The Golf Course

CHAPTER 5

The Golf Course

1983

I obtained a yellow Suzuki ER 250 in a private arrangement, I think the bike came as a package deal when I sold my beloved Honda CB 550.

The Honda had done its time and I had traveled 1000s of trouble free miles, not counting the constant misfire during the wet weather, and I had some great times with her, but I was always looking for a bigger faster bike, so she had to go, on hindsight, I wished I had kept her, but in those days I moved on from bikes when I wanted something new and never had the foresight of hanging on to them, mainly because I never thought I would live long enough to look back and remember all this stuff.

I do remember talking to a friend of mine, P.J. ( Peter Jones ) in the 80s, on how both of us had managed to survive so long, and we were out living the statistics of the time, this was before the government implemented some of their restrictions on bikers, the death rate was disproportionately high compared to other road users, this is why they introduced the helmet law in 1973 and the restriction on engine size etc.

Some of the laws were not needed, well in my opinion not all of them, but wearing a helmet saved my life a few times.

I had bought the Kawasaki ltd 1000 as a replacement for my Honda CB 550 in a separate deal with the bike shop Two Wheel Services on Nolton street in Bridgend.

I bought the Kawasaki before I sold the Honda 550, it was an impulse buy really, until I saw the kwaka displayed in front of the shop, I had never though of buying Z1.

I had seen the LTD on display outside the shop on what goes as a forecourt, it is best described as a narrow strip of concrete outside two wheel services.

Myself, Wobble and big Roy were on our way down town for a pint on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the ltd had only been on display in the shop for an hour before I bought it, after we had been for a couple of pints in the York pub, we made our way back up town and past the Two Wheel Services bike shop.

the Kawasaki was still there, so I went straight into the bike shop and bought the bike there and then.

The Kawasaki had only been put in as a part exchange by a passing biker from Mansfield in England, the English biker was on holiday down in Wales, and he fancied a bike in the shop window and made a deal there and then, he took the new bike out the same day and continued the rest of this holiday on the new bike.

But, back to the scrambler.

I would not normally buy an off-road bike, I did enough mountain scrambling when I was a kid in the valley on old British bikes, it was fun at the time but as they say this kind of biking was not my cup of tea anymore.

( Photo 1 ) . My Suzuki ER 250, this type of classic scrambler is worth a fortune nowa days.

Well, I had this off-road bike so I thought I would have some fun with it before I got rid of it, I had no intentions of keeping the bike and would have had no problems selling the bike, people were always looking for off-roaders.

I took the bike out a few times, it preformed like it should, but it just didn't do anything for me, I much preferred a road bike.

One occasion sticks out more in my memory then any other with this particular bike.

The time I took a shortcut over a golf course.

This is how my day went.

It was a Saturday morning, I was finishing work at noon, they wanted me to stay on longer, I told them I had plan’s, so find some-one else to cover the shift, it was overtime for me and I had already worked 12 hours over time in the week covering another supervisors shift, so I was giving myself some me time.

The plan I had in mind was to leave my road bike at the house and take the Suzuki ER 250 to work with the intention of going for a ride up into the forestry after work, just to unwind and get work out of my head.

The forestry was basically opposite my house on the other side of the valley from where I lived, this forestry ride I could do at any time, and I had ridden through this mountainous forest many times in the past.

I changed my mind after a few hours in work on where I wanted to go after my shift because the sun was shining, no rain is always a bonus in Wales.

It was such a nice day, I thought I would take the bike down to the Vale of Glamorgan and go for a ride around that area instead, with the intention of scrambling the bike as much as possible.

The sun was high in the sky, it was a glorious warm summers day, not a cloud in the sky.

These kinds of dry warm days are very far between in Wales, once the sun comes out and those rays come shining down, staying in doors would be sacrilege.

My plan was to ride in one giant circle heading straight down to the Vale in south heading for the coast and then cut across any mountain common that I came to first and then head back up to the direction of the valley.

I needed to be back early enough to get ready to go out down the plough in Monknash in the evening, so my ride would only last for a couple of hours or so before I needed to get back home.

Two of my friends, brothers by the names of Joss and Simon lived in St Bridges Major village, and they had off-roaders that they rode around near to where they lived.

The village they lived in was surrounded by open mountains, so I knew the mountain was accessible and not fenced off.

So I choose to head down in that direction.

Riding out of the village of Corntown, I zipped around the lanes that circle the village for a little while and rode through the old river ford at Castle upon Alun where I had fallen off on a previous ride and then I headed up to the Pant near Hobbs Quarry and there I pulled up on to the side of the road on to the rough grass verge surveying the area, trying to decide which side of the mountain to ride up.

I sat there with the summer sun beating down on me.

Looking up at the mountain, I could see I may have an issue with the quarry has it was cut deep into the side of the mountain.

In my head I was checking out the best way to get to the top without putting myself into any danger.

The idea was if I went straight over the mountain at this point on the road, I should come out close to Ogmore castle and the Pelican pub on the other side, I could always have a quick pint there before heading home.

Being aware that there would be a quarry on both sides of my planned route over the mountain this was going to be a cautious ride as I did not know the area of the mountain I was riding over very well.

I was not going to blindly ride across without taking a good look at the terrain in front of me first.

The quarry’s were dangerous places, but the ride would be more interesting than just riding across an open piece of land, as there was always a possibility that I could disappear down a big hole in the ground.

( Photo 2 ) . Pant Bend, and the small valley that you can see just past the apex of the bend was going to be my route over the mountain, I used this small valley to get to the top of the common, out of sight from this position there is a large quarry on both sides of the small valley.

I pulled the bike completely off the road on to the grass verge and pointing the front wheel in the direction I intended going, I was ready to see a part of Wales that I had ridden around many times in the past, but never rode over, I had no idea what to expect on the top of the mountain, but I knew where the quarry’s were located, they were too big to miss.

I’m not the tallest person in the world and I had trouble touching the floor with my feet while sitting on this bike, the seat height on most off-road bikes are quite high to get the engine clearance that is need for going over rough and bumpy terrain, so any uneven ground could make it awkward for me, if I couldn’t push off with my foot and keep myself and the bike upright I may end up on my arse.

So I had to take all this into consideration before disappearing on a large remote mountain on my own, nobody would be able to find me again if I had accident, we didn’t have mobile phones in those days, so there was no quick call to someone if I got into trouble.

I checked my bearings, to my left was the main entrance to pant quarry ( Hobbs ) where myself and wobble nearly killed each other on our bikes by accident once.

( see the story miscommunication ).

The other quarry entrance was on my right behind a small wood some distance away, so if I kept these large man made holes in the ground at the fore front of my mind, I should be able to avoid them and hopefully stay away from them and not fall over the edge and plummet 100`s of feet and end my day broken to bits on the rocks below.

The shallow valley between both the quarry’s which is where I would think the Pant may have had its name from, I could be wrong but it seemed like a good guess to me, as Pant in English is hollow, which suits this terrain perfectly.

So approaching the little valley, I was taking it slow and following a very narrow sheep track of around eight inches wide that the sheep had worn away as they wandered around the on the steep hillside, I needed to leave the track halfway up or it would have led me back down the hill, from this point I headed straight up the side to get to the top of the hill, the narrow rough track only went up to this point and then lead away not rising any further up the side, it stayed at this level for a little further than dipped back down again, it looks like sheep have no sense of direction and just wander around munching on grass, always taking the easiest route, they could walk for miles and not go anywhere.

So revving the bike up, I clunked the bike in to its lowest gear, the bike gave a shudder and creped forward a little.

The clutch was quite harsh on this bike, it only needed to be an inch or so away from the handle bars before it engaged the engine.

A quick turn of the throttle and off I went, straight up the mountain side.

The bike had large chunky tires which were a great help and necessary for this kind of terrain, they dug into the soft earth and chewed it up with ease.

I climbed up the mountain side very quickly with lots of noise and leaving a blue cloud of two-stroke smoke behind me.

The bike on its journey up the side of the hill ripped chunks of earth out of the ground throwing and hurling them in all directions, mainly back down the furrow that I had just made on the side of the mountain.

I left a lasting impression on the side of this hill in the form of a huge muddy gouge, I bet it confused the sheep quite a bit.

Having stopped at the top of the hill and taking a good look at the area in front of me, I could not see much of anything, it just looked like a mountain top running off into the distance, there were no trees, just open scrub land with groups of mountain gorse bushes and a large selection of green ferns covering a large area of ground.

I didn’t know this area, but I could see a few roundish shaped dips in the ground that looked like man made depressions, these large holes could have been test pits that may have been dug many years ago to check for the Quarry stone that the engineers were looking for, many years ago and now all of the holes were covered by gorse bushes and other vegetation making them difficult to see.

Caution was the word of the day, I didn’t live this long by not taking obvious threats to my survival lightly.

I sat there, on the edge of the hill for a little while enjoying the peaceful situation I found myself, there was no wind and an abundance of warm sunshine, I took my helmet off and placed it onto the tank and just enjoyed the silent solitude, I was one with nature for a sort time.

I looked back down towards the Pant, far below me, it was a great view, I could see all of the pant from end to end, from the twisty exit from the trees from the Ewenny side to the more open area leading into Saint Brides Major.

I watched a of couple cars driving around the Pant, slowly making their way to Corntown and then I heard and watched a bike ride very fast up and around Pant Bend coming from Ewenny, I could see him quickly come out of the trees at speed and lay the bike over as he banked into the tight bend, he was scrapping his foot pegs, as he rounded the bend, he was so low he looked to me as if he was laying on the road, he rounded the hair pin and kept accelerating up the short straight passed Hobbs Quarry.

I guessed the rider was Pete Woodman, he was one of the regulars that went to the Plough and lived down this way.

The bike looked familiar, I was sure it was Woodmen’s black Honda CB 650, I watched the bike and rider disappear out of sight, he was gone in seconds.

I had a wicked grin on my face, the bike took Pant bend at speed, it must have been Woodman, he knew this road very well.

Pant bend was always a challenge.

All my friends were always trying to get the top speed around the bend.

Pant bend was very deceiving, it was very tight and extremely difficult to pull out off at speed, a number of bikers have left the road and ended up rolling about in the gorse bush’s and fern’s.

Glancing down to the route I just taken to climb to the top of the hill, I could see the path of destruction that I had created climbing up the hill, to be honest I didn’t think twice about it at the time, this was 1983 nobody gave a shit about the environment then, well nobody that I knew did, all I needed to do was to justify the mess to myself that I had just created, Justifying all the dislodged earth that I distributed across the hillside was easy, all I had to do was to just glance over to the destruction that the quarry had done to this mountain, that was proof enough for me, the damaged I had just done climbing up the side of the hill didn’t mean shit, the quarry owners had ripped the heart out of this mountain for years, all I did was create a new path for the sheep to follow.

In front of me was just a rough common, relatively flat dipping away from me, so the furthest part was out of sight, it just looked like open moorland, I could only see fern’s and open ground from where I was sitting.

Taking notice of the fence on my left side, there was pain and death laying that way, the fence indicated that the quarry was on the other side, so best avoid that section, also taking note of the dip’s in the landscape and decided to take it easy and not tear along.

I put my helmet back on and once again put the bike into gear and started to ride along on the mountain top at my own pace, taking it easy just enjoying the ride in the rare Welsh sunshine, a little further on to the common I came upon a cultivated area of green mowed grass, I could see more of the mountain top from this point, and there in front of me were large areas of well maintained grassland, like little smooth green islands dotted around the natural fern and gorse bushes.

I though “ fuck, there’s a golf course up here! ”.

( Photo 3 ) . This was the view that met me on the top of the mountain with Hobbs Quarry’s in the middle distance.

I wasn’t aware of this golf course even being here before coming up on top of the mountain, and having no interest in golf, why would I, so I never took any notice of where golf was played.

It was a boring game to me, I put it in the same category as Bingo and Jogging both pointless and boring.

I was thinking this was no good, I will have to find another way around it, so turning the bike around in a 90-degree circle to see if I could find a path that run down along the side of the course so I could ride around and not over the well maintained grass.

Heading to my right in the direction of the quarry I could see a small worn animal track that the sheep had created by walking in the same direction for years, the track was running alongside the quarry fence, this was my way around.

The track was wide enough for me to ride over, it would do for me.

The only problem was the track, it was very narrow and right up against the quarry fence.

The fence was a typical animal barrier made of wire squares and standing about 3` high and the wooden fence post were very weather-worn and rickety, the fence itself was actually leaning over at a number of points along its length, the actual edge of the quarry was only 4-5 foot away from the fence.

I rode along this rough path a little way and then stopped and thought about what I was doing, If I had made a mistake and gave the bike to much power or the back wheel skipped out off the path I could well have gone straight over the edge, so I abandoned that idea, it was not worth the risk.

It was making me nauseous looking down on the quarry floor and seeing how small the mining equipment looked, so I headed back to the cultivated area again to see if I could find another route on the opposite side of the golf course.

I could see the golf course was well maintained the greens looked very well looked after, and then noticed where I had turned around earlier, I had ridden over one of the putting greens and my chunky tires had ripped the crap out of it, there were clumps of grass covered earth lumps everywhere.

“Fuck!”

I had no intention of riding over it or damaging the lawn`d grass, I had not even noticed it was actually a golf course until it was well too late.

Thinking to myself, “ time to go ”.

I was just about to go back the way I came and go back down the hill and back onto Pant, when I heard someone shouting at me.

( photo 4 ) . The golf course, I rode over, just in case you are curious, the faded mountain in the distance is in England.

Looking in the direction of the shouting, I could see three older guys, in their late 40s or even 60s walking toward me in a hurry, they were dressed in their golfing gear of ridiculously patented and very bright jumpers, one of them even had his trousers tucked into his soaks, another of them had a very bright yellow top on, he could be spotted a mile off or even possibly from the moon, they were dragging their bags of clubs behind them.

They were looking in my direction, they were shouting and pointing at me, had no idea initially as I could not hear them but as the got closer I could hear quite plainly they, for some reason had an issue with me..

“ OI YOU “!

“ YOU FUCKING VANDAL, LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE ” .

They were all shouting at the same time using words like PRICK, BASTARD, WANKER with the word FUCKING in between all of these other words.

I Shouted back at the golfers“ Sorry guys, I didn’t know, this was a golf course ”.

Their outburst of emotion at me riding over their precious ground continued, they didn’t stop shouting abuse at me.

In my defense I would not have ventured up this mountain if I had known previously that these Wankers were up here.

They were moving closer to me, I could see all there of them puffing and panting as they hurried toward me, so I started to turn back in the direction that I first come up, with the attention of heading back down to the road, no way was I getting into a face to face confrontation with these guys, there were three of them and from the look in their eyes they wanted to kill me.

As I was turning one of them threw a golf club at me, it came spinning thou the air like a helicopter blade and landed just short of where I was, the other idiots started throwing golf balls at me which were also landing short of their desired target.

My simple reply was “ OK, I'M FUCKING SORRY WHAT ELSE CAN I SAY, STOP THROWING THINGS AT ME , WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ?”.

This didn’t make a difference to them they started to throwing verbal threats at me again, saying things like, “ Stay there, you’ll have a good hammering when we get hold of you ” etc, etc, moving closer at every step and still dragging their little wheelie bins behind them and still waving their golf clubs in the air.

These golfers were very irate and annoyed at me for invading their little world, but throwing things at me and threatening me, they had gone too far and their attitude was way over the top.

So I stopped apologizing and took on a more aggressive stance and returned the insults.

I shouted back at them “ FUCK OFF YOU PRICKS, you guys need to fucking grow up, your like a bunch of retards the way you're acting ” and this time I deliberately rode across their manicured green lawn, I was far enough away from them not to get hit by the flying golf clubs that they had once again attempted to throw at me.

I stopped a little further away from them as they kept coming towards me and I kept my distance just outside their throwing range.

They were still shouting and getting really frustrated by not catching up with me.

I looked down the fairway, I could see a clear run down towards the original direction that I wanted to go in the first place, as far I was concerned these pricks had brought this on themselves, I was ready to leave and go back the way I came and leave the golf course altogether, but after the insults and the flying objects and not forgetting the threats they could go fuck themselves.

I revved the bike up, it blasted out a large blue cloud of two-stroke smog from the exhaust and on dropping the clutch I shot off and chewed the crap out of another part of their hallowed green grass, this drew the attention of other golfers on the course, and they too started shouting at me as well.

So the bike and me tore through their hallowed turf with speed tearing up large chucks earth has I rode across it.

The tufts of grass were flying in all directions, the chunky motocross tires were digging deep into their well maintained putting greens, ripping up the grass and throwing lumps of earth everywhere.

I was ripping up so much earth, it looked like I had a muck spreader attacked to the rear of the bike.

People were screaming and shouting at me all the way down course, waving theirs clubs in the air like flags at a parade, I could see the in anger on their faces.

It was easy to spot their country club house and car park, it stood out like a sore thumb against the putting greens and the trees that grew that near to it.

So I headed for that part of the golf course.

If there was a car park, there were cars and if there were cars there would be a road.

I could not see the road from position I was on the green, but the cars had to get up the mountain somehow.

I looked at car park as a possible escape route and made a bee line to where I thought the exit it would be.

I could see people staring in disbelief and pointing at me has I rode past them with their precious turf flying off my back wheel, half a dozen people started getting into their cars and were all trying to pull out of the car park at the same time, it was like a scene from the old black and white silent films ( the keystone cops ), they were making a real hash of it, blocking each other in at the exit to the car park.

My first thought was “ fuck, they are coming after me in their cars ”, the last thing I wanted was a posse of irate golfers after my blood, I came out for a quick blast on the bike to blow the work crap out of my head and not to be chased by over weight middle-aged golfers.

I didn’t hang about, I spotted the roadway and I headed straight for it, the hard surface of the tarmac made the handling of bike fell totally different, I traveled down this road at speed, leaving chunks of muddy earth on the tarmac behind me.

I followed the mountain road down to the main A road that leads to Ogmore by Sea and then I come out just passed the Pelican pub which faces the road itself.

But thinking I had better not stop for a pint, as I had planned earlier, not under these circumstances with a bunch of deranged golfers after my blood.

I hit the main road and kept going, I did think about cutting across the river that ran alongside the Ogmore castle which was basically directly opposite the pub.

The river was low by the stepping stones with no river bank, I could ride though the river Ewenny alongside the stepping stones at this point, I could judge how shallow the river was at that this point, crossing this river was a dangerous thing to do because it is a tidal river.

The strong tide makes the river bed change shape and huge hollows can suddenly appear after a high tide, there was no guarantee that the riverbed would look the same after the incoming tide had pushed the river back up on its self, where it was safe to cross the river the day before could be a massive hole that would swallow me and the bike the next day.

I choose to stay on the road, I would make better time and putting more distance between myself and the angry golfers was a good think for me to do, for health reasons.

( Photo 5 ) . Ogmore castle and the stepping stones with two swans playing at being submarines.

I hightailed it to Bridgend, turned left on the outskirts at Corntown then up past Merthyr Mawr village, cutting through Laleston and up and over Cefn Cribbwr from there I headed straight for the Garw Valley, not slowing down or stopping, I was putting as much distance between myself and the golfers, until I was home and safe.

If you are familiar with the area that I used to escape these idiots you will you see, it wasn’t a direct route home, not with a posse of angry people with brightly coloured jumpers after me.

They were not carrying pitch forks or burning torches, but golf clubs, being battered with a 9 iron was something I wanted to avoid.

Lucky for me there were no mobile phones with cameras about in those days, or they would have had my number plate and PC plod would have been knocking on my door.

I did hear through the grapevine that there was an all out search for the vandal on a motor crosser destroying their golf course.

Well, they never found out who rode across their hallowed turf, well not until now.

My friend Wobble told me that he had a similar incident on a different golf course on his Suzuki TS 250, strangely enough he had the same kind reaction from the golfers.

As far as I’m concerned the golfing pricks deserved it, and come on for fuck’s sake, it’s only grass.

POST SCRIPTUM

Since I posted this story, I have been informed by one of my friends by the name of Phil George, that he and another friend of his called Chris Lewis did exactly what I had done, on the same golf course previously to me riding across it.

But I gather they rode across the golf course most weekends.

Now I understand why the golfers were so irate and aggressive with me, mainly because if Phil and Chris did this kind of thing on a regular basis, it would piss off all the golfers.

Chris was riding a Yamaha DT 175 and Phil was riding the same yellow Suzuki ER 250 that I was riding.

In fact it was the exact same bike, so I guess the golfers were used to seeing the same bike riding over the golf course and assumed I was the same rider.

I had bought the ER off Phil sometime after he had been using it for a few months, so when I was spotted on the golf course, the golfers assumed it was the same rider that they had seen before.

When Phil sold me the bike, I think maybe he could have warned me not to ride it down in this area near the golf course.

Like I say, the golfers assumed I was the same rider, and they must have been waiting for a chance to catch the rider/riders that were chewing up their beloved pampered grass and that is why they all run to their cars and gave chase, like the Sweeney.

Phil also told me that they would ride across the same part of the course just to wind the golfers up, and they did it on a regular basis, he also added on one occasion that they were chased by a man on horse back across the mountain top.

They were never caught.

( Photo 6 ) . Ariel view of the two quarries and the golf course, Pant bend can be seen near to the bottom of the photo.