BILL ELLIOTT
Did you see it on TV? I’m not sure what club it was, but in one of the first shots after lockdown, this bloke stepped up, took a couple of practice swings, sucked in some air and, with the air of a man who has done this before, shanked his drive straight right into a waiting hedge.
Wonderful, simply wonderful – that moment of anticipated bliss followed immediately by short, deep spasms of despair was the old game in a nutshell. It’s why golf is fun; why we play it even if it’s our turn to be the victim of much sniggering. Failure is the happy virus that bonds us together, not success, never success.
Dai Davies was for many years the erudite golf correspondent for The Guardian, a job he loved if only because it funded his even greater love of extremely good Aussie red wine. He was a good, loyal and generous friend to many, as well as a golfer whose best days were mostly behind him and who occasionally struggled to cope with that.
Once, paired with the instinctively acerbic golf correspondent for the Daily Mail, Michael Mcdonnell, he struck the first drive in their round. It happened there was a tiny ditch that meandered harmlessly across the fairway some 25 yards in front of the tee. Most people didn’t notice it. Dai did. Or at least he did when his viciously topped drive tentatively dribbled forward and into it.
In the long silence that prevailed while onlookers pretended to find something interesting to look at in the sky, Mcdonnell reached slowly into his bucket of caustic wit and then said: ”Hmmm, most people make that carry Dai.” Dear Dai, by now crimson with a mixture of inner rage and outer disappointment, for once said nothing. Instead, he reached for his bag of clubs, muttered something to Mike and exited the round, the course, the club and, for all I know, the county. Many of us haven’t yet stopped laughing.
My own best laugh came when I couldn’t actually laugh about what had happened. Some 25 years ago, a few of us were guests of a very nice bloke who was also extremely rich at Penina on the Algarve to play golf, have fun and hear about the new course he was building. In order to make us concentrate, he arranged a competition.
Split into teams of four, my gang was this chap, a colleague, Bill Blighton, and Tim Brooke-taylor, who was a Goodie by name and a good chap by nature. Our host, who shall remain nameless, and I shared a buggy over two days of intense, hungover golf. I noted that his pleasant personality was topped off impressively by an enviably luxuriant head of wildly curly hair.
Towards the end of day two we knew we were in with a chance of winning, a merry prospect that was enhanced when our host holed a 70ft putt for a net eagle. I was so pleased that when we got back into the buggy I ruffled his wildly curly hair. It turned out to be a wig, the syrup slipping back down his neck. I froze. He didn’t. Saying nothing, he pulled his hairpiece back into shape and gunned the buggy’s motor. Little, if anything, was said over the remaining holes.
I looked to Bill and Tim for support but they had disappeared, having sprinted into the trees where they were lying on the floor and trying hard not to wee while laughing into the grass. The three of us arranged to meet before dinner that night so I could laugh with them.
You’ll have your own moments, of course, and I’d be interested in hearing about some of them. Let’s face it, we all need a laugh right now. Incidentally, I too have now played a couple of rounds. I was keen to play but far from desperate, golf coming in at No.17 on my Covid-19 wish-list, just after Pizza Express and just above world peace.
Two conclusions: it’s much easier to hit something with a putt than actually hole the ball (#let’sgetridofthehole) and golf is hugely quicker when played in two-balls (#justthetwoofus). I’d start the campaign right now, but I fear I’d only be laughed at. Stay alertly safe. Or something like that...
“Saying nothing, he pulled his hairpiece back into shape and gunned the buggy”