Pringle Kicks

I headed south to Addington Court, just outside the Croydon metropolis for a Feature shoot with journalist friend Gareth May. It was a bit of an odd one; we were to take on 18 holes of growing new sport FootGolf. We both arrived a little bemused thinking this amalgamation of two hugely popular sports was a bit gimmicky, but to our surprise, it was firstly a ‘real’ sport that was taken seriously & secondly, most importantly- it was a whole lot of fun!

As we stood looking over the glorious Surrey greenspace in front of us, it did feel a little odd that everyone was wearing such casual attire- most were in football shorts & trainers!

But this wasn’t the stuffy, elitist sport of golf we were playing, it was the ‘fun for all’ FootGolf. It’s essentially golf, but rather than striking a tiny ball with a club, you kick a football around the course into a much larger hole.

We were met by World Number 7 Nick Iron who was gonna take us through it, as well as UK FootGolf Ambassador Paul Oliver. The guys decided to make things a little interesting by playing a “Pro’s Vs Bro’s” round with Gareth & his best mate Dan up against Nick & Paul. We kicked off at the top of the hill & the fun began.

It was great fun & the guys were having a ball.

Before long the trickshots started…

By the time we got to the halfway point, things got a bit more serious. The guys twigged they were competing against each other & my guys had to pull their socks up as team Pro were ahead.

Team Pro missed a couple & my guys came back into it.

But it was too little, too late. By the time we kicked off the 11th hole, it’s all wrapped up with team Pro the comfortable winners.

There’s just one thing left to tie up- overall rankings, so team mates Gareth & Dan now faced off against each other trying to avoid the wooden spoon. After a quick look at the scorecards, they were actually really close!

As the rain started to fall, this was gonna be a very interesting end to our afternoon.

With the pressure mounting, both players were struggling missing some right sitters.

As we reached the 18th hole it was fun time for Nick as he showed off his range clipping this one in from over the hill

Meanwhile Gareth & Dan were inseperable finishing dead even, so the 18th was re-shot. I honestly thought we’d be there a while as they were neck-and-neck the whole way around, then out of nowhere Gareth lands a hole-in-one!!!

He was over the moon with his strike (as were we- we were all drenched!) and headed into the clubhouse for a pint. I was a little disappointed in myself that i’d turned down Paul’s offer at the start to play the round with them, but I felt that it would’ve been too much to be shooting AND playing!

It did look a hell of a lot of fun, though. I’ll be back very soon with some pals- no doubt slicing into the rough!

I’ll leave the last word with my pal Gareth & his knee-sliding celebration. Third place was yours, sir…

ENJOY!

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