Late Sunday night television got me hooked

THIS is a week I have been dreading almost as much as I have been looking forward to.

Every year I look forward to this week, which for those who don’t know or care, sees the playing of the US Masters in Augusta National.

It is the first major of the golf season and while the PGA Tour and European Tours are now basically 52 weeks of the year, the Masters signals the start of the serious business.

Week in, week out, I can take or leave the golf on the TV. It is long, slow and riddled with advert breaks which can make it tedious beyond reason, but the Masters is different.

However this year, my enthusiasm is dampened somewhat by my own self imposed withdrawal from the game as I allow time for a stubborn and troublesome foot injury to heal properly.

Golfers and golf fans throughout Ireland love the Masters.

The timing of the event, both on the calendar and its evening slot is probably what appeals so much. That coupled with the extraordinary beauty of the course.

The last days of winter are behind us, spring is here, the evenings are stretching out before us and with the sun on our backs fair weather golfers are taking out the clubs from the garage or shed. The time difference means that we can enjoy the competition for four nights when the day’s work is done.

The beauty of the course is magnificent, manicured to perfection, the place is stunning, with white sands in the bunkers, lush verdant fairways, mirror-like water, mountains of magnolias and pine straw under the trees, as the patrons provide a human herbaceous border to the golf, a description of the galleries, I remember from the famous BBC commentator Peter Alias.

As a child it was the US Masters which ignited my love of the game.

In those days the BBC provided the coverage and the commentary of Alias always painted pictures almost as vivid as the surroundings. The US Masters was HD TV before its time.

In those days European players were amongst the best in the world and players such as Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Jose Maria Olazabal, Seve Ballesteros and my own favourite Bernhard Langer where winning the famous green jacket.

Jack Nicklaus’ victory in 1986 when in his mid forties was a Sunday night that will live forever in the memory. Up late on a Sunday night watching one of the best golfers in the history of the game turn back time. To hell with school in the morning. There was no way I was going to bed before the last of the action.

That love affair of the game, was sealed one day in at an Irish Open in Portmarnock when I saw Langer in the flesh. He was green-side, fifteen to twenty feet from the flagstick and played an outrageous flop shot which soared twenty feet into the air and rested after a couple of soft rolls inches from the hole.

I was hooked, I couldn’t believe the shot I had just witnessed. I wanted to be able to play that shot.

Soon I was bombing golf balls with an old 3 wood across Gyles Quay beach at any opportunity and I apologise now to any swimmer, paddler or sandcastle builder who had to duck as I fired away. Health and Safety was not to the fore of my mind, but when I think of it now, it was crazy stuff.

Soon the 3 wood had a wedge for companion and that was more fun, as myself and friends tried to hone our skills, as we drew targets in the sand.

The old pitch and putt course at the Fairways Hotel was another taster, before I got to the big stuff and the glorious acres at Dundalk Golf Club.

In those days I like to think that the sun always shone and my drives always went straight down the middle of the fairway and I could putt like Ben Crenshaw who was the best putter of that time, but I know the reality was far different. I was regularly soaked and my slice meant I spent a lot of time looking for golf balls amongst the trees.

Still I was hooked and over time the slice lessened and on a good day I could do a poor imitation of Langer’s flop shot.