Lesson one continues... part 2

Half way through Lesson 1, I made an announcement.

“I’ve set myself a target for this session,” I expounded.  “By the end of this lesson I will know if golf’s for me.  The number of balls I want to hit will tell me if I have a future.”

Nothing more was said and the lesson continued in litany form: posture, grip, stance, knee flex, head steady, back swing, maintain even tempo, contact, follow through.  And this I repeated time after time under calm tutelage, landing my shots either straight on or drawing them off to left of field.  Nothing spectacular, you understand, but at least I was hitting them.  That ‘Baggy Trousers’ Madness refrain slipped its way happily across my mind and I was chillin’ into ‘Oh what fun we had’ mode when Simon ruined it all by mentioning two words: ‘memory’ and ‘muscle’.  It seems I have to build it.  Trouble is, I can’t remember in what order:  memory muscle, muscle memory – who knows? Now this is the sort of concept that totally flat-spins my brain and, mid lesson, my memory mapping suddenly takes on a life of its own and distracts me.  Instead of concentrating on the new litany, I get busy working out the permutations and combinations of ‘muscle’ and ‘memory’.  My shots immediately renege, take on strange angles, and the rangy rooks that were quietly snoozing to right of field rose raucously in a riot of resonating protest as they were disturbed by my altered delivery.  Later, I ask Guru Vintage Golfer’s advice.  He was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. “Get paper and pencil and write it down,” he texted back.  But he singularly failed to tell me in what order I should pen those two words!  I’ve sacked GVG.  Girls, when you need a classic answer, do not rely on a vintage man.

Strolling back to the clubhouse at the end of the lesson, Simon was busy re-visiting the holes in my performance while I was busy re-visiting the holes in my make-up.  I was slowly slipping back into my contented everyday world when he dropped the second bombshell. 

“Your golf swing needs to be as automatic as you’re driving” was all he said but that was enough to make the hairs rise on the back of my neck: me and driving, we don’t get on – well, at least not automatically.  I’ve been at it a long time but it’s always been something of a work of art.  It began when I was learning to drive.  Busy roundabout, East London.  L-plate and I are doing just fine, giving way politely to traffic from the right. Along comes Alfa Romeo Male – a special breed of petrol-head who, back then, drove a Giulietta Spider – and decided to hoot loud and long at my cautious driving.  Never a good move in my book.  I exit my car with a hard-backed copy of the ‘Highway Code’ in hand and dumped it, with a “read that at your leisure” opprobrium comment attached, straight into his lap.  It was a long time before he regained sufficient composure from that painful encounter to engage his clutch.  Then there was the curious incident with my driving examiner.  Slap bang in the middle of my driving test, he decides to cancel my indicator when I’m pulling out from stationary.  That started the arguments and we argued about everything after that – speed, distance, parking, procedures, world politics, the price of maize and everything else under the sun.  I passed my test first time though and Mr Examiner is still wandering round Snaresbrook, London, gibbering away in gobbledy-gook.  My heart dictates I drive an Audi A5; my finances dictate otherwise.......but I drive my Vauxhall Agila with Audi attitude.  German Audi attitude to be precise.  If you’ve ever driven German autobahns, you’ll know exactly what I mean: let no more be said lest I upset my German family.  Vorsprung durch Technik. http://www.audi.co.uk/

My most recent escapade involved the curious incident of fifty escaping golf balls.  In my haste to get to Lesson 5 (Yes, I’ve got that far and Simon is still sane), I accidentally tipped them out of the boot of my car. If you’re going to pull off a stunt like that, you might as well do it on a busy highway in prime-time traffic.  I did - beautifully and ingenuously, and to my utter embarrassment.  Apart from the expected honking of horns and screeching of brakes, I saw gestures that even Jeremy, James and Richard would find hard to interpret and those Top Gear presenters are a pretty hardened bunch.  By the way, Jeremy, James and Richard, I’m a bit of a Top Gear ladette and I’m up for a test drive with The Stig. (Team Top Gear: https://www.facebook.com/topgear?fref=ts ) 
So you see I’ve had trouble with my driving for a long, long time and now it looked like I was heading for the same relationship with golf. Mmmmh!  I suspect an interesting, exciting, rollercoaster ride ahead. 

“You hit thirty balls.  What was your target?”  Simon asked as we parted.

“ONE,” I laughed in reply.  Now it was my turn to feel like a peahen on steroids and I knew exactly where fairweather golfing son got that gene from.