"Canards" is a reference to "Only Fools and Horses" where Del and Rodney go to France in the 3 wheeler. Rodney has a smattering of French and Del uses French inappropriately. Del asks Rodney various phrases and struggles to master them. Eventually he asks him what's French for duck, Rod replies "it's canard", Del thinks he says it's f.. hard. So he says "you can say that again bruv."
Henceforth, when putting became difficult and Steve Hobbs's aversion to foul language, led players to say it's canard, rather than offend Steve.
Simon Wellington, Steve Hobbs and Eric Hogg
We are a group of golfers who just happened to meet at Farrington Golf Club. There was no formal organisation or deliberate intent to create a society. Around 2002, soon after Simon Wellington moved back to the area, he was due to meet up with another golfer for a Saturday morning game of golf. He didn't have many contacts and had just started playing club golf and was meeting someone he knew vaguely.
The contact arrived followed by a tall handsome man by the name of Steve Hobbs. He was silver haired and immaculately dressed and could have passed as a Steve Martin double. He asked Simon and was happily granted permission to play. Initially Simon was dubious about his over attentiveness to dress, etiquette and personal appearance. Although Simon couldn't be described as homophobic, he was concerned. One of the first questions Simon asked was whether he was married and happily, he was, to a lovely lady called Mandy. For some reason Simon called her Debbie every time he spoke to her. This caused a few problems at home until Steve explained that Simon could be a bit of a doughnut.
Simon and Steve formed the core of a group of golfers playing on a Saturday morning, although the rest of them were short term fair weather cop outs. About 12 months later the duo were playing when a lone gaunt figure was silhouted on the 2nd tee behind them waiting to play through. They waved and called him through and were thanked by a wild hook over their heads thudding into the out of bounds hedge just behind them. Both Simon and Steve were badly shaken, little was said as he slunk sheepishly past them. Simon noted a man of about 40 years of age with dark swarthy features with the unfortunate dress sense of Steve Hobbs. We'd just waved the man from C&A through ! He had one of those faces that look familiar. Like when you try to remember the only white face on crime watch (other than the obligatory smattering of Eastern Europeans).
After passing the lone figure again, criss crossing the fairway at the seventh, Simon asked him to join their small band. He replied in a language that was un-intelligible, Simon thought it was the Estonian he'd seen on TV the previous Monday. Nevertheless Simon gave him his business card and asked him to call if he wanted to play. (Even then, he made a mental note to chain the door when he went to bed that night.)
His fears were allayed when he received a phone call from him asking if he could play with us that week end. This was a simple request but was a protracted call due to the language barrier. The man turned out to be Eric Hogg and spoke a broad dialect of Glaswegian.
These three ill matched golfers, Simon Wellington, Steve Hobbs and Eric Hogg formed the basis of the " Canards " who welcome anyone to share their fun and camaraderie.
