Positive mindset may lead to some good golf

AS far as can be established William Wordsworth wasn’t a golfer but, like golfers who don’t drive golf carts, he walked a great deal and enjoyed long daily rambles in beautiful surroundings, often in England’s exquisite Lake District.

In fact, according to what appears to be reliable data, the great poet must have traversed a distance of approximately 250 000km in his lifetime which is remarkable.

This mode of exertion apparently stood in the stead of other stimulants like alcohol, and not only contributed to his “life of unclouded happiness” but was the inspiration for his brilliant verse. Do the calculations, and you’ll find that a dedicated walker must clock close to 100km a week every week for 50 years to get to 250 000km. I once asked Gary Player how far he thought he had walked in 70-odd years of golf.

He said he didn’t have a clue but, like Wordsworth, he admitted that he loved walking and this wasn’t only confined to striding down the fairway making birdies but he enjoyed – for instance – walking around his farm at Colesberg. These frequent marches are one of the reasons he is so fit at 81.

Let’s take a wild guess and assume Gary has averaged 160 rounds of golf a year for 70 years, at 10km a round. Do the arithmetic and we get to a total of well over 110 000km, a long way short of Wordsworth but still pretty impressive – like 40 return trips from Joburg to Cape Town.

And you’d be wrong to question this 10km a round. Surely, you might say, it’s only about 7km, as a golf course “yardage” is rarely over 7 000 metres. Well, a couple of fellow members at my club monitored, with their special gadgets, how far they walked on average per round over a six-month period.

They both came up with exactly the same figure: 10.3km. It’s because we tend to zigzag our way round the course, looking in the rough, for instance, for our own golf balls as well as our opponents’, and then of course there’s the walk from one green to the next tee.

Incidentally, the two members mentioned are both over 70; they play golf two or three times a week – walking the course – so they’re regularly logging a good few kilometres and they’re both fit as fiddles. Caddies? No way, they push their own carts.

So as golfers, many of us will have also walked a long way in our lifetimes. And perhaps we need to ask ourselves: Does a round in the open air on a beautiful course with nature all around us (and the odd lake thrown in just to make it more of a Wordsworth experience) lead to “a life of unclouded happiness”?

Sometimes, when we’re playing badly, it is anything but as we curse and swear, and become so depressed at the state of our games. It’s a good walk spoiled. And does a round of golf stand in the stead of a stimulant like alcohol? For many of us, definitely not, as the beer afterwards only adds to the enjoyment of the day.

The 19th hole aside, a positive mindset at the start of a round that we’re going to enjoy the walk and smell the roses might not only contribute to a great day, but could also – in our relaxed state – lead to some surprisingly good golf, improved health and, hopefully, “a golfing life of unclouded happiness”.