IS GOLF ‘A GOOD WALK RUINED?’

(Now you mention it)

The great American writer and humorist, Mark Twain, once described the game of golf as ‘a good walk ruined’.
His words told us two significant things. The first is that golf is played in some of the most picturesque landscapes that you will ever see. And, secondly, that Mark Twain probably never played the game. Or that he had 20 consecutive mis-hits and gave it up. Many may have done so.

Golf also has the rather special quality of turning a stranger, whom you meet at the start of a round of golf, into a good friend by the 18th and last hole. During that time, there will be shots of a quality right across the spectrum, from superb to dreadful, but with much pleasant and relaxed conversation in between.
Move a step further and you will find that, unlike its fellow club and ball sports, there are no two golf courses the same, anywhere in the world. Your next step lands you into a world of devices – known as golf clubs – with which you are permitted to hit the ball. You are allowed up to 14 in your bag and all the golf clubs are different in the structure of the club-head. Each is designed to provide a special service in that rather difficult aspect of the sport – hitting the ball to where you want it to go.

Suffice

This is not an article describing precisely what you have to do to become a great golfer. There is not enough room for that. Suffice to say that you start on a tee-box and you try hitting the ball along a fairway, to get to a green preferably without deviating into the rough on either side. And eventually you try to get the ball into a hole on the green in the minimum number of shots. Easy? No, it’s actually rather difficult. To such an extent that unlike its fellow club and ball sports, namely cricket and baseball, you are allowed to hit a ball that is stationary. Little consolation, because it’s a rather small ball. Golf is additionally difficult because of the shape of the club-heads, each presenting a benefit as well as a challenge.

One of the clubs is dedicated to hitting the ball out of a bunker (sandpit). It’s called a sand wedge. Not a sandwich. That comes later. You have to take a full swing at the ball usually to try to make it land only a few metres away, near the hole. That’s not easy, with the sand having to do most of the work. And the club-head is not allowed to touch the sand as you address the ball.

powerful

Each of your clubs meet a different need – mainly distance or height of trajectory. In your early days of playing golf, unless you have a fairly powerful pedigree from other sports, you might be lucky enough to hit one good shot, but you haven’t the remotest chance of hitting two consecutive ones. You have to learn to swing the club properly, then practise like crazy if you want to be really good.
Same as any sport. At this point the non-golfer might be seen wondering what attracts so many middle-aged and upwards guys and girls into a sport that ideally demands more flexibility and coordination than remains at that age. Why does anyone waste time playing this sport when it’s so difficult? Well, golf is addictive; a natural and perfectly legal opiate. Once it grips you it’s got you.

magnificent

And it’ll grip you early. I would say it doesn’t actually relax you until you’ve played a magnificent shot – and you only need one a round – and then breathe in the splendour of the surrounding scenery. Magic! Then a life of utter dedication to the game with nothing to stand in the way. One of the oldest quips is – “if golf interferes with business … give up business.”
The complexities of the sport and the psychological  challenge that shot execution presents – especially in front of a crowd – has spawned some of the greatest humorous quips of all time: “the best way of avoiding that big tree is to aim for it,” and the ironically cynical: “never pick up another player’s lost ball while it’s still rolling.”

The golf world some 30 years ago traded history, class and tradition for the benefit gained by substituting the long distance clubs that had a wooden head, with an alternative material, which was metal, and usually titanium. Because it made hitting the ball easier and you could hit it further. Simple as that. Yet there is hopefully a little guilt in those who insist on calling them ‘metal woods’ when they no longer contain any wood at all. The ultimate betrayal lies in some golfers even still calling them ‘woods’.

advent

But the game is too magnificent to be spoiled by that, or by the later advent of strange clubs called hybrids, that are a mixture of the functions of woods and irons, which probably deserve a place where hybrids perhaps usually end up. As a youngster I played the great golf courses of Scotland – links courses where you stood ready on the first tee-box and had to ask a nearby member of staff: “where’s the golf course?” Because a links course, as opposed to a parkland one, is on the coastline and has no trees and natural pathways. And invariably a superb golf course when you get into it.

But I have not played a round of golf since 1985. Something called children intervened to quash my addiction to the time-consuming activity that golf is. But I have retained a lifelong respect for the sport and the wonderful green spaces that golf courses occupy. The cities of Eswatini must never lose those urban green spaces – they don’t have to be golf courses for ever - or else the inhabitants of the coming years and centuries will grieve the loss and bitterly resent the actions of their predecessors. London and New York could make trillions of dollars from selling the land that makes up their central parks. That would sort out their financial problems. But they will never sell.

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