Thought for the Day
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance
It’s not how, but how many
In those dim and distant, far off days when we used to be able to play golf, my home course was reduced to 12 holes because of the amount of standing water on the fairways – a situation that has now returned, thanks to the big thaw. When I first set out on one of these three-quarter rounds it was with a sense of vague disappointment, a feeling of umbrage that somehow I was being short-changed or cheated.
But after playing a couple of these truncated rounds I began to reconsider, because 18 holes is a pretty arbitrary number that was arrived at by accident. What has become the accepted standard began, inevitably, at St Andrews, which traditionally had 12 holes, which were laid out in a line and 10 holes were played twice, making a round of 22 holes. In 1764 the first four holes were combined into two, resulting in a round of 18 holes and because of the pre-eminence of St Andrews in the golfing world, where it led, others followed.
But after a couple of 12 hole rounds I started to consider the advantages of playing fewer holes, the first of which occurred as I realised how much fresher I felt as I climbed back into the car – the prospect of having to walk the dogs almost immediately did not fill me with its usual sense of despair. I was also able to avoid that disappointing, but all too familiar sense that, even if I had played reasonably well, I had frittered away strokes towards the end of the round. You know what it’s like – you get to the 16th tee with a rather satisfactory score (by your own standards at least) but manage to find ever more unlikely and frustrating ways to screw things up, with the clubhouse metaphorically, if not literally, in sight.
I also felt that mentally I was sharper throughout the round – possibly in the knowledge that if I had a particularly bad hole, there was less time for recovery, as a result of which, every shot took on a greater importance so I found myself concentrating more purposefully. Then there’s the time saved. A full round of golf takes a heck of a large chunk out of your day and, even for the most dedicated (or selfish) of us, it can be hard some times to justify devoting that amount of time to something that keeps us away from family and other responsibilities.
Finally, of course, is the huge psychological boost of completing the round, totting up your score and being able to record the highly unlikely number 55.
Nine holes is never quite enough and 18, let’s face it involves quite a commitment and can be pretty exhausting, so let’s start a movement to restore a round of golf to 12 holes – you know it makes sense.
Not out of the Woods
A recent opinion poll in America asked 2,000 women if they would sleep with Tiger Woods. Seventy-two percent said ‘Not again.’
Youth no longer wasted on the young
Charl Schwartzel, despite being a devilishly difficult name to spell, is starting to live up to much of his earlier promise, having just won for the second consecutive week in his native South Africa. Apart from the fact that, like Phil Mickelson, he has far more than the legally allowed maximum number of teeth, Charl is further evidence that all professional sport is the fiefdom of the youngsters. We can no longer assert with any degree of confidence that, in golf at least, a good old ‘un will usually beat a good young ‘un.As recently as a decade ago it was quite possible to write that a 20-something golfer might have great potential but wouldn’t truly have the experience and ability to compete at the highest level until they were into their thirties – which had always been the time when the necessary mix of talent blended with the know-how that only practice can bring, to produce a golfer both gifted and smart enough to win consistently. When we looked at a leaderboard after 54 holes, and saw at the top a mixture of battle-hardened old pros, with the occasional precocious wannabe, we could say, with a fair degree of confidence, that the gnarled veteran would usually be the one holding the cheque at the end of the fourth round.
Not any more we can’t. It seems that today the youngsters are bursting onto the scene with huge ability and, more importantly, the mental toughness to get the job done. Kind of depressing, really.
Quote of the week
Excessive golfing dwarfs the intellect. Nor is this to be wondered at when you consider that the more fatuously vacant the mind is, the better for play. It has been observed that absolute idiots play the steadiest.
Sir W G Simpson