BILL ELLIOTT

Was it good for you? It was okay for me. Well, the first bit was, the second bit got more than slightly ragged and, frankly, I lost interest. While the above is never going to cut it in a romcom, it does fairly accurately sum up my first round of golf this weird, disconcerting year.

Strange how it often seems to happen that a significant absence from the old game means a burst of relatively excellent play. It’s natural to anticipate the worst and because of that many of us relax to the point where we manage to lob swing thoughts aside, enjoy the moment and freewheel our way to actually quite decent play.

So it was for me when I managed a round before going into isolation as I prepared for hospital and a new knee (I’ve ordered the much sought-after Seve version). Eighteen points on the front nine, with each drive down the middle and no putt of 6ft or less missed, encouraged me to believe buggy golf wasn’t so bad after all. Things, I thought, can only get worse as we left the 9th green and my sons contemplated my five-point lead with a mixture of astonishment and annoyance.

Boy was I right. Over the second half, I failed to hole a single decent putt, missed most fairways, found most bunkers and generally collapsed like a cardboard tank caught in a hurricane. Oh, how we laughed. Sorry, oh how they laughed.

Halfway through that back nine I was exhausted. My arms were yelping to be left alone, while my legs would have limped away and gone to bed had they been able to unscrew themselves.

Back in the car park, a collection of golfers agreed they had found this return to golf both exhilarating and incredibly tiring. This group included much younger folk who had thought themselves fit and ready for action, a happy state I’ve not experienced since 1999. It will be a while now before I play again. Probably the best part of three months if all goes well and the new knee works, the pain subsides and the ability to walk rather than drive a course makes a welcome return.

Here, however, is the thing: despite the physical deterioration, the lack of practice and the surfeit of various types of alcohol over recent months, we completed this round in comfortably under four hours. Contrast this with the Billy Horschel-scottie Scheffler slo-mo show in the final of the WGC-DELL Technologies Match Play and a round that took almost two days to complete. Okay, I’m exaggerating, it was more like five hours, but it felt like a couple of days... for a two-ball who had somebody else carrying the clubs!

If you want to kill golf as entertainment this is the way to do it. It has been too slow for years, but it has got worse. There are a few reasons for this decline. An increase in prize money has discouraged even a mini-cavalier approach – too many players over-thinking everything except what time it is. Also, the arrival of the books showing the slopes, angles and general Ordnance Survey characteristics of greens has added to the tedium.

Too many now approach a green they have played several times already that week as though they have just landed on Earth and are wondering where the nearest pub is. It’s a green, you’ve got eyes, look at it and hit the putt for goodness sake. Keep the book for bedtime.

It used to be that reading a green – not a book – was a real skill; that touch and an eye for perspective made you a better player. Just as satnav helps get you anywhere but leaves you with no idea where you have just been, so these books take away the magic and maybe even a significant slice of the soul of the game.

Augusta bans them for The Masters. It’s time others did the same. Consult them during practice rounds but not, please, during the tournament. This general ban won’t happen, of course. Ultimately it is the players who run the show and the majority want the books.

They will still be reading them, still also be fussing for five minutes over whether it’s an 8- or a 7-iron, still be debating with their caddies whether the wind is gusting slightly over or under 10mph when the rest of us have left and the prize money has diminished. And that’s when the slowcoaches will speed up. Too late.

“Too many players now approach a green as though they have just landed on Earth”