Left to Right #1: Introduction
The first one is always the hardest
Hello, welcome. It’s just gone midnight in the UK and the Australian Open is about to start on TV. I hadn’t intended to fall asleep early on the sofa, be in bed before 10pm on a Saturday night, to then not sleep, get up, and watch the tennis instead. But my body clock must’ve secretly known.
In January 2000, apparently a quarter of a century ago, aged 18, I remember unwinding at home up late post-double-shift from the pub with the Australian Open on, thinking I’d really like to go there. So I worked lots more double-shifts and a couple of months later flew out on my own with a full backpack and didn’t return for nine months. I love watching live sport and I think that kickstarted some January self-reflection, and remains one of the most rewardingly spontaneous things I’ve done.
I also love golf and, until recently, didn’t realise how much until I picked it up again in 2022, fashionably late following the resurgence and rejuvenation in amateur golf brought about by the pandemic. I gave up playing at around 16-years-old (short career) and didn’t then touch a club until turning 40. A common story and the discussion is always the same, “I wish I’d picked it up again sooner.”
The primary purpose of this blog, I guess, is to journal my season when it restarts, and to satisfy my writing itch. I’ve not written anything since back playing golf but I’ve wanted to. As a side gig, from making a nuisance on Twitter, I did freelance football writing for several years with a longstanding regular column for SB Nation’s The Busby Babe, and a few live match reports for Eurosport. I enjoy writing and enough people have told me I’m good at it. Golf, especially amateur golf, but perhaps just golf, is ripe for journaling, blogging, newsletters, etc. For people who have the bug, golf conversations light up their eyes and faces and there is often much to say. I will, however, try to pitch this so anyone not already consumed by the game might understand or appreciate it. I’m slowly getting into watching golf again and that is a whole other story. In any case, like a lot of sport, this is about life as much as it is golf; they are inextricably intertwined. And golf we get to play.
I’ll be brief with my background: I was lucky to grow up playing Cavendish in Buxton, designed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie of Augusta National and The Masters fame. Cavendish is beautiful but the weather in the highest market town in England often is not. The layout and quick undulating greens demand a good short game along with negotiating its countryside elevation which the course architecture blends expertly into. Golf clubs can be intimidating places to the untrained eye but it’s as much a working class sport as it is the hobby of the rich. Granted, it is not cheap – but it doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive. An annual junior membership is £50 until you’re out of education, providing a parent is also a member. I started on pitch and putt par 3 courses way before being let loose on a decent track with a clubhouse, and you only need a handful of unwanted clubs to have a bash at that.
Getting fully set up again in spring 2022 knowing I was going to join a club that summer required: a carry golf bag, a full set of second-hand irons for ~£150 from a club pro shop, a sand wedge, a couple of woods, a putter, and a few essentials, i.e. balls, a glove, tees, a towel. Oh, and some shoes, one winter, one summer. The biggest immediate difference between the ‘90s and today was the shoes. We can wear golf trainers out there now?! Sweet. Likewise, I’d have been shot in a hoodie anywhere near a golf club in 1996 as a kid. Mind you, back then the clubhouse still had separate men and women sections, generously providing a seated corner area of the large restaurant bar for ladies to stay out of the way. Wild, right?
More interestingly, the tech had moved on. I was an analogue golfer – guessing yardages from course markers and experience – and now there are GPS watches and scopes, performance trackers, and a multitude of apps. I remained an analogue golfer until my first adult golf trip to Portugal with a good friend patiently waiting for me to start playing again and his mate, who is now also a good friend, in autumn 2022. Yeah, I fell back hard into the game that year and I’m still falling in love with it.
It became apparent that I needed a watch. Instant suggested yardage to the green with a flick of the wrist? Sick. And a wedge to fill a big gap in my distances at the short end of my bag. I stubbornly dismissed additional wedges as unnecessary, having never used them before, but by spring ‘23 and the new season I’d got a fresh matching set and upgraded my ball of choice too. To be totally honest, everything I’ve bought since then hasn’t been entirely necessary – very much a case of nice to have upgrades than vital, but ones my younger self would be delighted with. Membership you don’t have to go all in on, there are flexible pay-as-you-play options if you want the benefits of a club, or you can get started competitively without joining a club at all. And nine holes will do if four hours is too much.
Competitiveness is an interesting and timely segue. For me, golf is foremost competition against myself – trying to improve my game to lower my scores and my handicap – while often playing with others doing the same. It’s a welcomingly lonely endeavour at times where you have plenty standing in your way; environment, technique, physical, mental. As such, there is a lot of camaraderie. I also believe you still fundamentally need to enjoy some small aspect even if it’s going terribly. The oft-trotted out, “A bad day’s golf is better than most other things,” needs to be broadly true. Otherwise it will drive you insane. Golf is hard. But one flushed mid-iron off a fairway, especially in good weather, where you compress the ball and it flies through the air as intended is enough on its own to keep coming back for more well after the event.
Competing against a field adds another background layer of competition. In the moment, however, it is simply about you and your round – rarely do you compete against your partners, aside from low-key bragging rights, unless you’re playing the uncommon and thrilling match play, i.e. Ryder Cup, format. All this is neatly wrapped up with the handicap system which feasibly allows you, using the same equipment and playing in the same arena and conditions, to compete with anyone else, professional or amateur.
I enjoy the mental challenge too, good and bad, and where I feel I need to bring perspective to the course to survive out there, it seems to return it in spades helping to negotiate daily life. That might just be the exercise. Though in golf you are having to on the fly: walk several miles outside carrying a heavy bag; hit balls (more tiring than you would think); asses all aspects of your environment on each shot; make decisions based on your environment and capability; maintain your pre-shot routine; trust your decision and execute your technique; stay present and mindful; count your score; count your playing partner’s score; be aware of other people and their needs; don’t be a dick. All good transferable skills, there, and aside from the last one, it’s impossible to do all of them perfectly for several hours.
My home club is Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire. Helpfully, the first and only comment below the line in its listing on the Top 100, from Andy Cocker, gives a better and detailed review of the course, so I’ll spare you that here this time. I will say, like Cavendish, the greens are fast and true, and the walk is challenging. I’m very lucky to have it round the corner from where I live, it’s a great place to practice and the club is welcoming rather than corporate. I’ve eventually settled into a group of lads local of similar age where between us we devour the season’s competitions, and I look forward to seeing them every time. Occasionally meeting up with good friends based elsewhere in the UK is a major highlight. Golf is rapidly expanding my network.
In 2024 I submitted over 70 rounds towards my handicap, home and away, including at 12 Top 100s, and played a few more abroad. More on that next time. This year might not be as big in sheer numbers but I’ll be chasing even better experiences and figuring stuff out along the way. Golf is a gift, keeps you honest, and is incredibly revealing – hopefully that all comes across in future editions while I’m trying to get a small ball into a small hole.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch some of the tennis.