Golf With Des

This year’s Christmas with Des event will be held on Wednesday, 20th December. We will be ’teeing off’ at around 6pm in the Caddyshack, Elland and will then pop over to Huddersfield for beers a plenty.

We hope you can join us!

Well folks, it’s been a very quiet week here on www.golfwithdes.co.uk – there was no golf this weekend just gone, and both myself and David have failed to bring you details of the last golfing action though we will try to remedy this later in the week.

Anyway, back to Desmond Douglas…

Des is the most successful post-war British table tennis chamion. Douglas lifted the title 11 times during the seventies and eighties, and in a sport dominated by the Chinese, once ranked as high as seventh in the world. Now in his mid forties, Douglas still ranked eighth in England in 2001 which truly is a great effort.

He was an attacking player notable for his scissor jump. I bet that was amazing.

This week’s Famous Des truly is a hero…. Des Pritchard.

For those of you thinking “who the f*** is Des Pritchard” let me tell you a little about him.

Des is the UK’s Chief Fire Officer and was recently in the news as a result of the huge fireworks factory fire in East Sussex recently.

Des didn’t personally extinguish the fire himself, but his colleagues did and unfortunately 2 of them perished in the flames. Des, however, did speak to the press to express his regret.

I couldn’t find a picture of Des on the web, but after a search for Des Pritchard on google images, I did find this:

Lovely.

Indeed we are!

This weeks golf is going to be played at Brighouse’s very own Crow Nest Park Golf Club.

I’ve played here a few times before, so I guess I have a slight advantage over Stan, although it is a long while since I was last here.

From what I remember and after looking at the web site it is a fantastic although difficult course and should prove to be very challenging.

Our tee-time is 9am because there is a comp starting at 9:30, and because of this, we can only play 9 holes….

Stan feels fairly confident this week as I’m nursing a slight right arm elbow injury as pictured here, which as i’m not a moaner, shouldn’t have too much impact on my game, but I’m sure at some point Stan will be striking it with a club or trying to wrestle me to floor and then pull back my injured arm in a Big Daddy / Giant Haystacks styley….

We’re at Crow Nest Park Golf Club because everywhere else seems to be waterlogged and therefore closed this weekend and I’ve wanted to come back here for a game for a while…..As I mentioned earlier I have played here before and it was a good course then and I wishing it’s got a bit better.

After playing at Pine Valley for a few months, it does seem expensive…(Although it isn’t really)…..£15 for 9 holes, which works out at an average hole cost of £1.67 as opposed to our normal hole cost of 81p on Pine Valley…..

This means that my game strategy this week will be “VFM” or “Value for money”…..I’m aiming to average at least 10 strokes per hole and thus get into the 10p per stroke area, which should hopefully bring the costings into line with Pine Valley and allow me to seek a return from the investors….

I’m certain that this weeks golf is going to be a good performance from the both of as as we both want to win; Stan so he can pull one back, myself so I can have an official hatrick of victories…

And so here is my prediction…

• It will be a close game
• It will be a hard game
• We both will want to play here again
• My injury might play up
• Stan might sleep in the car park
• Stan will definitely attack my right arm with a club so I can’t beat him and therefore prove that he cheats every week etc etc etc

I’ll post the “real truth” as soon as possible, but in the meantime, please don’t believe Stan….

Should this be a new category, or should I get my arse into gear and post these score cards sooner?

Anyway, Matt who doesn’t actually play with the aid of a wheel chair or suffers from any other disability beat us without really trying, but I beat Stan by 7(s-e-v-e-n) shots, which makes it two victories in a row and obviously leads to the conclusion that I am a better player than Stan. Obviously.

On Sunday AM, my brother Craig and I had arranged a swift 18 holes on the short Fountain course – tee time 1030 AM.

Imagine my surprise when I called him at 1045 to find out what the delay might be, to find out he was still in bed. Oh, how pleased I was.

Anyway, as I was feeling confident about my game and the course was quiet due to the almost hurricane speed winds, I decided to do a billy no mates special and have a swift 9 holes on my own.

After tee-ing off on the 1st, I soon realized why I was the only one playing…..The ball started straight and looked like a great shot, but as soon as it cleared the cover of the trees and the wind caught it, it literally went sideways.

Now I don’t mean I sliced it, I mean it went straight and then went at 90 degrees sideways. Almost like this…..

Straight straight straight straight straight straight straight SIDEWAYS SIDEWAYS SIDEWAYS SIDEWAYS.

After a nice low punch shot I manged to get it on the green, about 5 yds from the pin and as I set myself up for the putt, I noticed a loan golfer walking down the fairway.

He waited patiently as I putted out and then as I walked back to my bag, he dragged me into the bushes, tied me up and then extinguished cigarettes on various parts of my naked body after forcing me to strip at gun point….

Actually he didn’t. He was a decent chap named Tony who had recently moved into the area and had been let down by a friend in much the same way that my brother had let me down. He quickly explained his situation and asked if I’d like to play a round with him.

That’s a round of golf with him and not “play around with him” i.e. In a gay way. Although there is nothing wrong with gays. Some of my best friends have been gay etc etc etc.

He started well on the 2nd, played well on the difficult 3rd, and had a great tee shot on the 4th, but it more or less went “tits up” for him after that, which pleased me greatly….

I finished on a 45, which considering the wind, I was quite pleased with and Tony finished on a supposed 53, but then he didn’t take into account the penalties when the 4 balls were lost…….

Decorations up in every shop you go into, big tins of Roses on offer in Tesco, girls in the office singing Christmas songs out of tune – it can only mean one thing – It’s Christmas Time!

Well, not quite yet. Officially the 12 days of Christmas begin on the 13th but that doesn’t stop some people from starting their celebrations on the 1st November these days.

And what better way to get into the Christmas Spirit than by having a good few drinks at many of the Christmas Parties that are no doubt on offer.

As Golf with Des do not condone drink driving, we felt that the first Famous Des of December should be Designated Driver.

A Designated Driver is someone who is designated to drive on a night out and basically have a miserable night while all those around them get out of their minds on booze, then have to put up with them being sick in their car as well as having to drive all over the place to make sure they get home safely.

Here are two pictures, one gives a humorous slant on the concept of Designated Drivers whilst the other is coming from a slightly more authoritarian perspective. Whatever you do this Christmas Kids – don’t drink and drive!

Humorous

Authoritarian

Ok Ok, I’ll get the excuses out of the way now. Went out on Friday night and got very drunk. So drunk that I had to go for a lie down in the pub car park. That’s not good, is it?

Anyway, needless to say I wasn’t feeling the best at 0948 on Saturday morning but I made my way to the golf course for This Week’s Round and met with David and our new Non-Celebrity Golfer, Matt Marston.

Here’s Matt introducing himself…

There was no doubt that Matt was going to be this week’s winner and he played some excellent shot, incuding an impressive 250yd drive on the 12th leaving him with this eagle putt….

Not quite there, but it was an easy birdie.

I trailed David by 7 shots at one stage, but pulled it back to 1 after the front 9 but soon lost my way and ended up losing by 7.

Other highlights included a rainbow and some geese…

Matt 71
David 95
Stan 102

Contrary to Stan’s earlier post regarding Matt issuing a “sound thrashing” to the losers, I would like to point out that this is simply a figure of speech and that Golf with Des will in no way be sexually abusing a disabled or non-disabled person, or seek sexual abuse from a disable or non-disabled person.

Not at all anything golf or even Des related, but I stumbled across this tonight and haven’t been able to stop playing with it…..

Watch this Youtube video to see what can be done and then have a go yourself….

Line Rider – beta by *fsk on deviantART

This week we welcome onto the course a brand new Non-Celebrity – Matt Marston!

I’ve know Matt for many years through work but have never actually met him, but over the years he’s told me he is a keen golfer and has a very good handicap. No, it’s not Multiple Sclerosis or Cystic Fibrosis – he isn’t a retard – it is in fact a golf handicap…. of 2!

WOW!

Elly isn’t playing this week, but Matt will be giving myself and David some tips and helpful advice at the same time as giving us a sound thrashing. This also means that almost certainly either myself or David will finish last, which we’ll both be striving to avoid. No matter who it is though, I’m sure David will falsely accuse me of cheating again.

Weather looks moderate and we have a tee-time of 0948. Last time it was very cold so I’ve bought a new hat. I look forward to wearing it tomorrow.