Hello everyone,my name's Alan and i'm from Southport in the UK.My local courses dotted around me on the northwest coast are Royal Birkdale,Hillside,S&A (Southport and Ainsdale),Formby Hall GC & Spa,Formby GC.West Lancs GC.Southport Old Links,all beautiful courses if you like the links side of golfing.Anyway nice to meet all of you and have a good 2012 out on your local course!.One of my previous jobs was Greenkeeper at Formby GC.

Royal Birkdale? I'm jealous. Hope to play over there some day.

I'll bite; what's the derivation of your "oxygene" middle name?

Welcome...!!!!

And I'll also bite. How the heck does a UK native become a Green Bay Packer fan? I thought you blokes were more partial to association football.

Bryan, The name Oxygene derives from the brilliant album from the french synthesist Jean Michel Jarre of who's music i've been into for around 32 years,and if you don't know who he is then your on another planet.Oh and 'Oxygene' is his first fully acclaimed album from 1976/77.And one more thing i've followed the Packers for 13 years,but also follow Aston Villa in our premiership.And on the subject of Jean Michel Jarre i have seen him live on numerous occasions,you might of heard of him through the concert in houston in 86 just after the shuttle went up with his saxophonist mate Ron McNair onboard.

I'll check out Jean Michel Jarre. But as far as association football goes, at this point, I only follow my nephew's team. He just turned 13, so they are playing with the full 11-man teams on bigger fields with full sized nets this year for the first time. It's going to be an interseting transition.

I never heard of the guy.

CeeBee,He was born 24th August 1948 son of Maurice Jarre the well know conductor who has now passed away,he wrote film scores such as Lawrence of Arabia,Jean Michel was married to an english actress named Charlotte Rampling.He's well known for his Firework displays to his own music on stage and holds the record for the largest attendance at any one concert 3.5 million in Moscow 1997.

I did myself proud today and carded an 84 on one of my local courses in Southport,Lancashire.Because of the overnight temps which fell below freezing the ground was like concrete but also helped the ball travel further,i'm now down to just over 16 handicap which for not lifting a club in a few years on a regular basis is pretty good i think.

I checked out some of Jean Michel Jarre's stuff. It's definitely not my kind of music, but I can appreciate the artistic genius that went into creating some of that music. Don't get me wrong. I love classical composers with Tchaikovsky and Mozart being my favorites. It's just that I'm not a fan of the synthesizer. Jarre takes it to a whole new level, though, with the emotions and imagery he invokes. And 3.5 million people at a single concert...wow. I thought traffic was bad after leaving the Metrodome with a crowd of 60,000.