Recent content by cliveb

And the upshot of this is that golf courses (well, the ones on clay) get churned up in winter and then the lack of rain in spring means they don't recover. My own course's fairways and approaches to greens are riddled with bare patches. I suspect the solution is to close the course in winter...

But did he repair them correctly? I'd say well over 50% of golfers at my place do it wrong. One problem with this is that the sooner you repair a pitch mark the better. Repairing someone else's that's maybe 30 mins old is already a bit too late. Of course you should still repair it, but finding...

2% of value of what? €340 is 2% of €17000. This can't be the value of your house/apartment. Also: I'm guessing that council tax in Spain presumably only covers a few minor things, unlike in the UK where councils seem to have had all manner of obligations dumped on them by central government.

That's a good point. I'd never really considered it because when you're as bad at the game as I am, birdies on shot holes are very rare events 😅

I wonder if these people suggesting building houses on golf courses would ever dare to suggest doing the same on football pitches - many of which are close to existing housing and therefore better located than most golf courses.

Thanks. You're lucky to have a starter who can inform the players. Mine is a fairly small club and we don't have starters (except at opens), so the players are left to fend for themselves. I'll make sure not to pick up too soon. In the old CONGU days, there was a table specifically to convert...

I'm fully aware of the various arguments around whether bogey comps should be qualifiers, but don't want to debate that. I'm simply seeking advice over when to pick up in a qualifying bogey comp given the fact I'm about to play in one tomorrow. Example: I have 1 stroke on a par 4 and have...

That's an understatement. I'd say 90% of Python's TV output is just woeful. And yet they delivered Life Of Brian - possibly the greatest comedy film of all time. +1 for Fawlty Towers. Still brilliant (but sadly now unbroadcastable). Other classics from back then that have stood the test of...

Agreed. A lot of TV from the 60s and 70s that we thought was wonderful at the time seems pretty dire if you watch it now. Even some national treasures have not worn well: while there are some magnificent moments, a lot of Morecambe and Wise is dross.

The first HIO I ever witnessed was on a par 4. And the chap who had it was playing in a bogey comp - what a waste!

I've only ever had one "proper" eagle: drove the green on a short par 4 (about 260) and holed the putt. Apart from that, all my eagles have been lucky hole-outs with the second shot on par 4s, plus a chip-in on a par 5. (At Grims Dyke, as it happens: 2nd, 9th, 13th, 18th). (Oh, and I did join...

You must be the last person alive believing in Fred Hoyle's proposal of continuous creation. Even he admitted it was wrong decades ago. Number of stars in the observable universe is probably around the 1000 trillion mark. We know the universe is almost certainly way way bigger than that, but...

Estimated number of stars in our galaxy is somewhere between 100 and 400 billion. Estimated number of trees on earth is around 3 trillion.

I used to live about half a mile from Northwood NATO HQ. Don't know if it's actually true, but someone told me that it was the #1 target in the UK in the event of a nuclear strike. It was kind of comforting to think it would be all over in a flash (apologies for the bad pun).

OK, seems nobody had any recommendations, so I decided to get one from Amazon to try it out, knowing I could return it if it didn't work. Seems to work fine, and there's no discernible lag (plugging it into the TV as a test). If anyone else has need of such a device, this is the one I got...