Don’t worry, your computer isn’t broken; there really is no colour in our latest colour scheme (apart from a wee green dot in our logo either side of the frame). When customers order, we’re often asked can I have it all black. So here it is, the GoKart Stealth.

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As a bit of a preview to the imminent ‘Yoga for Golf’ lessons (you have remembered to iron your leotard haven’t you?) take a look at this little video (By the way, did you realise that laughing is wonderful for your stomach muscles?)

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Don’t know about your course, but our local, Canterbury, have said no to karts until further notice. Which makes this one from Mr Waterhouse rather topical (as opposed to tropical, which is only in our dreams).

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Thought for the Day
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance

It’s not how, but how many
In those dim and distant, far off days when we used to be able to play golf, my home course was reduced to 12 holes because of the amount of standing water on the fairways – a situation that has now returned, thanks to the big thaw. When I first set out on one of these three-quarter rounds it was with a sense of vague disappointment, a feeling of umbrage that somehow I was being short-changed or cheated.

But after playing a couple of these truncated rounds I began to reconsider, because 18 holes is a pretty arbitrary number that was arrived at by accident. What has become the accepted standard began, inevitably, at St Andrews, which traditionally had 12 holes, which were laid out in a line and 10 holes were played twice, making a round of 22 holes. In 1764 the first four holes were combined into two, resulting in a round of 18 holes and because of the pre-eminence of St Andrews in the golfing world, where it led, others followed.

But after a couple of 12 hole rounds I started to consider the advantages of playing fewer holes, the first of which occurred as I realised how much fresher I felt as I climbed back into the car – the prospect of having to walk the dogs almost immediately did not fill me with its usual sense of despair. I was also able to avoid that disappointing, but all too familiar sense that, even if I had played reasonably well, I had frittered away strokes towards the end of the round. You know what it’s like – you get to the 16^th tee with a rather satisfactory score (by your own standards at least) but manage to find ever more unlikely and frustrating ways to screw things up, with the clubhouse metaphorically, if not literally, in sight.

I also felt that mentally I was sharper throughout the round – possibly in the knowledge that if I had a particularly bad hole, there was less time for recovery, as a result of which, every shot took on a greater importance so I found myself concentrating more purposefully. Then there’s the time saved. A full round of golf takes a heck of a large chunk out of your day and, even for the most dedicated (or selfish) of us, it can be hard some times to justify devoting that amount of time to something that keeps us away from family and other responsibilities.

Finally, of course, is the huge psychological boost of completing the round, totting up your score and being able to record the highly unlikely number 55.

Nine holes is never quite enough and 18, let’s face it involves quite a commitment and can be pretty exhausting, so let’s start a movement to restore a round of golf to 12 holes – you know it makes sense.

Not out of the Woods
A recent opinion poll in America asked 2,000 women if they would sleep with Tiger Woods. Seventy-two percent said ‘Not again.’

Youth no longer wasted on the young

Charl Schwartzel, despite being a devilishly difficult name to spell, is starting to live up to much of his earlier promise, having just won for the second consecutive week in his native South Africa. Apart from the fact that, like Phil Mickelson, he has far more than the legally allowed maximum number of teeth, Charl is further evidence that all professional sport is the fiefdom of the youngsters. We can no longer assert with any degree of confidence that, in golf at least, a good old ‘un will usually beat a good young ‘un.As recently as a decade ago it was quite possible to write that a 20-something golfer might have great potential but wouldn’t truly have the experience and ability to compete at the highest level until they were into their thirties – which had always been the time when the necessary mix of talent blended with the know-how that only practice can bring, to produce a golfer both gifted and smart enough to win consistently. When we looked at a leaderboard after 54 holes, and saw at the top a mixture of battle-hardened old pros, with the occasional precocious wannabe, we could say, with a fair degree of confidence, that the gnarled veteran would usually be the one holding the cheque at the end of the fourth round.

Not any more we can’t. It seems that today the youngsters are bursting onto the scene with huge ability and, more importantly, the mental toughness to get the job done. Kind of depressing, really.

Quote of the week
Excessive golfing dwarfs the intellect. Nor is this to be wondered at when you consider that the more fatuously vacant the mind is, the better for play. It has been observed that absolute idiots play the steadiest.
Sir W G Simpson

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We thought we’d refresh the colour range with a drop of citrus. Tasty isn’t it! Available early February.

Why not check out the new automatic golf trolleys in stock?

Now we don’t want to make you feel bad, but if you didn’t have a go at our Christmas puzzle then you might just kick yourself when you read what people had to say about it.  But all is not lost, even if there isn’t a prize at the end of the rainbow you can still have a go, just for the hell of it.  The support forum is still live, will all the hints you might need.  So don’t be nervous, dive in – we promise we won’t giggle when you get stuck (we got stuck plenty of times too…) Here’s the link to enter GoKart Xmas Puzzle

And we have a winner from the Christmas entries – Gail K. from Surrey, who is suitably chuffed.

And to everyone that entered over Christmas, thank you.  We enjoyed the banter, and with all the golf courses closed it kept us thoroughly out of mischief too. This is what some of them had to say about it all;

“Great way to spend a snowy Christmas Evening, Boxing Day, 27th December and first day back at work”.
“Great fun …I think….thanks!”
“an awesome quiz – took me ages”
“Thanks for a brilliant quiz, thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it had me completely frustrated at times.
much cursing but even more pleasure”.
“PHEW!!”
“Imagine that, I finished, got myself out that bunker……with a little help from my friends!”
“I am now going to have my Christmas, albeit 2 days late! thanks to this “superb” quiz”
“Thanks for a brilliant but stressful quiz”.
“Great quiz – kept us all entertained (and frustrated) over Christmas!”
“A big thankyou for such a great quiz. Great fun and much appreciated”.
“The quiz certainly made it a brain-testing Christmas”.
“It was hard work at times, kept me entertained (and the family laughing at my growing level of frustration)”.
“Thanks for all the fun!”
“Thank you all for turning what few brain cells I have left, in my 63 year old head, into some kind of mush after 4 days almost non stop searching”.
“Great competition. Haven’t had so much fun in a long time”.
“That was the toughest 7 hours of my life”.
“After too many late nights and brain pain, I finally finished your quiz”.
“Many thanks for a great quiz, it certainly filled the long hours between decent programmes on the telly !!”
“That was tough. Thanks for an excellent quiz”.
“very addictive quiz….great fun”
“Thank you for a great quiz. Hours of fun and frustration!!!!”
“Thanks so much for making this great fun – was supposed to be working from home between Christmas and New Year but have spent all my time on your quiz!!”
“Thanks for a great quiz – great idea as well….other trolleys are no fun!”
“Ok you kept me up until 2:15 this morning with your quiz”.
“Fun quiz – filled a lazy day after Christmas!”
“That took up two days of frustration to get there! I enjoyed it though, thanks!”
“Many many thanks, a really well organised quiz, I enjoyed the interaction of the hints – a great idea!”
“This drove me gaga – stayed up until one this morning and at it again until finally the eureka moment
arrived!!!”
“Many thanks for the fun (and frustrations) over the last few days…I can now get back to my life – and the golf course”.
“Thanks for a super Christmas Quiz – will you be doing this again next year?”
“Well done you guys, a lot of fun. One of the b*****y questions took me more than 3 1/2 hours!”
“This quiz has been fantastic and infuriating at the same time. It actually prevented my son from unwrapping all his presents before Christmas dinner – he couldn’t drag himself away from the computer. However, as you can see we have tortured ourself until Sunday afternoon to complete it”.
“Thanks for keeping me out of trouble over the holidays”.
“Thoroughly enjoyed doing this Quiz, kept the brain active over the long Christmas period. Although my internet did go down and I wonder if it was because of all the strange web pages I accessed whilst looking for answers!!!”
“Thanks – I now have little hair left, but had fun doing the quiz”.
“AAHHHHHH!!!!!!!”
“Thanks for the quiz and for taking 4 and a half hours out of my life……”
“Thanks for a really enjoyable quiz; I knew it was becoming an obsession when I dreamt about Giant’s Causeway and The Prisoner last night!”
“Having spent the past 4 days tearing my hair out, being unsociable and not going anywhere, I’ve finally completed this brilliant quiz”.
“Thanks for the brain teaser, the best 2 days of torture I have ever experienced, err not that I go in for that sort of thing!!”
“Thanks for a brilliant quiz – never would have made it without the help on the forums – there must be some geniuses (or very twisted minds) at GoKart to devise that quiz !!”
“That was brilliant fun, thanks very much”.
“Many thanks to you all for a fascinating, if frustrating quiz”.
“Thanks for almost ruining my Christmas, (only joking!) that was a hard 3 day slog, but enjoyable all the same”.
“You are a sadist!! At least I know that I am not quite senile, yet!!”
“Thanks for a great challenge!!! Truly excellent”.
“The quiz was great and was a great distraction while the weather was too bad to golf or even drive to the
driving range”.
“Thanks for keeping me occupied during this bad weather when I can’t get out to work, don’t know what I’ll do now. Whoever made this up has a very twisted mind.”
“Praise the Lord longest quiz i ever did”
“At last I have completed the quiz and can remain living at the following address instead of being (go)Karted off to a lunatic asylum”
“Yeessssssssss !!!!!”
“Amazing puzzle designer whomever you are. Well done. Most enjoyable and exciting that I made it to the end and in time !! Some peeps finished in just 2 days.. I really don’t know how”.
“Thanks for taking the time and effort to put together such a fantastic quiz. Really enjoyed the whole thing even though my wife had to screw all the windows down as there were times I was on the verge of throwing myself out of a few”.
“Started it with a full head of hair. I now have some rather large clumps missing!!”
“Finally got there after three days of mental trauma!!”
“Finally, got there im the end I can now go out the house and meet people again and have something else to talk about except 3 kings and song titles !!”
“Absolutely brilliant quiz which kept us going for days! We loved it. Please, please make sure we are still on your mailing list next Christmas”.
“What a fantastic quiz (and a great forum community to help keep my sanity whilst seeking the answers)!”
“Great quiz btw, had me pulling my hair out all day!!”
“Thanks for an enjoyable Xmas treasure hunt”.
“Just managed to keep the number of hours used inside the ‘Divorce Quota’ but not by much”.

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Well, Ho Ho Ho; there were some rather witty entries to the ‘Jane Colby Caption Competition’. Geoff Waterhouse’s cartoon drew plenty of excellent captions, but to win a dozen of the mystical GoKart Titleists, the winner had to be good, so we enlisted the artist himself as the judge.

Shortlisted in no particular order were Messrs Corbett, Jones and Birnie. But Geoff decided the winner was Robin Corbett with “His Winter game’s not bad, but he can’t seem to hold it together in the summer!”. A dozen balls are on their way. Robin, you can expect at least three holes in one with these babies or your money back.

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Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! (that’s yogik you know) We’re hellbent on making you bendy, fit and MUCH BETTER GOLFERS.

Yoga for Golf – a series of 10 free online lessons presented by our own GoKartYogaGuru Carol Jackson, who is quite obviously bendy, very fit and a keen golfer herself.

You all know about Pilates, and gym balls…we’re predicting that Yoga will be a hot trend for golfers. It’s ace for core muscles, makes you really supple and strong and helps you avoid injury. Watch this space, we’ll be launching soon.

Here’s a few shots from the shoot – in an unheated barn in deepest Surrey the first day of the snow. Carol kept warm by doing lots of moves and we kept our coats on!

(click the thumbnails to enlarge)

[Show as slideshow]

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Thought for the Day
Never slap a man who’s chewing tobacco

A sad case
If you are anything like me – and I hope for your sake that you are not – you will, by now, be developing the twitchy-fingered, restless fidgetiness that is indicative of the golfer who cannot golf. In most of the UK snow has been laying for at least a fortnight, which means that we can’t even hit balls at the range, and in my experience the two to three week mark is when the symptoms of NoGoSy (No Golf Syndrome) Extremis set in. It starts with a bout of TV remote control mania, as you channel-hop in search of golf, any golf, on television. Right now you would settle for the Greater Hackensack Mixed Foursomes (defending champions Sindy Blackwelder and Randy J Perelman III Jr) but all you can find is two hours of Colin Montgomerie talking about a Ryder Cup that is still three-quarters of a year distant. A programme that is, by its very nature, a mixture of speculation and prediction, predicated on hope.

So you go in search of golf-related displacement activities. Now, for example, would be the perfect time to service those golf shoes – remove the mud and spikes, lubricate the spike beds, replace any that are too worn and then polish or clean the shoes to a military standard of gleaming arrogance. Except, there is always one spike (why has the word ‘cleat’ never caught on over here?) that cannot be removed, even by industrial strength blasting powder and a hammer drill. Not to worry, though, the golf bag needs to be sorted, and I’m pretty sure I have some spare tees in the cupboard under the stairs, with which to top up my diminishing supplies.

That took all of 10 minutes so then, in desperation, you turn to golf magazines, and that tip you read last month about the shot you have always dreamed of mastering – the low pitch that bounces once and then pulls up sharply with backspin, as if Jenson Button had just slammed on the brakes. But of course, there’s nowhere to practice. Nevertheless, taking the wedge out of the bag and simply feeling the weight of it in your hands has increased your twitchiness, so you try a few half and three-quarter backswings in the lounge, before deciding that that rug is the perfect place from which to chip onto the settee.

You probably do not need to be reminded that this leads to only one place – marital discord – and may result in you sleeping in the spare bedroom for a few nights, and, even if you manage to avoid breakage, it is still a very poor substitute for the real thing.

The only cure is to wait for the thaw.

Colemanballs
Commentator cock-ups will always cheer the cockles of your heart – whatever a cockle is – so I thought I’d include a few of my own personal favourites from the world of golf.

Steve Ryder covering the US Masters: ‘Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday.’

US PGA Championship commentator in America: ‘One of the reasons Arnie is playing so well is that, before each tee shot, his wife  takes out his balls and kisses them; Oh my god! What have I just said?’

Ken Brown commentating on Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open: ‘Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny, other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.’

Peter Alliss and Alex Hay were working at an event in which Nick Faldo was playing, early in his pro career. There was a technical problem so the producer told the commentators to ‘fill’ with chat for a few minutes but unnoticed by them, the camera was zooming in on a close-up of the backside of Melanie, Faldo’s then wife.
Peter Alliss mused: ‘This has always been one of my favourite holes.’
Alex Hay replied: ‘Yes, me too – but it was considerably tighter in my day’

Quote of the week
The greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow. 
Sam Snead

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Courtesy once more of Mr. Waterhouse.  Snowed in like the rest of us, introducing the SnoKart…

Why not check out the new automatic golf trolleys in stock?