Underwater Golf

Matt: Golf is very popular in the Gulf, lots of people seem to play golf out here - and not just 50 year old businessmen as part of their corporate flirting ritual - younger people, girls too, even some of my friends.. So I figured that it was about time I donned my chequered pants and gave it a go.

Andrea, one of the Italian crew, has been playing now for a couple of years and is getting good, He and his lovely girlfriend Ruta, from 'bent over the front of a cop car' fame, play on a regular basis and they offered to take Cris and I out for a round. So off we went to Emirates golf course, host of the internationally renowned, Desert Classic Tournament, for a hit around.

We started off on the driving range, clubbing balls (pardon the pun) with little finesse and once we were in the swing of things (oops there's another), we progressed onto the Wadi course. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, ok we weren't great at it but we enjoyed it and it was our first time.

The only thing that did frustrate me more that my inability to find the hole, was the dress code, no t-shirts, collared shirts only, oh but not a fully buttoned collared shirt, god forbid you have more that 3 buttons! What are they afraid of? littering the course with pinged shirt buttons? And it must be tucked in, who these days tucks a shirt in unless their at a board meeting? it's not like it's a safety hazard to have your shirt untucked, when was the last time you heard of somebody getting injured on a golf course by a loose flapping shirt? or is it a distraction for other golfers when the wind picks up? do they mistake you for the flag on the 9th? ok ok.. I'll stop now!! But come on, move with the times Golf world..

All in all we both really enjoyed it. Arhhh you're wondering what the underwater part in the title has to do with this right? Well we also went for our introduction to Scuba diving and have signed up for the PADI course.. Our first lecture is this coming Wednesday, for me it's been a long time coming. I went on a try dive with Mark Dew about 7 years ago at some random school on the outskirts of Bristol, I may have sucked the tank dry in about 5 minutes, but I wanted to get qualified from that day, but we never got round to it.