Scottish Night Champs, now Sat Feb 19th

[graeme]

Apologies for the very short notice about this one: trying to get the word around.

It's been a long process, negotiating access to a number of golf courses, but we've finally got the permissions all in place for the Scottish Night champs and a brand new map from a new PGplot. replacing a pack of lies made from a blank piece of paper while people hit things at me. More myth than legend. .
Excellent (or zero!) runnability, almost no line features, part of it has been used in FWTN for sub 6min/kms you'll be very fast or very lost. It might not be that dark though...

Greens mapped as, er, green, but ...
KEEP OFF THE GREENS - EVEN THE SCOTTISH ACCESS CODE DOESNT LET YOU ON THEM

Does anyone else have experience of O-racing on golf courses?

[Freefall]

In my old days in WAOC we used to run on the golf course near Royston at night. Please don't run on the greens - you will be drummed out of the Club.

[DaveK]

We sometimes have night events at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, where there is a Golf course that becomes 'in bounds' for a nice change. As Freefall says, the greens can be a problem though. We were shown the imprints of a pair of boots (an Army group were competing) on a green the morning after a very wet night event some years ago, by a less than happy Golf Club Secretary. We now give strict warnings in the event details and at the start that these must not be crossed on pain of death.

[andypat]

Are they winter or summer greens that have been mapped?

[MIE]

MV have used Walton Heath Golf Course (Ryder Cup, Europen Womens Tour plus others) for night events. No problems with the greens, even on a very foggy night when visibility was <10m but one or two of the bunkers were disturbed.

Also used Epsom Downs golf course ( plus the Racecourse) with no problems apart from the local kids deciding to relocate a control. Most players on this course wouldn't be able to tell if the bunkers were disturbed or if the greens had been run on as it is an access area.

[SeanC]

The Kent Night Cup event a couple of years ago at Tilgate golf course*. Found the fairways quite disorientating due to subtle changes in directions. Also the map had small buildings or ruins at the end of each fairway. I thought one would make a good attack point, but when I looked for one I couldn't find it, all I found was a lovely soft piece of grass. **

Lullingstone Park, Thurs Feb 17th will be a night event on a golf course + some normal woods/country park.

* plus a bit of Crawley, plus some other wood

** Greens marked as out of bounds in black in case you didn't guess.

[frog]

When I lived in New Zealand I visited an interesting golf course in Coromandel that had electric fences round the greens to keep the sheep out. I trust this night champs doesn't have a similar obstacle course novelty element to it. Can see me sliding into a few bunkers already. Sounds fun.

[ryeland of doom]

Please rake them afterwards, thanks.

And replace your divots.

(Edinburgh was good again today, other than the Playhouse)

[Big Jon]

Gramp used (in the late 70's....) to hold night events on several municipal golf courses in and around Aberdeen. Avoid greens and all will be fine. Might be worth checking greens for divots and bunkers for foot-prints, or body prints - falling into a bunker is quite possible at night!
Sounds like real fun, could you arrange a power cut for most of Embra' to cover the period of the event? This would make it into real night-O

[graeme]

Test run last night, properly excited now. A good map makes a huge difference!

Greens marked as out of bounds in black in case you didn't guess

Greens are mapped with the olive OOB symbol: I wonder if this is enough or if we should add red OOB on top which would get a bit cluttered.
Sounds like a "no boots" rule would be good! Any views on allowing spikes?

[Big Jon]

Golfers wear spiked shoes.....

PS how about a bonus prize for greatest number of golf balls found while competing?

[andypat]

Might be being a bit thick, but cant see the final details anywhere - is there any restriction on footwear or was that entirely a joke...?

[graeme]

http://www.gmci.demon.co.uk/Interlopers ... etails.pdf

[frog]

After FWTN tonight I was remembering that the only time I did a night event at Braid Hills I took ages to complete the course. I couldn't remember much about it, so have just got the map out and see it was a 7.8k course on a contour only map which makes me feel a bit less pessimistic about Saturday. It doesn't look like I completed it from the results, although it has several of us not completing it. As well as being contour only we also had to follow a line over some of it and see how many controls we could find. It was fun but hard. I think that's where I tripped over a large boulder and broke my glasses to add to the excitement of the evening!
Have there been daytime events there? I only seem to run around alot of the Edinburgh maps in the dark.

[SYO Member]

I ran the A-course and helped at an EUOC daytime event on Sunday 28/12/75 at Braid Hills. Don't know why there was no golf that day but we used the golf club car park. The map was a 10000 Black/Blue/Brown with 25ft contours and the 5.3km course was won in 34:30. Entry fee was 25p.

On 14/12/74 there had been a SE District night event on a Black and White 10000 with my 4.0km B-course won in 48:35. I recall this being the first time the area had been used for orienteering. Entry fee was only 20p but inflation was around 25% then!