will be a strange one to say the least.

I'm never wrong wrote:I attended the meet on the old thread. I think dynamark was there along with Bertie Beef and Jeff Carnage. We played down in Surrey/Sussex somewhere. There was a character on the old thread who was forthright in his views, but I can't remember his name. Good player though. Edit. Just found an old post along the same lines HERE and someone chipped in with his "first" name. Boa.

The forthright one I remember on the old board was LondonJohnno. I met him for a beer 2-3 years ago when I was up in London. He’s still on my FB and still very forthright :-p

I'm wondering if our gradual exit from lockdown is going to begin with being allowed to do stuff, but rather limited to the regions in which we reside. I can't see them countenancing people travelling all over the country for a while yet.

super_realist wrote:I'm wondering if our gradual exit from lockdown is going to begin with being allowed to do stuff, but rather limited to the regions in which we reside. I can't see them countenancing people travelling all over the country for a while yet.

Indeed and that’s part of the problem I see with the Tassie, there’s quite a fair sized international contingent, I’d guess around half the field is English, there’s about 25-30 Swedes most years and about a dozen transatlantic (US & Canada) then sprinklings from other countries

super_realist wrote:I'm wondering if our gradual exit from lockdown is going to begin with being allowed to do stuff, but rather limited to the regions in which we reside. I can't see them countenancing people travelling all over the country for a while yet.

Luckily I can get you on my Edinburgh club for members rates then. You will then definitely owe me a round on TOC.

Mac, I can get on Braids for about 50p

Super

The braids is £26. I can get you on cheaper than that.

Just to add the original meet was Royal Ashdown Forest organised by Boa super course no bunkers but grassy hollows.Carnage and Bertie camped out overnight lovelly day out Boa was totally bonkers but a very good player at 70 plus just missed walker cup team allegedly.
Biggest character for me was Spanish Nick who was involved In some sort of VAT scam with mobile phones lived near Malaga then had to move rather rapid to Cyprus.-probably untrue but good fun.We had another game at the council tip near heathrow otherwise called Stockley Park
Pretty sure INW was in the plod at that time and Diggers otherwise known as Digbert attended.

dynamark wrote:Just to add the original meet was Royal Ashdown Forest organised by Boa super course no bunkers but grassy hollows.Carnage and Bertie camped out overnight lovelly day out Boa was totally bonkers but a very good player at 70 plus just missed walker cup team allegedly.
Biggest character for me was Spanish Nick who was involved In some sort of VAT scam with mobile phones lived near Malaga then had to move rather rapid to Cyprus.-probably untrue but good fun.We had another game at the council tip near heathrow otherwise called Stockley Park
Pretty sure INW was in the plod at that time and Diggers otherwise known as Digbert attended.

Stockley Park? or Stoke Park? They’re not that far apart, how long ago was that Dyna? Did we ever find out what happened to Diggers?

JAS wrote:

dynamark wrote:Just to add the original meet was Royal Ashdown Forest organised by Boa super course no bunkers but grassy hollows.Carnage and Bertie camped out overnight lovelly day out Boa was totally bonkers but a very good player at 70 plus just missed walker cup team allegedly.
Biggest character for me was Spanish Nick who was involved In some sort of VAT scam with mobile phones lived near Malaga then had to move rather rapid to Cyprus.-probably untrue but good fun.We had another game at the council tip near heathrow otherwise called Stockley Park
Pretty sure INW was in the plod at that time and Diggers otherwise known as Digbert attended.

Stockley Park? or Stoke Park? They’re not that far apart, how long ago was that Dyna? Did we ever find out what happened to Diggers?

Diggers checked out, I believe, due to the negativity on the board.
Reading so many efforts to make a silk purse out of the proverbial sow's ear elsewhere, it's hardly surprising.

Not sure we could afford Stoke we played Stockley former Hillingdon Council rubbish tip but a Trent Jones design no push over huge greens .Fortunate enough to have played Stoke a few times when a mate lived close by ,but that went a bit sour when his wife had an affair with the pro.Lovely area around there very nice but our company have a estate of houses just down the road in Slough maybe 4 miles away and its rough and rife with drugs.
Digs seemed a very pleasant guy I believe he changed career to be a teacher

He did dyna.
He left the board for a year or more whilst he did his teachers training, then re-emerged in front of a blackboard.

kwinigolfer wrote:He did dyna.
He left the board for a year or more whilst he did his teachers training, then re-emerged in front of a blackboard.

Perfect career for someone so left.

dynamark wrote:Not sure we could afford Stoke we played Stockley former Hillingdon Council rubbish tip but a Trent  Jones design no push over huge greens .Fortunate enough to have played Stoke a few times when a mate lived close by ,but that went a bit sour when his wife had an affair with the pro.Lovely area around there very nice but our company have a estate of houses just down the road in Slough maybe 4 miles away and its rough and rife with drugs.
Digs seemed a very pleasant guy I believe he changed career to be a teacher

Ah right, I used to have a (non golfing) mate in Langley which must be in between the 2, I have frequented a curry house or several in that area :-p. So where are you actually based Dyna?

Digs was well left of centre THF.
Jas I'm Leicester born and based here but the firm have houses all over the place.Langley is the air traffic control place I believe?
Many years ago my pal used to run the clubhouse at Harefield Place GC Uxbridge and we would have a game every couple of weeks around there Denham,tricky Ricky,Moor Park.even Wentworth and Sunningdale ,Sandy Lodge great courses and good times when we were all fit a well.He died couple of years ago his missus was rather pleasant though!

dynamark wrote:Digs was well left of centre THF.
Jas I'm Leicester born and based here but the firm have houses all over the place.Langley is the air traffic control place I believe?
Many years ago my pal used to run the clubhouse at Harefield Place GC Uxbridge and we would have a game every couple of weeks around there Denham,tricky Ricky,Moor Park.even Wentworth and  Sunningdale ,Sandy Lodge great courses and good times when we were all fit a well.He died couple of years ago his missus was rather pleasant though!

Ah ok, not Birstall by any chance? I had the pleasure of a practice round at the Tassie a few years ago with a couple of Birstall guys (both former winners of the event) since then another guy from Birstall has won it. They clearly breed good matchplay players there!!

Not Birstall but played it many times ,not a long track but some tricky holes.Couple of county standard players from there must be your men(Stevens?).We play the winter alliance where we go round all the courses over the winter months for about £20 a go very nice and Birstall is always a good day out.My club is Forest Hill we had the Trilby tour there last year and used to host the Midland Open.Opened in 1991 and pleased to say I was lets say very involved in the creation of said golf course.

dynamark wrote:Not Birstall but played it many times ,not a long track but some tricky holes.Couple of county standard players from there must be your men(Stevens?).We play the winter alliance where we go round all the courses over the winter months for about £20 a go very nice and Birstall is always a good day out.My club is Forest Hill we had the Trilby tour there last year and used to host the Midland Open.Opened in 1991 and pleased to say I was lets say very involved in the creation of said golf course.

It was a Jack Merry that won it last year, the guys I played the practice round with was Stuart Marriott & Gordon Marshall, really good guys and not shy in sharing course knowledge which was fantastic for me

dynamark wrote:Digs was well left of centre THF.
Jas I'm Leicester born and based here but the firm have houses all over the place.Langley is the air traffic control place I believe?
Many years ago my pal used to run the clubhouse at Harefield Place GC Uxbridge and we would have a game every couple of weeks around there Denham,tricky Ricky,Moor Park.even Wentworth and  Sunningdale ,Sandy Lodge great courses and good times when we were all fit a well.He died couple of years ago his missus was rather pleasant though!

Uxbridge was one of the first courses I played, big walk up cardiac hill as it was known. I know slough pretty well, parts are not great, parts are nice love that Windsor has an SL postcode.

JAS Gordon Marshall was a county player for years may have been captain .I'm a bit out the loop not played first team golf for a few years.Birstall is course with 3 shortish par 4s on first 9 and quite an easy last hole par 5 very reachable if you are long and straight but if your not it can give up some big numbers. I was thinking of Tim Stevens.
Ben I think Harefield is shut now it looks overgrown from the M40 as you go by.Was a bit mountain goat land though.

dynamark wrote:JAS Gordon Marshall was a county player for years may have been captain .I'm a bit out the loop not played first team golf for a few years.Birstall is course with 3 shortish par 4s on first 9 and quite an easy last hole par 5 very reachable if you are long and straight but if your not it can give up some big numbers. I was thinking of Tim Stevens.
Ben I think Harefield is shut now it looks overgrown from the M40 as you go by.Was a bit mountain goat land though.

Aye, he was a good lad Gordon. I actually first met him in an open at Woodhall Spa. Walking up the 2nd and we got chatting about other opens we’d played. So there was me chomping on about how good the Tassie was and asked if he’d ever heard of it. “Heard of it? I’ve won it!!” was the reply :-p He’d won it in 2001 or 2002 I think. He wasn’t there last year and not on the entry list for this year either, he’d been going for over 20 years.

He won the tassie. Twice! Get him in the HOF.

Thats interesting I'm not near that group anymore but the top level county golf was great.Leics played Anglian league seems odd now but these were guys you met every week and they were there for a reason very dedicated bonkers golfers to the extreme.Spend more time on the golf course than at work

drove past Birstall golf club yesterday and they have a sign up offering a first year membership for just £325 .How times have changed