Thoughts of a reluctant golfist

I never thought I’d ever say this, in fact even now I have my teeth firmly gritted and the words are fighting to get out.  Fortunately for the words I have one or two gaps and so they can work their way…I like golf...out; oh bugger there they are, they’ve slipped through.  Yes ok I admit it, I DO like golf! It’s a revelation, almost a Damascene conversion; I have finally gone over to the dark side.

I have always thought golf to be an old man’s game and was as one with Mark Twain in that it was a good walk spoilt. I did enjoy watching it on TV as a kid, with likes of Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tony Jacklin and all the other greats. I enjoyed the commentary of Peter Alliss on the BBC but as for playing it, no I much preferred football, rugby and cricket; the only time I would wield a golf bat was on the crazy golf course. In later years I used to say to golfists that my home course was the one in Padstow with the pyramid and the impossible one with the hole in the middle of a mound.

Padstow is our family’s favourite place; we try and holiday there at least once a year.  It has a great beach, great places to eat and 6 fantastic pubs.  It’s crowning glory as far as my kids are concerned however, is the crazy golf course. Sometimes we would have to play twice a day and with 5 of us that was almost as expensive as the real thing. We have developed our own rules and cheating is not only allowed, it’s compulsory.  The kids are much older now and one of them doesn’t come with us anymore so we only play twice in the week but we all break par, aided by judicious use of feet, restarts and repositioning.

Now, however, I am playing the real thing on real golf courses and not cheating (much).  This is my wife’s fault really; she has always wanted to play but has never had the chance.  One day, about 2 years ago, we were chatting to our friend Ross, a fanatical golfer, and he said we could pick up a starter set of clubs for £50 each on the net and it wasn’t that expensive to play anymore as the courses were desperate to get the punters in. Michelle said it would be a great idea as it would be exercise and something we could do together away from the kids. After much persuasion we had a quick look on line and 10 minutes later I was £100 lighter and the clubs were in the post. We also ordered a couple of trolleys and then went off and bought a couple of pairs of shoes.

The clubs duly arrived a couple of days later and we arranged with Ross to go and play at the club where he was a member. It was a beautiful day spent tacking down the fairway, well rough to either side actually, and aimlessly knocking the ball around the green until it finally dropped in the hole. You would have thought that all that crazy golf would have made the putting a breeze but believe me grass behaves way differently to concrete especially when trying to miss the gouges.

One day led to another and then another, I still wasn’t hooked but I did enjoy the days out with Michelle. I also liked the driving range with automatic feed to the tee and the electronic height setting, oooh I do like a good gadget. We even took our middle son out with us and we found that the Xbox (other gaming platforms are available) was actually useful, it has made his hand eye co-ordination very good and so he picked it up quickly, albeit with a tendency to swing the club like a hockey stick. This was a left over from his childhood when he managed to whack Michelle in the mouth within half an hour of arriving in Padstow, and I had to take her to Truro hospital for emergency treatment.

Unfortunately Michelle developed a problem with a tendon in her left foot and has found it impossible to walk in flat golf shoes, she needs heels and until we can find some high heel golf shoes she can’t play. This has meant I have had to play with Ross and sometimes another friend.

My interest was picking up and I started using golfing terms such as tee, putter, and triple bogey.
 I started going more but it was getting expensive to play more than a couple of times a month. At this point Ross’s club membership was about to expire; he wasn’t happy where he was and wanted to change. This brought opportunities to get free, yes FREE, rounds of golf. We would ring up a club where we hadn’t played and said we were thinking of joining so they would offer us a free round, woohoo!  Now at this juncture, I should point out that golf clubs were one of the reasons I didn’t like golf. As an outsider they seemed to be cliquey sorts of places full of crusty Colonels and were more like the Masons at play. Once we had used up all our goodwill within a 40 mile radius we actually found a club we liked about 10 miles up the road and we put in our applications to join. Being such fine fellows, dontcha know, we breezed the interview with the club captain, also a fine fellow, handed over the readies and were presented with our bag tags, club diary and copy of the rules of golf. We were members and could play anytime we wanted.

One of the reasons we chose the club we did was that it was very close to where Michelle works, so I could drop her off about 9.30 and then carry on to the club; alternatively I could play a round and then pick her up from work on the way home.  This seemed a very sensible arrangement to me. After a couple of weeks I had a little stroll round the course, not losing too many balls, and decided to purchase a club sweater from the shop.  Thus my transformation was complete, from oik in jeans and a T shirt who thought golf courses were the work of the devil, to a smart trousered, polo shirted golfist who still thinks golf courses are the works of the devil.  I proudly wore my sweater as I went to pick up Michelle from work.  As she got in the car and was about to tell me about her day, she noticed the sweater with the golf club crest.  ‘Who are you and what have you done with my husband?!’ she exclaimed.  ‘I bet you never thought you’d never see the day I wore one of these’ I sniggered.  Much pointing out of my previous opinions followed…!  I will say in my defence however, that I am consistent in my inconsistencies; I said I hated bright colours and would never buy a yellow motorbike and ended up buying the biggest, yellowest bike I could find.

I have caught the bug; I try and play at least once a week and being a member don’t feel I have to play the full round. Being at a club also means that the course isn’t crowded and you don’t feel pressurised in making your shots.  I have also had lessons and can actually hit the ball now.  By golfing standards I AM an old man now… well  judging by what they said about Tom Watson at the 2009 open being old at 59 and even V J Singh being old at 49, 49!!, I’m 49 it’s a wonder I can still walk unaided at my great age.

I no longer think of golf as a good walk spoilt, I now know it’s a good walk bloody ruined.