So I now had the outline for a crazy Summer golf challenge, the next step was to work out how to make it a reality.
[If you haven’t read it yet, please check out my blog post ‘It’s All Ryan Reynolds Fault!‘ which explains (1) How I came up with the idea for The Challenge and (2) Why Ryan Reynolds is to blame for it].
Super Gran
So The Challenge had been determined… ‘Play all of the 1906 Club courses in just 1906 Hours’. I knew it was going to be an awesome personal adventure but it also seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a positive impact in the world.
Inspired by my Grandmother (who earlier in the year did a Skydive for a good cause) I decided that I too would try and raise funds for charity. [Click here] to watch her short BBC interview including some jump footage 🪂
A Good Cause
After the amazing way they looked after my Step Mum (Pru Moore) in her final weeks, it was an easy decision to choose the St.Peter & St.James Hospice as my charity.
My only concern was that ‘The Challenge’ was all around the British Isles so some people may not feel a ‘connection’ to the Hospice; so I decided to also raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support because they are better known nationally (this also seemed appropriate though, as they did help Pru a lot as she was going through the variuous stages of Chemo).
Finding a Club To Call Home
I would be on a modest budget for The Challenge, so in order to be able to take advantage of the reciprical nature of the 1906 Club and get ‘complimentary’ rounds at each course I would need to be a member of one of the clubs.
Due to the ‘small print’, it was not as simple as just joining any club. One of the rules states that the reciprical agreement does not apply to clubs within 50 miles of your home club 🤔
I therefore needed to find a club that didn’t violate that rule so that I could maximize complimentary rounds of golf. Here is a map of all 45 club locations.
As you can see many clubs are clustered together so my best bet was going to be joining a course in Scotland, Ireland or Wales.
But to join a club you have to be proposed and seconded by existing members to keep the riff-raff out 😜 and all of the ‘potential’ courses were miles away from my base in Sussex, so I couldn’t possibly know someone at any of the clubs – correct I didn’t.
Thinking Outside The Box
It was time to put my thinking cap on and get creative…….
I belong to a golf society in Sussex and remembered that one of our members lives in Wales, much to my excitement (when I checked the 1906 Club map) I realised that he lives just 10 miles from one of the clubs (West Monmouthshire Golf Club); could this be my way in?
He agreed to put some feelers out to local contacts he had, in the meantime though, I thought to myself “What the hell, why don’t I just explain to the the club what I am hoping to do and maybe they will let me join”.
What A Club!
I emailed the Secretary of West Monmouthshire Golf Club (WMGC) outlining The Challenge and included 2 letters (1) from the hospice explaining that I was genuine and that they had looked after my Step Mum, and (2) a handicap certificate from my Golf Society showing I was a 16 handicap and could be let loose on a course.
Not only did the Membership Committee approve me, instead of charging the full £350 for Summer membership, they asked me to pay just £150 and donate the other £200 to the fundraising effort. AMAZING! The Challenge was a GO, I was now a member of the ‘the Highest Golf Club in Great Britain’!
Planning The Route
Okay, 45 clubs spread throughout the British Isles, how was i going to do this?
I started off by using a bit of online software to see what the most efficent driving route would be, so I at least had a starting point for planning the schedule.
This was my starting point, but I also had some ‘bucketlist’ items that I wanted to tick off along the way, as I would be seeing parts of the British Isles I have never been to. These included:
- The Giants Causeway in Ireland
- The Mach Loop in Wales
- Playing St.Andrews Golf Course
- Watching a Professional golf tournament
- Exploring various cities such as Durham, Edinburgh
- Driving through the Yorkshire Dales
- Seeing the seabirds at Bass Rock in North Berwick
So I set about planning a schedule that would allow me to follow the optimal route (as best as possible) but also allow me do some bucketlist items 🙂 I had roughly 11 weeks and would only play golf Monday to Friday as courses would be busier on weekends (and I could do sightseeing/visit family & friends on weekends).
[Click here] to see my finalised schedule.
Booking The Golf
The general expectation is that your club Secretary contacts the course that you wish to play (to confirm your membership).
I didn’t want my Secretary to have to contact 45 clubs on my behalf as I knew I wouldn’t be popular 😜 so we put together a letter on WMGC headed paper explaining everything.
I then sent the letter in an email explaining all about The Challenge and asking for a tee time on the day I had allocated in my schedule; as I was completing ‘The Challenge’ on my own, I also asked if I could be paired up with someone from the club to show me around.
This approach secured lots of replies and I got about 33 tee times booked (including some with Club Captains/Secretary), the rest I would need to call to sort a tee time.
Accomodation & Transportation
As i mentioned earlier, I was on a modest budget so I needed to keep Accomodation & Travel expenses down. My solution a campervan.
I started looking at secondhand campervans online and it quickly became obvious that a reliable one (big enough for a 6 foot guy to sleep in) was going to be £10K+ 😬 so I changed the search to ‘budget’ campervan and then is when I discovered the Ford Transit Connect (high roof & long wheelbase).
Ford Transit Connect Van
Already converted vans with lower mileage were still £6K+ but there was a lot of advice about converting the regular panel van into a camper. So that is the route I went.
After several weeks of looking at hundreds of vans, I finally purchased an ex-Warwickshire County Council (former Fire Services) van from RightVan.co.uk in Derbyshire. A 2nd generation family owned business with excellent Google Reviews gave me the confidence I needed to buy from them. Andy was patient and even picked me up from the station as I had come all the way from Sussex.
With just 100K on the clock (for a nearly 20 year old van) and flawless MOT/service history done by the Council’s dedicate maintenance mechanics I was confident this would meet my top priortiy of ‘Reliability’ over ‘Looks’.
Converting The Van Into A Camper
So now I had the van and just needed to convert it into a campervan (having never done any DIY in my life). Oh yeah… i forgot to mention…. I had just 4 weeks to get the job done before my schedule start date – easy right.
The conversion process is a WHOLE other story and needs its own blog post (once I have written it I’ll link to it here) but right now I am already 4 weeks into doing The Challenge so I need to focus on the Weekly Reports and daily social media posts (plus playing some golf).
If you do do social media, please click the links at the bottom of the site and you can follow my journey – thank you 🙏
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