Lucky Man

This week I had a stroke of luck or rather I NEVER had a stroke. I was admitted to the BDF Hospital suffering from angina after a few months of feeling pains in my chest. Dr Husam Noor my Consultant Cardiologist seemed confident that he knew what was wrong with me and I am pleased to say that his diagnosis appears to have been spot on. He performed an angiogram and found that a major heart artery was completely blocked. See the before picture below which is actually my heart not some internet picture. (You actually get a video of the procedure these days.) There should be a blood vessel roughly between the arrows.

As you can see (or not see) it is missing as it had closed up completely. Dr Husam managed to perform an angioplasty which is to say he inserted two stents which keep the vessel open. After he was finished the same vessel (from a slightly different angle) looks like this

You can clearly see a beautifully open blood vessel between the arrows.

Words cannot adequately express my gratitude to Dr Husam and his fantastic team at the BDF who looked after me during my stay. Thank you seems so inadequate but I have little else I can offer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you from the bottom of ALL of my heart.
Dave

Did the earth move for you honey?

Although the big earthquake was in nearby Iran, only a slight tremor was felt here in Bahrain. Personally we never noticed it but some tall buildings were evacuated as a precaution.
All safe and well here. The hotel next to Ashley's shop was one of those evacuated but she was in the shop at the time and I believe, like us, felt nothing.
David

Prizegiving

Here is the picture I promised of me getting my prize from the King's son His Highness Shaikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

That's me with the green shirt on. We were not looking at the club camera because our cameraman had been ousted to a side position by the paparazzi there for the Royal visitor.

On the first tee (first day)

Me and my caddie waiting to start.

David

19th Hole, 19th Place

I am delighted to say that in very windy conditions today I played magnificently and despite a triple bogey 7 on the 15th carded a gross 76 to finish in a very creditable 19th place in the Bahrain Open ahead of many professionals and other very good players. I won the prize for the best gross score on day 2 outwith the main prizes so that brings our total for the Festival of Golf week to BD200 (about 320 GBP) vouchers for the duty free shop. Not a bad week. Prizes were presented by His Highness Shaikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa son of the the King of Bahrain. I will post a picture once I get it.
Off now to the Gala Dinner.
Take Care
David

There's silver on tham thar fairways!

Its the second day of April 2013 and the sun is splitting the skies as normal. Its very hot and the players take to the course for the Bahrain Mixed Open. Its a shotgun start and David and Sheila Spittal are starting on the 16th Hole so we have a way to walk to our first tee. The format of the competition is Greensomes. That means both players drive a ball and you choose the one you like best then the other player plays the second shot and you then play alternately until the ball is in the hole. Our plan is that I will drive the ball up the fairway, Sheila will hit it as near to the green as possible leaving me with an easy chip on and Sheila will hole the putt for a par. Does that happen? Amazingly YES. And not only did it happen there but it happened again on the par 5 18th, and then the 1st, and the 3rd and so on. We played great, Sheila holed some great putts and for the very first time we played to our joint handicap. To make things doubly enjoyable we came in second overall and won BD100 in Duty Free Vouchers to go with the BD50 I won on Sunday.

This is Captain Andy (Ace) McAlpine having just presented us with our envelopes. You can see all of the gallery pictures from the event on the club page here and if you want to follow live scores from the Bahrain Open on Friday and Saturday you will find the link on the same page.

I am having a day off today in my preparation for the Open. I will play a few holes tomorrow and then the big one starts on Friday. There are 120 players entered so its a full field with a cut after Day1. Let's hope I am still playing on Day2.
David

How's this for accuracy

Sheila is coming on with the golf. Yesterday we played a few holes and on the second she had a tree in her way. She played an absolute beaut and the ball finished, not quite in the hole but very nearly. See for your self in the picture below.

We had to use a "tree" iron to get it down again!

On another front I took a picture of a car when we were at a function some time ago. It was pretty amazing.

I think its the new Land Rover.

David

A change of luck

Every Friday at the golf club presentation the scorecards of the players who didn't win a prize go into a raffle for a few small prizes. Usually its a bottle of wine or a car wash. Last night was the Nass Medal competition which always draws a big entry because the prizes are really good. One of the rules of the competition is that if you win a prize in the golf competition then you have to be there at the presentation to collect the prize or it goes into the raffle. There is also always a big raffle for some better prizes where you have to buy the tickets.

So to summarise, only the players who were rubbish at the golf and didn't win a golf prize get their scorecards in the raffle. You may have guessed that mine was in that raffle as usual. It is also a bit of a standing joke that my card never gets drawn even for the bottle of wine.

Last night? Correctamondo - out pops my card and I win a Creative Sound Labs 5.1 surround sound system for our TV. A pretty good prize.

A short time later the main raffle draw takes place and guess what? Correctamondo again - Sheila's ticket comes out and we won a 42" LED TV to go with the surround sound system. Not a bad evenings pickings.

So now we have THREE TVs and have no idea what we'll do with this new one. Still its a nice problem to have.

Hurrah, hurrah for Nass.
David