Thought for the Day:
Don’t judge people by their relatives
Crowing like a cockerel
I played golf yesterday and shot 79, and if I hadn’t messed up the last hole with a triple bogey, I would have played the back nine in one-over par. You are not remotely interested. I know this and yet I can’t stop myself from mentioning it. It’s a phenomenon I have noticed in golfers down the years – that when we do well on the course (by our own standards), we want to shout it from the rooftops, or at least send a global email to all our golfing pals. I don’t believe I am a naturally bombastic or boastful person and, if anything, lean towards those classic British traits of unassuming (if false) modesty, probably because, as those same golfing pals would quickly point out, I have a lot to be modest about. And yet my sainted and suffering wife has learned that whenever I return from a round, she must ask, despite her absolute indifference to the answer, how I got on. She has to do this because of the three times a year when I surpass my expectations, beat my handicap of 12 and can regale her with a blow-by-blow account of every arrow-straight drive, laser-like approach and holed putt. The fact that she continues to ask is only one of the reasons why I love her more than my 7-iron.
But it’s not just me. Sit in any clubhouse and listen to the conversation of a fourball that has just finished and one of them will be describing his fabulous shot/wretched bad luck at the 13th. His (or her) companions will be sitting in apparently rapt concentration, hanging on every word. But look a little closer and you will realise that they are not listening at all, they’re just waiting for the speaker to draw breath so that they can jump in with their own tales of disaster or triumph. It’s similar to watching Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear when either Richard Hammond or James May is talking – he’s really just looking for a chance to interrupt.
It’s a characteristic of golfers that I have puzzled over for a long time and I can only conclude that, because golf is such a damned difficult skill to master, on those rare occasions when everything falls into place we have to milk the moment for all it’s worth. We know that next week will bring the usual tale of frustrated ambition so those wonderful but rare moments when our efforts exceed our expectations have to be sucked dry.
So, it all started with an excellent par four at the first when my drive…
Tomorrow is here
If you want to know what the future of Tour golf is going to be like, just Google the name Guan Tianlang. He is a Chinese lad of whom you almost certainly will not have heard but in a few months his name and image will be difficult to escape because he has qualified to play in next year’s Masters. At the age of 14.
He did it by winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Thailand, which he led from gun to tape after shooting a final-round 71. After two rounds he led by five, which was cut to two strokes by the time he started his final 18, and he needed to hole a five-footer on the last to seal the victory. He then held a press conference (in English) to express his delight at the thought of heading to Augusta. We all know about China’s economic miracle, which will see it become the world’s biggest economy by 2016, but the country is also set to dominate a number of sports in the years and decades to come, one of which will be golf. There can be little doubt that Guan Tianlang is but an advance scouting party for the legions of Chinese golfers who will soon be competing for the game’s top prizes.
Our world is about to become immeasurably richer and more interesting.
See you in court
When Guan Tianlang holed his crucial five-foot putt, he did it with a belly putter, and before the end of the year we should finally be told by the R&A and USGA what they plan to do about flat sticks that are longer than standard. Most observers seem to think that the implements themselves won’t be banned but anchoring them to any part of the body will be outlawed. It has prompted Keegan Bradley and Ernie Els, among others, to threaten litigation if this happens. What struck me most was the inherent arrogance of their remarks, with both saying that their views had not been sought. Bradley specifically said: ‘Everybody on Tour who uses an unconventional putter has a big say in this. I hear the USGA and the R&A have talked to a lot of players about this. Well, they’ve never approached me. They should get our side before they make any drastic decision.’
To demand that the governing bodies consult everyone who might possibly be affected by a potential rule change is taking self-importance to the point of conceit.
Quote of the Week
Extremely large greens breed slovenly play. When any green ceases to command respect, it loses its value as a test of that rarest of all strokes, the shot home
AW Tillinghast
PS
Did I mention that I shot 79?