Par for the course.

I was lucky enough to be taken to the first Golf Show LIVE last weekend at Stoke Park. Having retired from playing football recently, golf is my passion of choice these days and so the chance to rub shoulders with some of the world’s best players, test the latest equipment, see the latest fashions and take in some expert advice made for a brilliant day out. Just think; this is going to be an annual event!
 
Not only that but I had the biggest competition of the year at my local golf club on the Sunday. Armed with my new putter I’d purchased and all the tips and guidance I had soaked up the day before, I can’t remember looking forward to playing quite so much as I was that Sunday afternoon. I certainly couldn’t see anything beyond a top 10 finish, if not the title itself. As far as misplaced confidence goes, this was to take some beating!
 
As I waited on the first tee, the fact that the heavens opened was perhaps an omen, but that was the least of my performance worries as it turned out. My opening tee shot is known as a ‘duck hook’. It disappeared at right angles into the woods, closely followed by my second shot that followed a similar path but to the edge of the woods and stuck in a bush. I recorded a 9 on the first hole! Hole 2 wasn’t a big improvement. My drive landed in a bunker, from which my second landed in another bunker that I then thinned through the green on my way to a 7. So I’m 8 over par, two holes in. It didn’t look good. I then miraculously birdied the third and suddenly begun to wonder, could I really come back from the horror start?
 
No! Five shanks later (a shank is a horrible slice way right) and I had carded a further 7 and an 8. I was 14 over par after five holes. I’m not proud to admit what came next as the toys were duly thrown out of the pram and I stormed off the course a broken and beaten man. How I feel about golf right now is how Steve Redgrave felt about rowing after he won his 4th Olympic gold and said “If anyone sees me near a boat again they can shoot me”. Ditto for me, for golf clubs. I’m treating the reliving of this event as a sort of therapy. There is a lesson to be learned from this I’m sure, I just haven’t worked out what it is yet...