I got the big
invitation. Suddenly and without
warning. From Vintage Golfer. He wanted to know how his protégé was
doing. Much like a loud and unexpected thunderclap on a fine summer’s day, it
came like a bolt out of the blue.
I suspect it’s a bit like getting an invitation from The Queen to her
gaff at the end of The Mall - except this came from VG and was a sight more
impromptu than anything I’d seen Her Majesty trot out. Not that I’m in the habit of getting
invitations from Elizabeth II, you understand. She’s a meticulous planner – so I’m led to believe – but,
for my part, I am unable to lay claim to any first hand experience of this. I can’t see it happening in the
not-too-distant future either but, Elizabeth, if you’re reading this, I would
be happy with a dame-hood to rack up alongside my collection of silly
hats. Just sayin’, Ma’am.
VG isn’t likely to get
an invitation either but that’s a whole other story and, quite frankly, I lack the
inclination here to enter into the combinations and permutations of why those
born between the Turf Wall and Hadrian’s Wall might not qualify for a royal
summons. Just letting you know, Ma’am.
Suffice it to say the I
spent a short time wondering how much of the contents of a salmanazar of fine
Rioja he had drunk when he decided to beckon me into his presence. Or maybe he had been hit on the head
with a kettle of wet mackerel? Who knows?
It all amounted to the same thing: I was summonsed to play golf so that
VG could give me and my wonderful game the once over.
I could have told him in
no uncertain terms how his protégé was doing. If words were money, I’m not short of a bob or two and I was
up for giving him a detailed account.
But he was having none of my wordsmith ploys and it was all down to
demonstration.
Cometh the hour, cometh
the man or, in this case, woman. Preparation
was high on my agenda and I planned my game with meticulous diligence. Now, this is where any half decent golfer
would have taken themselves off to the driving range in a fit of swings, chips,
runs and flop shots. Not so
me! I’m not halfway to half decent
yet so I bent myself to careful research.
I am fully au fait with the effects of stress on the cardiovascular
system. Tacotsubo is my middle
name (No, it is not a type of
Japanese wrestling. Get with it!).
The resultant shock-horror of exposure to my style of game could stop even the
most stalwart heart and I, on a day off work, did not want the inconvenience of
a resuscitation – even if it was on my mate VG. A day off is a day off. I was of the opinion that VG had probably never seen the
likes of my game before so I needed to know if his cardiac status was
sufficient unto the day. I sent
him a cardiac rehab manual and fitness programme, the full treatment regimen
for acute coronary syndrome, and appointments for a Holter tape and
echocardiogram. I’m Irish; I
needed to be sure, to be sure. Ma’am,
if you’re still following this blog, I am willing to move from honorary to
substantive just so as I can wear my dame-hood in public. You’ll know exactly what I mean by this
remark, Madge (that’s short for Your Majesty and not you, Madonna).
The day arrived. It was high summer. Except today it wasn’t. The only day in the entire summer when
it rained, and rain it did. Cats
and dogs variety. Drowned rat
look. Day for ducks. “Where’s your rain gear?” says VG. It was a good question and I didn’t
have a good answer. Grubbing round
in the darker recesses of my golf bag, I found my beloved Galvin Green who
keeps me warm and dry on every occasion.
(It’s a jacket, you grubby minded readers)
But I was without trousers. VG disappeared and returned with waterproof trousers. There
was no earthly need to trot out that time worn phrase “Does my bum look big in
this?”. The pair of rainproof
trousers VG had loaned me were so big that he and I could have practised
ballroom dancing in them on the scale of BBC’s “Strictly” and still have had
room left over for the remaining part of the trousers to house a wedding
marquee. They were grand trousers
but not in the flattering sense.
Wallace and Gromit might have a good line on them as "the wrong
trousers" but as they were the only trousers likely to keep me dry in what can only be described as a deluge, I had no intention of complaining about their
lack of fashion appeal. And VG’s wet face didn’t look like you could lodge an
appeal against their distinct lack of fashion value. He’s a man of practical pants and there’s no arguing with
that line of approach.
Faces: I love a good
face-to-face. I’ve had a lifetime
of studying them. It began with the
Sisters of Perpetual Habits who instilled in me qualities that were never set
out on education curricula anywhere.
You can always tell the façade from the visage when you study a
face. Vintage Golfer wasn’t
looking his cheerful, pragmatic self this morning – more fearsome than
fair-some. In fact, he looked like
he had spent the night studying the cardiac rehab manual, failed the fitness
programme, recorded syncopal episodes on his Holter monitor, spontaneously
passed out, and had a poor prognosis on his echocardiogram. That or he was coping with the after
effects of a salamander of Rioja but, as he always claims he never suffers with
a hangover, how could that possibly be the cause? My heart sank.
I am by now half dressed
like a fisherman on a deep-sea trawler and sporting a wet look I didn’t
rate. Suddenly, I get pounced on
again and he’s looking irate.
“That glove,” he says, “You
can’t possibly play decent golf with that.”
Inference is never wasted
on me and my glove was certainly looking jaded. My immediate and optimistic conclusion was: swap the glove
and my golf will be decent. Sigh,
perhaps this is the time to give up on optimism or dial it down a bit. I need to tell his nibs it wouldn’t make
a blind bit of difference but he has strong opinions and studying his wet face,
I knew this was not the time to air my views. I had a rare moment of silence and held my tongue.
By now, I am all of a
dither but fate had one more trick to play. Heading out to the first tee, his long-term golfing buddy
whispers in my ear “Good luck. You’ll
need it. He likes to win. He takes no prisoners”. That’s one of those hole-in-the-head
remarks you never need but always get so, with the final nail in my coffin, I
now knew that there really was no hope.
That’s a tough call when you are an optimist. And so, with these conflicting thoughts, I find myself
standing on the first tee in a downpour.
Oh happy days! “You swing your best when you have the
fewest things to think about”. I
salute the late great august master Bobby Jones for this wisdom. Thank you, Bobby, but before I take
leave of you, there is one burning question I need to ask. Where did you get a middle name like
that? I mean come on, mate, “Tyre”:
what’s this about? I’d have no truck
with nomenclature of this ply if I were rolling in your tracks. Ma’am, if you’ve stuck with me this
far, could you find a posthumous award for Bobby? He deserves a medal.
I’m on the first tee and
my brain is squishing squillions of thoughts about, so much so that I swung my
worst swing ever and landed the ball all of two feet to the left of the box. Yup, Sir Robert Tyre Jones, you
holed-it-in-one on that prophetic pin if you were thinking of the likes of me
when you made that erudite comment. The only positive outcome from this debacle
is that VG suddenly finds his missing laugh. And he used it heartily, wallowing in a protracted
guffaw. I would delete him from my
Christmas card list forever but, alack, I don’t send any. I’m currently working on a suitable
punishment. And so we set off.
There is a perennial
list of strong-lettered words embedded in my brain. They were hammered in there when I was the young side of
little and they were words I was not allowed to use - ever. Of course little me made a mistake and
accidentally trotted out one of those words in adult company. It was a first but, happily, not a last
as I’ve practised some of those forbidden fruits a few times since - whenever
there was a deserving cause. It
was also the first time I experienced time-travel. After innocently quoting from the list, I was promptly knocked
into the middle of next week. And now VG was doing the honours of floating a word
for possible inclusion on that list but, now that I’m all grown up, I’m in
charge and I decide when a word qualifies or not. His did, emphatically. He used the “S” word when describing
my swing. You see, my swing comes with the cardinal sin of “sway”
attached: read “anathema” to low handicappers. In the great high church of golf, I’m not fit to add the
coals to the thurible, much less swing it.
And so we wended our way
round a wet and windy field.
Back at the clubhouse,
Vintage Golfer consumed about five gallons of orange juice laced with
lemonade. It seems good golfers dehydrate
as a result of their focus and concentration. As I don’t suffer with that problem yet, I was replete on a
mug of Rosy Lee.
Now it’s time to play my
Get-Out-Of-Jail card: Vintage Golfer, you taught me a few things about golf
that day and I’m grateful – why, you even got me started in this crazy game - but
here’s something I need to teach you.
Visualisation. Even eejit
golfer me knows visualisation has a bang-on hot role in golf. In my head, I have a picture of my
driver. And you’re wearing
it. I am not making public which
part of your anatomy it’s ensconced in but, if you ever wish to find out, just
run that word “sway” past me and my swing one more time. Apart from that, I give you free
licence to say what you want about me.
Now, Ma’am, I need to
have a word with you too: you can send Philip out with me for a round of
golf. He’s in safe hands. I do a mean line in resuscitation and,
if it doesn’t work, you can at least be assured he will die laughing. I guarantee that.
And while you’re at it,
Ma’am, could you please ask Princess Anne to rescind that silly remark about
her preference to walking the dogs rather than playing golf? It’s not looking good on her now that
she’s in the newly formed female inner sanctum of St Andrews.
Sigh, bang goes my dame-hood!
