‘Smile,’ says Tom, ‘smile when you hit a shot like that’

I left Baltinglass Golf Club a very happy man last Friday morning. My theory that I was a left-handed golfer trapped in the body of a right-handed 43-year-old father of three had been proven beyond all reasonable doubt by the golfing guru Tom O’Neill, club pro at my new second home.

Oh yes, indeed. Be gone you right-handed awkwardness, no more that drunken grip, no more that stupefying swing, Breno the golfer has been born anew. The sun has risen on what surely has the potential to be a life-changing adventure. I never believed that I would surpass my sporting achievements to date: Kildare boxing champion (three times), Carlow schools cross country champion (once, before I started smoking dirty fags and undergoing a monumental change in my opinion of girls), Knockananna Junior football goalkeeper of some renown and the 2018 Tomacork Pattern Crazy Golf champion, but after last Friday’s session with Tom O’Neill I believe that a bright future awaits me on the golf courses of Ireland and beyond.

Why the bravado, I hear you ask. Well my friends, ’tis because I believe I can speak the language of golf. I feel it in my hips and knees when I go to that sweet place during that golf swing. With Tom’s guidance and very impressive patience I have gone from being a crouching golfer, hidden Knockananna man to being a stylish athlete, hidden Tiger.

Fair enough, I haven’t even played an actual hole yet but I feel it in my bones. I was born to play this game. Born to play it, I tell you.

Poppy had a pitiful look as I departed for Baltinglass last Friday morning with rain starting to fall heavily from the cantankerous looking sky. I had explained the situation to her in whispers so as not to wake the sleeping family but she didn’t seem consoled in the slightest as I edged the car up the drive and disappeared into the looming mists.

It was lashing by the time I got to Rathvilly. ‘I’m not paid enough for this craic,’ I said grumpily to myself as I turned up the heaters before quickly realising that to get paid for going to play golf is about as amazing as it gets, rain or no rain.

I make that turn in through the granite pillars and swing up and around those sweeping bends that transport you to another world, a place of tranquility and natural beauty, a place of welcome. Tom O’Neill is awaiting my arrival. It’s 8.28am. I can’t be properly early for anything. Ever.

Tom is kitted out with all the gear; waterproofs, leggings, all sorts of things. I’m bedecked in my O’Neill’s top, blue jeans and casual trainers. I really need to invest in golf gear, the slacks, the tops, the jackets and a pair of those shoes with the spikes. Have to try look the part as I attempt to make my mark on the golfing world.

I had messaged Tom regarding my left-handed suspicions and now it was time to produce the goods. That feeling of expectation rose ever so slightly when Tom produced a rectangular device known as a ‘Trackman’ out of the boot of his car and stuck it down on the 17th tee behind where I was about to showcase my amazing talents.

I have a 3 wood to begin with. A sexy club if ever there was one. I line her up. The rain has passed and the sun is shining again. All is right with the world. All those practice shots in the garden when I was decapitating buttercups would now pay off as I glanced knowingly down the 17th fairway, imagining the ball sizzling through the air and landing ridiculously close to the green, maybe even on it. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Tom O’Neill actually passed out with shock from the awesomeness of my first shot.

It’s a long way from the start of a golf swing to the striking of the ball. That’s the big lesson I learned last Friday. There’s a whole pile of elements that need to function properly for that little white demon to go in the direction you want it to.

The first ball freaks out and screams off for the safety of the trees way off to my left. The eternally supportive Tom demands that I put it behind me and take another. I take five in all. I check the club for faults. I realise it’s not the club.

All the confidence I had felt as I cruised up the drive to Baltinglass Golf Club was drifting away on the soft June breeze. Could I really be this awful?

But Tom is strangely happy. He produces his phone which is receiving data from Trackman that he has stuck into the ground behind me like some weird golfing version of a baby monitor.

Let me tell you about Trackman. For the non-golfing among ye, imagine if your better half (male or female, there’s no sexism here, lads. We’re all equally annoying if you ask me) invented a mysterious rectangular box and stuck it in the ground at the top of your drive or just inside the front door of your house. And when he/she hit the power button that machine could tell her/him exactly what you did or didn’t do over the course of the entire day. That’s Trackman to the golfing world.

Trackman records everything a golfer does. Everything. Angle, speed, direction, distance, potential distance if you weren’t absolutely brutal, and on and on. It would be like the better half’s machine recording your activities: ‘Lay on couch for 73 minutes without moving’, ‘failed to wash dishes’, ‘pretended to walk the dog’, ‘ignored children for 72 hours’, that sort of thing.

Tom is very excited about the information he is receiving from Trackman. He doesn’t care about the wayward shots and doesn’t seem remotely disturbed like I am as to who is going to have to go after all those balls that I’ve lamped into the trees.

The Dunlavin native might as well be speaking in tongues to be brutally honest but the gist of what he was saying was that for a beginner I had impressive speed and when I eventually got my head out of my behind and started hitting the ball correctly I could make a half-decent amateur golfer.

He was very happy with the grip, an element that was causing all sorts of trouble the previous week when I was trying to golf right-handed. In fact, he didn’t mention grip until near the end as my natural grip was spot on.

But there were issues. I was losing accuracy in the full swing, hence the balls appearing as though they were being gravitationally pulled towards Baltinglass.

I was crouching like an MMA fighter looking to take down their opponent, taking my eye off the ball, leaning back out of the swing and finishing all over the shop. I didn’t even realise you needed to be aware of where you were finishing.

The thing is, Tom reached these conclusions in about five minutes whereas if I wasn’t enjoying his tutoring, I might well have started down a 20-year road of agony and hair-pulling as I failed miserably at my golf game. At least with his expertise I have a chance to be a competent player.

And that’s the amazing thing. By standing up a little straighter, by focusing on the ball, by employing a half swing and finishing the shot properly, the ball started to sing, baby!

Oh yes, down the manicured middle of the fairway she went, followed by another, and another. The odd one went askew but nobody’s perfect.

Then we went chipping. I love chipping. There’s a real sexiness to chipping, a real subtlety with that swing of the hips. I love this game.

‘Smile,’ says Tom after my good drive, ‘smile when you hit a shot like that.’

I did smile, and I haven’t stopped since.