Further to our earlier post, Phil’s TT preparations are well underway. Slight snag at the moment, he’s lost the owners manual. Anyone know where the big noisy bit goes?

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Thought for the Day
Money isn’t everything – but it does make sure your children stay in touch

There’ll be another along in a minute
Left-handed major winners are like the apocryphal London buses – you wait ages for one to appear and then a whole bunch turn up together. We had to be patient for 103 years before anointing the first left-handed winner of a major championship, when Bob Charles took the 1963 Open, over a century after the first major championship was held in 1860. And for we golf writers with a limited memory and even more limited originality, he was always referred to as ‘the only left-handed major winner in history.’ Certain bits of information attach themselves to certain players and we’re never allowed to forget them because lazy scribes find the words flowing from their fingers unbidden, and once they’re on the page or computer screen it’s too late to take them back because we get paid by the word. Robert Lee, the Sky TV golf presenter once made the mistake, during an interview early in his career, of mentioning that when he was out for a social evening he liked to dance. For the remainder of his days as a touring pro golfer he was ‘disco-dancing Robert Lee.’ Similarly, Costantino Rocca would always remain ‘the man who beat Tiger Woods in Ryder Cup singles,’ and Nick Faldo would be forever labelled ‘miserable git.’

After Bob Charles’ breakthrough we had to wait a further 40 years before he was joined by a second lefty – Mike Weir who took the 2003 Masters. But then just 12 months later, Phil Mickelson won the first of his four majors and now Bubba Watson is the fourth member of the southpaw club to claim one of golf’s biggest titles. Are we seeing the start of a trend?

On reflection
Now that the Masters is a few weeks behind us, I have been reflecting on some of the incidents from the week. First, of course, is that astonishing shot played by Bubba Watson on the 10th. Most commentators have expressed admiration for the way he managed to hook the ball 40 yards but to me, even more impressive is that he hit a 55° wedge 140 yards. That’s a 7-iron shot.

On the 2nd hole in the last round Louis Oosthuizen holed his second for that rarest of birds, an albatross two (as he’s South African, would it be the ‘short heard around the veld’)? But why do the Americans insist on calling it a double eagle? If an eagle is two-under par, then logic dictates that a double eagle would be four-under. Sorry, I’ve answered my own question because we’re talking about the Americans and therefore logic doesn’t apply. Incidentally, If you’re not envious already of 59-year-old Wayne Mitchell, who has a ticket to the Masters every year, you should be. When Oosthuizen made that albatross he tossed the ball into the gallery (sorry, patrons) and Mitchell caught it. He was later approached by officials from Augusta National who want the ball for its clubhouse display of memorabilia (it’s a tradition that every winner donates a club used in the victory). No-one’s saying how much Augusta is willing to pay for the ball but if Mitchell has any sense it won’t come cheap.

The last eight majors have been won by first-timers. Counting backwards they are: Bubba, Keegan Bradley, Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy, Charls Schwartzel, Martin Kaymer, Louis Oosthuizen and Graeme McDowell). The streak stops at the 2010 Masters, won by Mickelson.

Lee Westwood has now finished in the top-three of a major seven times – the highest number of anyone who hasn’t won one.

The Masters is the only major to feature sudden-death in its playoffs. In the nine there have been, none has gone beyond the second extra hole.

During the week Sergio Garcia said that he’s not capable of winning a major. It seems that his problems on the greens are terminal (or he thinks so, which is the same thing), which is an enormous shame for a golfer who is still one of the best ball-strikers in the business.

Too tough to tango
At the recent Valero Texas Open, played over the notoriously difficult TPC San Antonio Course, designed by Greg Norman, only two of the world’s top-50 players competed. As a direct consequence the US Tour has confirmed that some of the faintly ridiculous greens are going to be bulldozered in order to give competitors at least some chance of holing a putt, rather than send their ball on a roller-coaster ride. I have played several Norman courses and one of them, Playa Mujeres in Mexico, is among my top-10 favourites in all the world. But I’ve also experienced his penal layouts, most notably his signature course at Mission Hills in China and if my choice were to play that course every week or give up the game, my clubs would now be in a charity shop somewhere. Every now and then, it seems, Norman gets the urge to have some payback time for all the indignities that golf has heaped on him over the years.

Quote of the Week
Good players find that a mixture of equal parts of tension, hatred, and self-loathing ensure a good round
Jim Bishop

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On with those waterproofs, we say.  What’s a bit of wet?  So if you were feeling a bit self-satisfied having ducked and draked it around your local yesterday – just calm that  smugness down a bit.  GoKart owner Steve Ackling played 90, yes 90 holes in it all.  And that’s just the beginning…

Steve is Captain at Charnwood Forest where Harry Flude, a Charnwood member, managed to play 150 holes in 14 hours in 1913.  So for Steve’s Captain’s charity this year he’s going to recreate Flude’s blister inducing day.  Well with the aid of his trusty GoKart, of course.

According to records; ”Remarkably, Flude’s speed did not impact his scoring with 51 pars and nine birdies recorded with an average of gross 46 for each round of nine holes.”

Steve did send us a photo proving that he was still fit after 90, but strangely he didn’t say anything about his score….

Quick update – we’ve been reliably informed that yesterday Mr. A managed 36 pars and his average score for each 9 was 41 (1 over his h/cap). Not bad, not bad at all…

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An interesting statistic has emerged from our latest poll. In answer to the question ‘will a Brit win a major in 2012′, more people have voted for Tony Jacklin than Graham McDowell or Ian Poulter. Worth a bet?

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Answer; Phil Harvey on his racing Honda 600. Here he is at the recent Oliver’s Mount road races in Scarborough. He’s building up to competing in the TT races on the Isle of Man in June.

So to all our Manx customers, please get out and cheer him on in the Supersport 600 races on the 4th and 6th June. He’ll be running number 59. You can’t miss him. Unless you blink.

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Thought for the Day:
Frustration is trying to find your glasses without your glasses

After the Lord Mayor’s Show
I always feel just a little sympathy for the golfers who win the week immediately after a Major, especially if it’s a Masters as dramatic as the one just taken by Blubber Watson. We’re still on a high from watching that magnificent golf course and the superb final round it so often produces. And most of the top names in the game don’t play in the immediate aftermath of a major because it takes so much out of them and they know in advance that they will be either celebrating victory or, more likely, licking their wounds. Yet despite the fact that the field for the Maybank Malaysian Open was not quite, how can we put this, stellar, big respect is owing to Louis Oosthuizen. The man with, in my mind at least, the perfect swing and a putting stroke to match, shrugged off the disappointment of missing out on a green jacket in a playoff by strolling to victory. Having travelled over 12,000 miles in just over two weeks, crossing 12 time zones in the process and having to play 26 holes on the final day, he nevertheless shot four sub-70 rounds to win by three. I don’t know what his fitness regime is but perhaps we all need to try it.

Let’s hear it for the big guy
Talking of fitness, one man who doesn’t have a permanent place in the mobile gym that’s an essential component of all tours nowadays is Carl Pettersson, the burly Swedish-born golfer who’s now a naturalised American. Like Ooosthuizen, the big fella cruised the final round, in his case to take the RBC Heritage title by five strokes over Zach Johnson. Pettersson couldn’t beat a fat man in a race to the bus stop but that’s because he is the fat man. He once shed 30 pounds but discovered that his swing disappeared along with the extra weight and said that his recipe for getting back in shape (well, round is a shape) was to drink 10 beers and eat a tub of ice cream before going to bed. He added: ‘Ultimately, just ‘cause you don’t look like an athlete doesn’t mean you’re not an athlete. We’re not running a marathon out here, we’re walking 18 holes.’

They are words that I have taken to heart and I now regard my unfit, overweight and sadly flabby torso as evidence that I am, in fact, a finely honed golfing machine. The realisation does not lose me any poundage from my frame but it has taken a weight off my mind.

You kidder, you
Mention of Zach Johnson brings to mind one of the many unsavoury revelations concerning Tiger Woods that have been revealed in The Big Miss, Hank Haney’s book about the six years he spent as Eldrick’s swing coach. In advance of the 2006 Ryder Cup, American captain Tom Lehman thought it would be good to bring his team together for a bonding couple of days at the K Club, and decided to make the golfers share rooms. Tiger was paired with Zach Johnson, who is a devout Christian, and it turns out that Mr Woods is a bit of a scamp when it comes to practical jokes. He made a point of subscribing to the hotel’s 24-hour porn channel, and of making sure that the TV was on whenever Zach came into the room. Tiger later told Haney: ‘It was so funny watching him acting like everything was normal. I got him pretty good.’
So if anyone ever tells you that Tiger Woods doesn’t have a sense of humour, you can agree that no, he doesn’t.

Hold the front page
The other Haney Titbit that was widely reported is that Ian Poulter blagged himself a ride on Tiger’s private jet. Having earlier approached Woods on the range and asked: ‘How are we getting home?’ Poulter was given a noncommittal reply but nevertheless turned up at the airport. Once airborne, Tiger texted Haney the message: ‘Can you believe how this dick mooched a ride on my plane?’
So Ian Poulter is brash, arrogant, cocky, presumptive and has more front than Dolly Parton. Is this news?

Quote of the Week:
One reason why golf is such an exasperating game is that a thing we learned is so easily forgotten, and we find ourselves struggling year after year with faults we had discovered and corrected time and again
Bobby Jones

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Our sign is starting to remind us of the Fawlty Towers sign. We’ve asked Premier Signs to use really heavy duty screws when they fix it this time.

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Thought for the Day:
99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition
If the glorious spring weather we have been enjoying hasn’t got you excited about the new golf season, then surely the prospect of this year’s Masters will get your heart beating faster than a Duracell bunny in a state of sexual anticipation. Partly this is because it’s the first major of the year after an eight-month drought and partly it’s the magnificence of the Augusta National golf course, with which we have become so familiar over the years. The people who run it may have a not very endearing history as racist good ‘ole boys, albeit very rich ones, but they do know how to run a golf tournament. And it has to be said, despite our natural affection for and loyalty to The Open, visually The Masters is the most sumptuous of the majors, especially if you only get to see it on television.

In the run-up to this year’s event, much attention has rightly been focused on Tiger’s victory in the Bay Hill International, and we have been reminded that each of the four previous times that a green jacket has been draped around his broad shoulders, it followed an earlier win on the US Tour – two of which were also at Bay Hill. But even more impressive than his victory at Arnold Palmer’s invitational was the manner in which it was achieved. He led the field in greens in regulation (57 out of 72), was 12-under for the par fives, drove much straighter and seemed to have confidence in his putter once again. And when he did miss a green, which wasn’t too often (at one stage over the weekend he gave himself 38 consecutive putts for birdie, albeit several of them were from a distance), he was equal first in getting up and down. It was very impressive but, although the bookies have installed him as favourite for this week I’m hedging my bets for three reasons.

First, in the two-and-a-half years since his life went into meltdown we have seen many false dawns. Tiger has played well for one or more rounds and then lost his driving, or putting, and it has been two steps forward and one back. Even a player of Woods’ astonishing talent has difficulty incorporating new swing moves with consistency. Second, if there is one area of his game that doesn’t quite match the rest, it is his iron play – he’s hitting the greens but often a long way from the flagstick, and at Augusta that’s a recipe for a whole bunch of three putts. Third, many of the world’s best players are also in great form, and Tiger no longer intimidates them in the way he once did.

Rory McIlroy is obviously first among their number and has been in contention just about every time he has teed it up so far this year. But Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson and Luke Donald have all won in America since February, while Steve Stricker, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell also show some welcome form. Even Ian Poulter, who likes Augusta, has shaken off his early season despond. And then we have the Americans like Bubba Watson, Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Hunter Mahan and Matt Kuchar. Simply, there are too many good golfers playing good golf to assume that it’s coronation time for Tiger. My money will be on Rory.

Warrior or assassin?
A piece about cricket in the Daily Telegraph caught my eye last week. It talked about sports psychologists and in particular quoted Dr Mark Bawden, who works with the England cricket team. He defines the sportsmen with whom he works as falling into one of two categories. First are warriors – outgoing, aggressive, confident people who take on the world – and then there are assassins, the quieter, more introverted technicians who can be overlooked until, that is, they have walked off with the trophy. It made me start thinking of golfers in these terms and of those I have mentioned in connection with the Masters, I have reached the following conclusions. The warriors are Woods, McIlroy, Mickelson, McDowell, Westwood, Poulter, Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson. Which leaves the assassins; Kaymer, Rose, Donald, Simpson, Mahan and Kuchar.

Looking back over the last 10 years, the Masters has been won by the following:
Charl Schwartzel (assassin)
Phil Mickelson (warrior)
Angel Cabrera (warrior)
Trevor Immelman (assassin)
Zach Johnson (assassin)
Phil Mickelson (warrior)
Tiger Woods (warrior)
Phil Mickelson (warrior)
Mike Weir (assassin)
Tiger Woods (warrior)

That gives the warriors the edge, at six wins to four, so I’m sticking with my prediction of Rory.

Not quite, Hunter
Hunter Mahan is the first man to win twice in America this season, and must be feeling good on his drive up Magnolia Avenue this week, but it takes an awful lot to win consecutive events, especially when the second is a major. But my eye was caught by his quote on winning the Houston Open at the weekend and in the process moving to world number four. He said: ‘That’s a pretty surreal thing to think about. It shows me what I can do, shows me what I’m capable of.’
No Hunter. If the news of your elevation in the world rankings had been given to you by a talking hippopotamus wearing a pink tutu, that would be surreal. Otherwise, it’s just a pleasant surprise.

Quote of the Week:
The object of golf is not just to win. It is to play like a gentleman, and win
Phil Mickelson

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In the course of the last five years or so we have met some very interesting customers. One of our pals, Brian Slater (we call him Biggles because he’s one of our test pilots) sent us a present the other day.  We were a bit mystified and asked him to explain…

“Between 17 January and 28 February 1991 operation “Desert Storm” took place to kick Sadam out of Kuwait, which he invaded in December 1990.  Vickers manufactured the Challenger battle tank, and the army sent about 200 of them out to Saudi Arabia to be used in the assault on Kuwait (Sadam).  We (Vickers) sent a team of engineers out there as well so we could make sure the tanks were properly maintained and fit to do battle.  I was due to go out in March 1991 as part of our team, but fortunately it was all over by 28 Feb !!

At the time of the war, Vickers were developing a “Mark 2″ version of the Challenger tank called (would you believe ?) “Challenger 2″.  One of it’s main “new” features was that it was designed to be almost invisible to enemy radar - what we call in the trade “low signature”…..and it had a new, and different camouflage ‘paint job’ to make it even harder to see – the technical term for this is “disruption pattern”.

Lots of folks in the UK were sending out ‘food parcels’ to the troops in the gulf, but they always forget the officers…..so….we decided that we could kill several birds with one stone.  1)  a lot of the officers played golf, and had taken clubs out there, and needed a ball which would show up on white desert sand……2)  we wanted to get across the message that the “new” Challenger tank was even better than the one they were using in the Gulf (at £2 million a ‘pop’ they needed to be !!)….3)  we just wanted to give the officers a bit of fun – whilst re-inforcing the sales message.

We produced, and shipped, 22 balls  that were hand painted with the ‘new’ disruption pattern, and given to the officers, and were very much appreciated and looked after.

Soon after the end of the war, the MOD ordered 256 Challenger 2 tanks – possibly the ‘feedback’ from people in the Gulf who got a golf ball helped the decision making – who knows ?  The one thing I cannot tell you is……if you scratch off the ‘disruption pattern’…..WHAT the golf ball brand is underneath…..”

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We’re very worried about the latest news from the Cameron camp about trolley taxation. All electric powered devices ‘driven with a purpose’ will require a tax disc.  So we have to design a tax disc holder and GoKart owners will have to fork out.  We’re starting a petition here to oppose the proposal. We have three months to raise a groundswell against it and we’re confident that we can get enough support to stop the Bill from happening.  Please do post a comment here to join the petition.

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