THE THING ABOUT GOLF: Basketballer and Olympian, Chris Goulding.

Like Hannah Green, basketballer Chris Goulding is on his way to Tokyo this month for the Olympics where he will represent Australia. Goulding, who has played more than 350 NBL games, loves the game of golf and has achieved a rare feat in the game.

What is the thing about golf for Chris Goulding?

It is the discipline that you just can’t get a hold of no matter how well you think you’re going, it will humble you. Even the best players in the world, they are always trying to master it and it is a game I don’t think you can. For me, it is a release from my season, get out on the course with a few mates for a few hours at a game I am not very good at, is a very humbling experience for me.

You excel at one sport but golf is different, is it your in-built competitive nature that makes golf such an enticing past time?

Yeah. The competitiveness of it with yourself, like ‘Why can’t I be good at this?’ The reality of it is, right now basketball takes up 99.9 percent of my sporting time and that’s the reason you’re not good at it, because you’re not working enough on it. But the part about golf that I love at this stage of my career is I still have that competitive release with basketball, so even if I go and play bad golf or good, I still enjoy it the same. Maybe when I retire that might not be the same.

How did you get started?

I was really young. My father always played golf, he would take me along to the course, I was a junior member at our local course and then I just stopped playing altogether when I was about 10 or 11.

Picked it back up in my late 20s, and I was astounded at how bad I was, because I thought when I was younger I was ok.

But I have played a lot more since moving to Melbourne, we are surrounded by such beautiful golf courses.

Has there been a moment or shot when you were hooked?

I think the way I play golf, when I can hit a drive long, straight and down the middle that is it for me.

But my greatest moment on a golf course, I was playing at Cathedral Lodge with a couple of people involved in our club (Melbourne United) and I holed out a second shot on a par-5 from about 220 metres. So I had an albatross. And that has honestly been the greatest moment in my golfing career.

I absolutely flushed a 5-iron and I just watched it disappear into the cup, it was phenomenal.

You are headed to the Olympics, will you keep an eye on the Aussie golfers?

I love watching golf. I’ve got a group of friends I play with and when it is major time in the US, we are up at all hours watching. The Rio Olympics were golf’s first time and I was really interested in that, and we actually had a golf simulator in the village, so jumped on that a little bit. So I will be following with a keen eye, and hoping for some Aussie success.