Fairway To Heaven

I find myself feeling surprisingly sad at the news of Seve Ballesteros passing away.  Not that I'm a huge golf fan, but perhaps that just shows the impact of Seve.  A mercurial talent who woke up the golf world with his brilliant attacking style.  Never one for the efficiency of 'playing the percentages' as so many of the modern players seem to, he could be wildly undisciplined one moment and utterly brilliant the next.

Of course everyone will be remembering his famous shot from the car park, in the 1979 Open.  He always seemed to be in the trees, or the rough or in a bunker, but the thing was, his recovery shots were so good, that he often went on to win.  As he did at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1979, becoming the youngest Open champion in the process. 

I'll leave it for others to do the full scale obituaries, that's not what this blog is supposed to be about (although what it is about is a very good question...), I guess I just liked the fact that Seve seemed to me to be a bit of a maverick, doing things his own way and that's something that should always be applauded in my book.

I did think of linking this post to an appropriate piece of music, but my favourite golf related song - 'Fairway To Heaven', might be misinterpreted.  Or even cause Peter Allis to sue if he ever heard it - I very much doubt he was sampled by Gaye Bykers On Acid with permission!

Actually, on a quick trawl round the 'net I can't seem to find it anyway, which is mildly surprising.  I tend to work on the premise that just about everything is on the 'net if you know where to look.  Clearly I don't!

Still it does bring me round to music, as 1989's 'Stewed To The Gills', the album from which 'Fairway To Heaven' comes, is unfairly underrated, in fact, it's by some distance GBOA's best in my book.  But saddled with a silly name, linked in to the ill starred 'grebo' movement by the UK music press and by all accounts being an unmanageable bunch of toerags, they're now little more than a footnote on the UK music scene.  

Which is a shame because at their peak the Bykers created a tremendous psychedelic garage punk noise.  But having said that, any credit they did build up they pretty much destroyed with some very poor and self indulgent later releases.  In fact, just stick to the first two albums. 

Oh, and here's a link to 'Stewed To The Gills'.