Wednesday, 1. November:
21.15 Eurosport, European Tour, “Volvo Masters in Valderrama (ESP)”
21.45 Eurosport, European Challenge Tour 2006

Saturday, 04. November
19.30 CNN, Living Golf

Sunday, 05. November
09.30 CNN, Living Golf
15.30 CNN, Living Golf
20.30 CNN, Living Golf

Ok, so we had chrome rims and hot rods, but the newest thing on the fairway is your own personal hummer golf cart.

Lots of celebrities already enjoyed it, if you happen to be around clubs like Stoke Park, Woburn and Celtic Manor, chances are you might be able to get one of those for the round.

Can’t wait to see the P. Diddy-edition with Louis Vuitton leather, diamond plated gauges and a 5.000 watt sound system.

The European Tour heads for its 2006 season finale with this week’s Volvo Masters at the Club de Golf Valderrama in Spain. Funny enough, Valderrama is again the stage for the hunt for the Order of Merit.

Last season we saw Colin Montgomerie and Michael Campbell battleing it out, this season there are four main contenders for the title - leader Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, David Howell and Robert Karlsson. Casey’s has a $352,691 lead over Harrington. The purse for the event is $4,909,984 with $835,967 going to the winner. To see who else is playing (because Els isn’t) check the 2006 players list.

To follow the tourney, check the following sources:
- the Valderrama website,
- the official tournament website (with live scoring),
- the European Tour website (with live scoring).

Set your mood for this event by pimping your desktop with the Valderrama screensaver or wallpaper. Enjoy!

Moorfleet is situated southeast of Hamburg, adjacent to the Autobahn A1 you’ll find Red Golf Moorfleet, a public ‘pay and play’ course. It offers a 9-hole course, driving range with 60 bays (20 of them covered) and practice areas for chipping and putting.

The course is rather short, from yellow it only measures 2.550 meters (see individual hole lenghts here), but I didn’t think it was that narrow like I heard beforehand. The 9 hole course of GC Kallin is harder in that aspect. Scenically it is quite pleasant with big trees and reed lining the fairways, but it surely isn’t a challenge to the proficient golfer. Only on hole six did I have to think about ball placement, on all other holes (except the 79m par 3 third) I’d just let it rip. The par 4 eigth is probably the most boring, 316 meters straight ahead with a fairway flat as a snooker table.

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The Golf Lounge Hamburg is situated near the Elbbrücken in Hamburg and is - from the ranges I have played so far - the Mercedes-Benz amongst driving ranges. The three-storey building hosts 30 covered practice bays, practice bunkers, putting greens, lounge and coffee bar and even a conference room.

We played the Nearest to the Pin and attended the award ceremony of the St. Pauli Open there last saturday and had loads of fun. Ok, there was free beer for everybody and a DJ, but I am sure that playing there on normal days gives you a good time. Each practice bay is equipped with tables and chairs, so you can sit down, have a beer and play alternately with some friends. The bays are heated, so you don’t have to freeze your balls off in the upcoming winter.

The Golf Lounge also offers golf lessons from their own Golf Lounge Academy as well as individual training on their Scope system.
Opening times are weekdays from 07:00-22:00 and weekends from 07:00-20:00, you can rent clubs from € 2,00, ball cards are available from € 8,00 (50 Balls).

Golf Lounge
Billwerder Neuer Deich 40
20539 Hamburg
Tel: (0 40) 8 19 78 79-0
Fax: (0 40) 8 19 78 79-9
E-Mail: mail@golflounge.info
Website: http://www.golflounge.info/

Wednesday, 25. October 2006
18.45 Eurosport, US PGA Tour, Funai Classic in Lake Buena Vista, FL (USA)
19.45 Eurosport, European Tour, Mallorca Classic in Pula (ESP)

“So,…” wahrscheinlich mit diesem Wort hätte GC St. Pauli-Vorstand Andreas “AC” Clausen diesen Bericht begonnen. Mit Spannung erwartet fand am gestern die erste Clubmeisterschaft des GC St. Pauli, die St. Pauli Open 2006 statt. Entgegen ‘normaler’ Turniere fand hier die Players Party vor dem Turnier statt, am Freitagabend traf man sich zum Warm-Up und Vorglühen im Clubhaus, dem East Hotel auf dem Kiez.

Die Bar war am Anfang noch nicht ganz “up to speed”, dennoch kam ich dann zu meinem Astra und konnte mich ins Kennenlerngetümmel stürzen. Der erste Eindruck zeigte schnell, daß sich hier ein ganz entspanntes buntes Völkchen zusammen gefunden hatte. Menschen, die a) Bock auf Golf hatten und b) bei denen “stiff” nicht den Aggregatzustand der “upper lip” bezeichnete, sondern höchstens den Flex des Driverschafts im Golfbag.

Auf dem Simulator im Clubhaus wurde dann bereits am Freitagabend der Longest Drive ausgespielt. Just in dem Moment als ich mich anmelden wollte, kloppte einer der anderen Herren einen 279m Drive raus. Ich habe es dann gelassen und mich dann eher dem ‘Next Drink’-Wettbewerb hingegeben.

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What do you do when you play a tournament on a course you don’t know? Look at the website, check out the course layout and the scorecard and see what your playing handicap is. But what do you do when this information isn’t available online? Next saturday, we will play the 1st club championship of GC St. Pauli at Red Golf Moorfleet. The website only offers a course layout, but nothing in distances whatsoever.

So I started playing around with Google Earth and found a measuring tool that I used to explore the course:

I ended up with the following “scorecard”:

Can anybody out there that already played the course (Anke? Käthe?) verify these figures? I’ll see saturday how close I came!

John Travoltas mansion in Ocala / Florida is surely famous for the rather large “carport” for his private Boeing 707, but by checking out this post on Googlesightseeing, I had a closer look at his backyard. Let me know what you think, but to me it looks an awful lot like he has some par 3 golf holes there. Not bad!

A course record of some different kind was set by Günter Rottensteiner (HCP -19.8) at his local club championship. It was at the island green of the 13th hole, where he hit 21 balls into the water before he was able to reach the green. His score on the hole alone totalled 47 strokes. His tournament total was 156 strokes - 102 on the back nine alone. As a consolation prize he was given the 21 balls that he sunk into the pond.