The loneliest place
Is there anything worse than missing the golf ball?
I discovered one of the loneliest places on the planet last week.
You can forget your Death Valleys, your Outer Mongolias and your vast frozen expanses of Antartica. Oh yes, there is no lonelier or bleaker place than a tee box in Baltinglass Golf Club with three people (two of whom you’ve just met for the first time) when you’ve just swung a driver at a ball and connected with nothing more than fresh air. Believe you me my golfing and non-golfing friends, that’s a place you don’t ever want to find yourself.
In the seemingly endless seconds that follow the almost criminal golfing error the air is sucked from your body. Turning to face your comrades is simply not an option. There’s nowhere for you to go, nothing you can do to lessen the humiliation, the hurt, the reputational damage. It’s as if you are standing there in the nip, knees knocking together from the swift June breeze. All you can do is laugh that helpless laugh, condemn whatever deity you support, issue some profanity or other under your breath and wait for the words of support from behind.
‘Not to worry, Old Son, not to worry,’ says Niall Doogue. Not to worry? Not to worry? I’ve tried to recall similar moments of such abject embarrassment in my life in the days that have followed my last visit to Baltinglass Golf Club. Not ‘last’ as in I’m never going again (although the thought did cross my mind, to be fair, at least once every half hour for a day or two) but just the most recent visit last Wednesday evening.
I recall turning the head for the shift in the hall in Hacketstown during a slow dance in a school disco to the sound of ‘Heaven’ by Bryan Adams and getting that subtle but devastating refusal as my chosen one maneuvered her head in the opposite direction which translated to ‘yeah right ya big weirdo’. A gaggle of friends witnessed the seismic event and that feeling of having nowhere to hide felt quite similar to the one I felt in the seconds that followed that crushing swish sound where there should have been a lovely, erotic twank as the driver sent the white demon screaming through the air.
There were also those moments when you’re about to leave a room/party/event and you’re in the process of bidding farewell and the majority of eyes are on you for those few seconds and, of course, you lose your bearings and turn to exit through the door that should be where you left it but instead you crash headfirst into a door jam, the side of a door, or a person that suddenly appears when your back is turned, usually carrying a tray of expensive drinks or the ashes of a recently deceased loved one. And the room erupts in laughter and cheers and you feel that tsunami of redness rampaging up from your buckling kneecaps and all you can do is turn to face the room and try and make some horrendously weak quip or, worse, punch the air as if you’re a right lad!
‘Not to worry, Old Son, not to worry.’
I had a feeling things weren’t going to go well all day on Wednesday. I just knew that I was in no position to be able to go golfing with Niall ‘Harrington’ Doogue, last year’s captain’s prize winner Brian O’Hara and Baltinglass Golf Club legend and Kilkenny native Sean Buggy and somehow find a driving game that simply just does not exist yet. It would be one thing going out with the Dooguester on my own but when you throw in the additional factors of meeting two people for the first time and all the challenges that entails and playing holes you’ve never encountered before then you have all the ingredients of the horror show that unfolded over the course of two hellish hours last Wednesday evening.
I knew as I stepped up to that first tee that I was in trouble. Doogue suggested that I go first. He couldn’t even manage to delay my spiritual crushing for a few minutes; had to heap the pressure on the Breno from the off.
I reached for that instrument of doom and placed the ball on the tee and looked up that glorious hill towards the first hole. It reminded me of that scene from Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey where he wakes up on Cooper Station and looks outside and the land just rises sharply upwards in what should be a gravitationally impossible sweep. That’s the image I’ll take from the first hole in Baltinglass and it’s a hole that can bring you down to earth very, very quickly! (See what I did there?)
‘Any advice?’ I ask as I eye the terrain ahead of me hoping for some inspiration.
Various suggestions and titbits were offered and I honestly can’t remember a single one. I gave the driver a look at the ball and swung with all my might. Some sort of a connection was made and the ball went about 50 yards. A bit of a disaster but nothing compared with what was to follow.
Doogue stepped up, clad in denim shorts, dripping with focus and determination. Whack! Off it went sailing to the right and sweeping majestically on a magical curve to the left and landing 73 miles away (roughly).
O’Hara drove her long and Buggy, bedecked in a dazzling pink jumper and piloting a golf buggy like a demented Lewis Hamilton, makes a decent enough connection and we’re off. ‘Suffering Jaysus,’ I says to myself, ‘this is going to be an absolute nightmare.’
I’m kind of in freefall now. My second shot is snatched at and the ball goes into the trees about six yards to my left.
‘Not to worry, Old Son, not to worry.’
Kindness and generosity are commonplace on golf courses me thinks. I could be wrong but I’ve encountered plenty in my shortlived experience. Buggy throws my ball back on the fairway and I hit a half-decent shot in the general direction of the green.
Bear in mind, conversation and getting-to-know-you carry on is going on all the time while my golfing collapse is unfolding and bear in mind also that this notion of golf being leisurely is patently false. There’s nothing leisurely about golf, or at least the golf I’ve played. There’s no dilly dallying out there. Horse it on there like a good man, there’s four hungry creatures coming behind at all times.
I finally get to the pitching wedge. Ah, all is well with the world when I have my pitching wedge. I finally hit a decent shot. I’m on the green, roughly seven miles from the hole but on the green nevertheless. My putt takes her to within 24 feet and I get a ‘gimme’. (only joking, it was inches, inches I tell you!)
I connect with the tee shot on the second hole (par 3) but it’s a poor connection and it lands to the left of the mini lake below us. Doogue lands on the green, obviously! Buggy overcooks it and O’Hara finds the water. ‘Get in,’ I scream internally, ‘there is a god.’ ‘Hard luck,’ I say in reality.
I slightly overcook the approach on the second shot, chip back to the green and putt for a four. Better.
I can’t recall if it was the third or fourth hole when I hit fresh air but it was a hole when I was facing for Stratford as far as I can recall. The trauma has dimmed my memory somewhat but Stratford will be forever tarnished in my psyche because of this. Sorry, people of Stratford.
I lined up the shot. I searched my memories for Tom O’Neill’s advice. I brushed the grass with the club in my practice shot. I pushed my right shoulder out. I eyed the spot I wanted the ball to go to. I traced my line back to the ball. I steadied, inhaled and swung like a demon and heard that swish and realised I had missed the curse-agod ball. Tom never advised me to swing like a demon and this is a large part of the problem I believe.
I can’t write the words and phrases that polluted my mind in the seconds that followed. Briefly I considered pretending that it was my second practice shot but knew that they’d never fall for it. Briefly I considered murdering Doogue, O’Hara and Buggy and stashing their bodies in the magnificent grounds of Baltinglass Golf Club before hightailing it back to my car in the golf cart. Briefly I considered stripping naked and running through the trees and blaming the approaching summer solstice for my temporary insanity and chronic golf game. Realistically though, all I could do was inhale sharply and wait for the words:
‘Not to worry, Old Son, not to worry.’
‘Happens to us all,’ was another line from behind, and ‘take your time,’ was also suggested to the best of my knowledge as salty tears flowed unchecked down my reddening cheeks.
I set up again, feeling six eyes drilling into the back of my head. Golf at this moment in time was an abomination to me. I detested everything about it: stupid little ball, stupidly manicured greens, stupid trees, etc, etc. A pastime such as reading seemed much more attractive at that time.
I swung again while praying to every late relative to guide my arms and I’m obviously not held in too high esteem by that crew either as the ball whizzed along the ground some 60 yards away. Still, at least I hit it. Small comforts.
All the while I was enduring this nightmare, I couldn’t help but be blown away by the sheer beauty of Baltinglass Golf Club and the charm and bauldness of the company I was in.
High above Baltinglass, the quietness is wonderful, the stillness. An occasional gap in the majestic trees reveals glimpses of sleepy looking Baltinglass enjoying a beautiful June evening.
O’Hara is a gent. He’s kind of like that awfully sound uncle you had when you were younger. He sets up for a drive in a quirky way. Sits the club in front of the ball while holding it with one hand before dramatically placing his other hand seconds later like a man who has had a few jars being really careful when opening the door for fear of waking the wife. He won the captain’s prize in 2019 and was a very popular winner. You can see why, too. There’s a sense of mischief about him.
Buggy is some boy. Pink jumper aside, he’s very entertaining, and more than helpful. Gives vast amounts of his time as a volunteer to Baltinglass Golf Club and you can see he loves the place, the game and the people. Fires quips and jibes at Doogue and O’Hara like a machine gunner on commission and is fiercely proud of his Kilkenny roots. Very competent golfer and a fearless bordering on reckless pilot of a golf buggy. Another gent!
By the time we get to the sixth hole I’ve hit fresh air a second time but redeemed myself somewhat thanks to my chipping and putting game.
Doogue says we’re going to skip onto 11 and finish down at the clubhouse. Maybe he’s fed up with playing golf with a lad who can’t even hit the ball but if he says ‘not to worry, Old Son, not to worry’ much more there’s going to be serious consequences.
The 11th is a beautiful hole. You stand like a king on the tee looking down on all before you, the fairway racing away from you and sweeping around the bend where the green is neatly tucked away behind more of the vast number of stunning trees that make up this wonderful golf course.
‘You should try your 3 wood,’ says Doogue as we prepare to tee off. But I’m in no mood for advice from anyone now. I’m in full stubborn mode and determined to get the better of this driver.
I swing and somehow drive the ball into the ground and it bounces limply about 20 yards down the fairway into some bushes. ‘Well, f**k me pink!’
‘By the way,’ says Doogue, ‘Robert McHugh and Raymond Danne are coming behind us, we’ve cut in front of them, they’re watching you,’ he adds and I’m convinced there was a smirk playing maliciously on his lips.
‘Sweet divine,’ I say. As if my embarrassment couldn’t get any worse.
I take out the 3 wood and place the club in front of the ball.
‘Dear Lord,’ I say in my mind. ‘Please let me hit this ball in the general direction of the bottom of this hill so that I won’t be the laughing stock of Baltinglass and the surrounding areas. I know I haven’t been a great Christian over the last 43 years but, in fairness, there have been a lot worse.’
I swung and struck like a humdinger and she sailed off into the June evening, landing reasonably close to the green.
McHugh and Danne, two Baltinglass and Wicklow GAA legends for anyone not familiar, stood on the green and lamped balls in the direction of the hole. Danne took on the challenge of clearing the trees and landing directly on the green but a collision with a tree sent his ball not far from mine. McHugh nonchalantly landed his ball within reach of the green.
Doogue said we’ll let them play through seeing as we’d invaded their patch. Pleasantries were exchanged. McHugh complimented Buggy on his choice of jumper.
‘Lovely jumper, Sean,’ he said. I don’t think it was sincere, but it was very funny.
Foolishly, I thought they’d finish up and head on out of sight before I had to take my shot, but, oh no, let’s all hang around and watch Breno sink to even deeper depths of despair.
And then I arrived. Gone were the doubts and the gremlins in my ear. Up was the blood and the pride. Out came the pitching wedge and in went a delicious shot. My heart soared. I missed the putt but honestly couldn’t have cared less. The pain had ended, the nightmare was over and at least I wasn’t wearing a pink jumper!
‘Not to worry, Old Son, not to worry.’