Lawrence is trying to play golf! O.M.G.
The highs and lows of learning to play the game of golf
GOLF, my final frontier. These are the voyages of a midlife crisis-suffering sports editor. His continuing mission: to explore an escape from apathy, to seek out new hope and new celebrations, to boldly go where no couch potato has gone before.
I’m borrowing the famous Star Trek, The Next Generation introduction for this the maiden voyage of my brand-new golfing column ‘From Couch to 18 Holes’ for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was a bit of a ‘Next Generation’ fan in my day. There are few among us who could resist the allure of foxy Deanna Troy or the intoxicating sight of Dr. Beverly Crusher with her all-powerful thermometer on our TV screens when we were impressionable teenagers. Secondly, never have I felt more like an alien than when I stepped up to the 17th tee to hit my first official golf shot last week in Baltinglass Golf Club.
You see, a number of years ago, Baltinglass golfing legend Niall Doogue extended a warm invite to me to indulge in a debilitating number of pints of our beloved Smithwicks at the aforementioned Baltinglass Golf Club. We had become acquainted over emails given that he was sending in golf notes and I was receiving them and no doubt my razor wit and genial way suggested strongly to him that here was a Knockananna man he would enjoy guzzling the brown nectar with.
Alas, the pints were never downed due to life getting in the way but he changed tack in recent weeks and replaced drinking alcoholic beverages with learning the game of golf and a beautiful plan was born. Here we are in a sporting void and what better way to entertain the loyal readers of the Wicklow and Bray People newspapers than allow you smirk knowingly or guffaw loudly at the chronic sporting shortcomings of the former Kildare 33kg boxing champion out of Grangecon Boxing Club as he attempts to learn how to play golf.
We began our adventure last Friday evening at the sumptuous surrounds of the stunning Baltinglass Golf Club where birds chirped happily in the mighty trees, the sun shone warmly upon the superbly manicured fairways and greens and where former GAA stars mingled with mere mortals (while social distancing, obviously).
Niall Doogue was on hand to meet me when I screeched to a halt in my seven-seater family wagon. For anyone wondering about the legality of my trip to Baltinglass, I, as a journalist (no chuckles, please), am permitted to travel for my ‘work’.
After a swift introduction to the rich history of the Baltinglass Golf Club I am introduced to Kerry native and Baltinglass GAA star Liam Horgan who is the current captain of the golf club and who lined out in the half-forward line on that glorious St. Patrick’s Day in 1990 when Baltinglass won the All-Ireland Senior club title in Croke Park.
Horgan is a pure gent and has been known to suggest that that golden era in Baltinglass GAA history just happened to coincide with his arrival from Kildare having been posted there originally before being saved from a life of Lilywhite agony with a swift redeployment to the beautiful Garden County.
To say that this was my first golfing experience would be to lie. There were several flirtations with pitch and putt near Clonmore many moons ago but it was the pursuit of a fair maiden that inspired those adventures and not any sporting ambitions. There was also a round of golf in Kilkenny on a stag night around 2010, there or thereabouts. No memories exist of this endeavour but all survived to tell the tale and that can only be a positive.
Doogue, ever the enforcer, directed me to the practice area, where a quick look was to be had at this new student and an assessment made of his golfing potential.
A quick grab of the club brings forth much scorn and admonition from the two wise ones.
‘That’s not how you hold a golf club,’ they roar while chuckling loudly and dismissively, (in actual fact, they were very polite and supportive but why ruin a good story with the truth, eh?).
‘What do you mean?’ I ask in the tone of a man who has just been told his life’s savings have been emptied from his bank account.
‘It’s not a hurl,’ they suggest, before telling me to swap my hands and interlink my two little fingers. What sort of fresh hell is this, I wondered? It feels like I’m trying to strangle the family pet after drinking far too much Smithwicks on a Saturday night.
‘This feels all wrong,’ I protest. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask these two gods of golf in West Wicklow.
‘Yes,’ they reply, in the tone that Mitch Buchannon might have used if someone questioned his lifesaving ability in Baywatch.
Eventually I wrap my hands around the club, a five-iron I believe, and stand feet apart. I take a test swing. I’ve always admired the test swings on the TV, a little shake of the bootie, that swish sound as the club glides through the air, the sense of anticipation, the air pregnant with potential before the head of the club is lined up all threatening in front of the ball with that sort of you’re-in-for-it-now-ya-little-b **** x body language from the well-attired, firm-buttoxed golfers.
Doogue lets out a little ‘ooh’ of sorts as if he’s pleased with what he has just witnessed. Horgan, like a true Kerryman, awaits the proof of the pudding.
The real swing goes well, up over the shoulder, eyes on the ball, feel that surge of power as the shiny shaft comes swinging down and ‘whack’, a clean connection and the ball rifled into the safety net in front of me.
‘And you never played golf before?’ is asked of me by one of the wise ones (not sure which, I was gazing longingly into the distance beyond the net wondering how far that ball would have went, 500, 600 yards surely? With the wind behind me, obviously.
‘We have a natural here, Liam,’ says Doogue. Don’t be fooled, I tell myself. If he was a cat, he’d be rubbing himself off my leg and purring suggestively. ‘Aye,’ says I dismissively.
A few more test shots in the recently installed practice area reveals several weaknesses to my game which both gents offer easy to understand solutions and alternatives. Examples of these are to keep my left foot flat on the ground, stay steady, eyes on the ball, grip tighter with the left hand than the right hand, stand up straighter, offer a novena, do a rain dance, strip naked (the last three were not offered as solutions or alternatives).
‘Right so,’ says Niall Doogue after about the 10th practice shot, ‘we’ll play the 17th and the 18th and then see how we go.’
It’s a beautiful place, Baltinglass Golf Club, it really is. An unobtrusive clubhouse sits welcomingly in front of a number of holes including the 18th. I try to imagine what it must have been like on those big days at the club when a big crowd surrounded the hole in the closing stages of a competition as the town of Baltinglass lay snugly down below and the ancient trees watched on in vague and patient wonder.
Then again, all golf courses are beautiful one would assume. I’ve had the pleasure of walking around Coollattin and it is stunning. Wicklow Golf Club is out of this world with its views of the sea. Apparently, that course in Kilkenny where we played a round on the stag night is quite pretty as well. I can’t confirm, however. All I know is I woke up beside a snoring Knockananna corner-back in the warmest hotel room imaginable and golf was the furthest thing from my sick mind at that moment in time.
I shove the white tee into the firm earth and place the ball softly onto its saucer-like depression. The feeling of being watched lies heavy on me, that sense of being assessed, judged. Is this what the term ‘he undressed me with his eyes,’ feels like? Except without the seduction element, obviously, although to be fair, you could pick worse spots than a golf course for a bit of hanky panky if the truth be told. Those greens are amazingly soft (I don’t encourage any couples to use golf greens as mating areas and will not be accepting liability for any damage done should anyone blame this column for inspiring them to do such things).
I line up the shot, shake the tush ever so slightly, make the practice swing, hear that sweet swoosh, show the head of the five wood (a beautiful club it must be said, a gleaming head, like a tanned bald man’s cranium that’s just crying out to be kissed or licked) to the ball and settle into the shot.
There’s the swing, eyes on the ball and... ‘CURSE A GOD ON IT’, I shout just a little too loudly as the ball veers wildly towards the town of Baltinglass way off to my left. Luckily there are giant trees there to save us having to walk too far to retrieve. Doogue and Horgan and quick – and quiet – with their encouragement.
‘Don’t worry about that my good man,’ says Doogue.
‘That happens us all,’ says Horgan. Another shot is suggested, and accepted. This is not the Barton Cup after all.
This one is better; she sails down the fairway to much praise from the two buckos. There is something incredibly pleasing about that clean sound that comes off hitting the ball sweetly with the club. Off the tee it’s a kind of a twank sound followed by that swoosh as she sails off into the air. You watch it like you might have watched your first born take their first steps, concerned that it might drop down and injure itself and not go where you intended it, but then she lands and all is well with the world.
‘Now you’re right,’ says Doogue. ‘We might have to change the name of this column to ‘From couch to scratch’ rather than ‘From couch to 18 holes’ if you keep on going like this,’ he says jokingly.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ says Liam.
A strong wind blows down the fairway into our faces. I blame that for my brutal second shot. Eventually I make the green and I get my first chance with a putter.
All my life I’ve wanted to step up to the ball, look knowingly from ball to hole and then reverse back and get down on my hunkers and imagine that line I need to send the ball along so that it will plop so beautifully into the hole.
I’ve never realised how utterly wrong you can get that calculation and watch in horror as the ball rampages across the green as if in a desperate hurry to get home before a loved one passes away.
We line up on the 18th and the first tee shot goes horrifically astray. Doogue informs me that bad language is kind of not acceptable on a golf course. I wasn’t even aware I had muttered any profanities. The things this game does to you!
I’m given another chance and this one is a beauty, this one was one to show the grandchildren when I’m old and feeble just to prove that grandpa could swing a club before he crossed over that frighteningly narrow divide between mid-40s and old age.
I’m on the green in three (probably 10 if the kindness and forgiveness of Doogue and Horgan are overlooked) and with two peaches of shots I’m in the hole and using the very clever invention to remove the ball without touching the flag.
‘Well, what did you think?’ asks Doogue. ‘Long way to scratch,’ I reply.
It’s a real shame the coronavirus is with us. I was feeling in real need of a hug at that moment in time. Not sure which of the wise ones I would have made a bee-line for, though. It’s probably not acceptable to go around hugging club captains and I don’t know if Doogue is a hugger by the looks of him.
‘Fancy meeting the club pro on Wednesday?’ he asks.
‘Jaysus,’ says I, ‘the club pro? I don’t know, whatever you think yourself.’
‘Call over on Wednesday, he’s a lovely man, he’ll take a look at you,’ he says in the tone of voice of a farmer telling one of his cows that the vet is coming over to inspect that worrying limp.
‘Right so,’ I say as I head for the family wagon. ‘See you Wednesday.’
Horgan waves farewell. I might be mistaken but there seemed to be a sympathetic arc to his wave, as if he fully understands the tough journey I’m about to undertake.
These are indeed strange times. Not alone am I learning to play golf but I’m also attempting to grow a beard. Both projects have many similarities: both are hairy in patches, light in others. Both are annoying at times but richly rewarding at others. Both cause frustration and discomfort but like the joy you get from a clean shot off a tee there’s very little to compare to a leisurely stroke of your hairy chin.
Anyway, it’s on to Wednesday now for step two on this golfing journey. I’m not sure which will last longer, the beard or the golf. Only time will tell.
Next week’s column won’t be as long. I promise.