Sally-Part 72. 'THE' COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOLF FOR BEGINNERS.DEDICATED TO MY TWO SONS< JONATHAN AND JULIAN BUT ESPECIALLY FOR JONATHAN !

THE CALLY PALACE HOTEL PRIVATE GOLF COURSE. THERE WAS NO-ONE ELSE ON THE COURSE AT ALL ! PERHAPS THEY'D HEARD I WAS ON MY WAY !

Well, amazing as it seems, I won at golf today playing on my own at The Cally Palace's private and immaculate course !

I WAS SEARCHED BEFORE I WAS ALLOWED IN FOR A COFFEE AND ESCORTED BY THREE BURLY DOORMEN  WHO SEARCHED ME AGAIN WHEN I LEFT !

Although I lost about thirty balls, I didn't add these to my score card or penalise myself for any poor tee shots, balls in lakes, rivers or forests or balls that travelled less than two feet, went backwards, air-shots, multi bunker shots or missed putts !

Had I done then my score would have been more like an acceptable 200 rather than the perfectly respectable 160 that I declared !

 Par was 72 !

WARNING-THE REST OF THIS BLOG IS A LESSON FOR NEW GOLF PLAYERS AND IS A SIMPLE AND HELPFUL GUIDE WHICH WON'T INTEREST ANYONE ELSE !

Firstly there are words and expressions borrowed from the English language which I hope to explain as I go along.

The first one, as mentioned above is 'Par' which is a word that someone made up to mean the number of shots a decent player should complete the round of eighteen holes in .

I don't know who decided on eighteen holes rather than twenty or fifteen.

Personally I prefer about three before coffee, twenty or so biscuits and the opportunity to hand out my Blog cards !

You will regularly see areas with GUR written on a signboard or spray-painted on the ground. These are NOT , as Jonathan told me and I believed for several years, places to go when you've hit a terrible shot for jumping up and down in whilst snapping clubs over your thigh and shouting Grrrr! which is the sound Dennis The Menace made in my childhood comics ! GUR stands for Ground Under Repair and you shouild NOT enter them under any circumstances !

So where do you go to break clubs and shout Grrrr! ?

 The answer is ANYWHERE ! 

Golf cognoscenti ask each other what they 'play off' and this means the number more than 'par' that they average when they play on their own and cheat. Really big cheats say they 'play off' very small or even 'negative' numbers and are really big-headed and obsessed with 'point ones' !

I will explain about 'point ones' in chapter ninety seven, ' Wife ? I think I've got one ! '

Unfortunately I must now write as briefly as I can about HANDICAPS !

In this modern world of political correctness and equality I was taken aback when I first played golf to be asked what my handicap was!

Thinking that I must have suddenly developed an obvious limp or one eye had fallen further down my face than the other or had introduced myself with some kind of speech impediment I thought quickly and came up with, " A little hayfever-induced asthma if you must know !", trying not to show how indignant I felt at the man's far too intimate a question to a stranger !

This was the first time ( actually it wasn't! ) I became aware of men whispering to each other whilst moving their heads towards me in an un-neighbourly fashion!

As it turned out being asked what your 'handicap' is means the same as " What do you play off? " and shouldn't cause offence unless asked with an obvious sense of contempt which was how I feel people speak when they ask me!

The most arrogant and insufferable men sneer at you when you dare to ask them what they 'play off' because they'll answer 'scratch' !

 If you're not feeling itchy, don't !

If you are then do and ask them how they knew ?

They'll REALLY hate you though !

They mean zero. In other words, what a decent player should be able to do...match the course 'par' !

LOST ? Or just finally stopped caring ?

Ah ! You must be a woman then ! What are you doing reading about sport ?

 Anyway, I was privileged to play on a manicured course set amongst thousands of mature proper trees ( as opposed to Scandinavian ones that blight the countryside ).

 The sun shone and the temperature climbed beyond twenty degrees for the first time in a year and the glimpsed views all around were wonderful !

But I was on my own and unhappy ! Golf is about immature men spending four or five hours together, trading jokes, insults and sharing totally exaggerated stories of female conquests !

I could have been at work, staring out the window and wishing I was on a golf course !

Everything should have been perfect but I was bored without company, which in my case means somebody else to bore and carried on playing because it was free and I wasn't expected back for four hours !

SO, THIS IS HOW YOU PREPARE YOURSELF FOR GOLF !

 You spend a ridiculous amount of money on clubs which are now mostly counterfeits and spend even more on overpriced matching clown outfits that other men admire and covet!

Then spend up to £400 on waterproofs and £200 on shoes !

Another £300 on balls, tees, pitch-mark repairer, club head covers, permanent marker pen to mark your ball with your private set of dots so that you can easily identify it once it's lost forever in just over one inch of rough grass, ludicrous peeked hat, magnetic ball marker to fit onto the magnet on the previously mentioned peeked hat, all-weather golf glove for the opposite hand to whatever you are 'handed' and one for the 'handed' one as well if you are a wimp like me !

A simple bag costing no more than a hundred or so pounds will suffice to carry on your back and to hold a variety of wet and dry weather clothes, umbrella, towel for drying your ( golf ) balls, sandwiches for just before you collapse from heat exhaustion after two holes, drinks, chocalate bars and twenty balls for the eighteen holes you are about to waste many hours of your life swearing around !

Once you have discovered how exhausting carrying your own bag is after fifty yards, you might feel, like I did, that you would prefer a pull-along trolley or decide to splash out on a motorised version which costs hundreds or do what real real nutters do and buy a ' golf buggy' for thousands and tow it behind your car !

All this before you've even played a shot!

MY PREFERRED GOLFING COMPANIONS.. MY SONS JULIAN,WHO LOOKS LIKE HE MIGHT BE MINE AND JONATHAN WHO I THINK WAS A CHANGELING,.ON COLONSAY, MAY 2012. WE JUST LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND THAT'S HOW GOLF SHOULD BE !

Once you've approached the first tee for the first time, dressed in plus fours and twin-colured spiked shoes and acknowledged the admiring glances of the three other berks you're about to humiliate yourself in front of  you must select one of five different length ' tees' which are a device for holding your ball your preferred height off the ground in-line with or slightly behind the two large mock golf balls which mark the start line of all 'tee boxes' ( an area of destroyed turf from where you start  mis-hitting lots of balls ). Real men always blame a poor tee selection for a poor 'tee shot', or an unbalanced club, or blinding sun, or a camera lense clicking, or someone moving, or a pulled muscle, or, in fact, anything but themselves  !

Your ball selection is incredibly important as dimples vary between manufacturers and you must bear in mind that the wind at different heights will affect dimples in different ways and don't forget to mark your ball first with your secret choice of mysterious dots before placing it, having clearly stated to everyone which manufacturer you have chosen and which number ( from one to ten ) is printed on it !

If you place your ball even a millimetre in front of the ' start line ' one or all of the other players will cough brusquely and growl ' feet in the water !" into their rolled fist and huff whilst looking innocently at their fingernails as if they were totally incapable of such an act !

If you have actually arrived at a point where you're ready to strike your first ball someone may well remind you that you have failed to 'warm up' !

You must step off the 'tee box' to do this, much to the general disatisfaction of all around and take up a 'teeing off' position before swinging your 'driver' around your head without hitting you or your fellow's heads or spinning and falling down !

Then and this is quite hard to explain without a diagram, you wedge your driver into your elbows behind your head and looking like a mentally unstable scarecrow twist one way and the other until you are dizzy though now well 'stretched' !

Hopefully, you won't 'pull' a muscle during this process and have to withdraw before you start !

Once 'warm' you retrace your steps to your ball and 'address' it. This has got nothing to do with writing but is where you place it in your stance.

For those who don't know where their stance is or how they can adopt one if they haven't got one, this is how to 'adopt' a stance which has got nothing to do with children !

You take your driver, which is the largest club in your bag and not your chauffeur and casually place it behind your ball. Be careful at this point not to knock your ball off the tee as this will count as a shot.

Now holding the other end of the club at arms length, open your legs quite wide but not so wide as to look silly.

Bend your knees slightly and move your weight towards the balls of your feet.

You can decide to position the ball in front of and between your feet centrally or towards the front or back foot.

Now you must perform a sort of ritual courtship dance which involves repeatedly looking down the fairway in the direction you would like your ball to go whilst wiggling your buttocks provocatively and paddling your feet like a seagull hunting for worms ( yes they do do that ! ) to settle yourself into a profound feeling of balance and calm !

If you are at all like my son Jonathan, you will perform this ritual up to eighteen times, each time slightly adjusting both elbows and repositioning the club head minutely !

JONATHAN PLAYS OFF FOUR POINT SIX ! THAT MEANS HE CHEATS MORE THAN OTHER MEN !

Other people's rituals can look ridiculous and telling them so can cause offence so just do what everyone else does and join in with the other two waiting their turn to play by staring at each other and shaking your heads at one another in total incomprehension !

Under no circumstances may you call out, " Get on with it for God's sake ! "

Or drop your club 'accidentally', yawn loudly or point out the twelve other players now waiting to start their rounds !

Once settled over the ball it is impolite at this point to ask the player whether he breathes in or out or holds his breath when he takes his shot !

I ALWAYS DRESS PROPERLY BUT MY SONS HAVE SOME SERIOUS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER !

I have been asked this question many times and have found it doesn't make me play any worse than I would otherwise have played !

Keep your back straight and your head absolutely still, staring at the ball along your nose as you 'take the club away' rotating your top half by imagining that your solar plexus is the centre of your body, which it is.

COPY MY PERFECT POSE. TAKEN ON THE HEBRIDEAN ISLAND OF COLONSAY AT 9:30 PM ON MAY 25th 2012 DURING BRITAIN'S WEEK OF SUMMER ! JONATHAN IS STANDING WATCHING TO MAKE SURE I HAVEN'T GOT MY 'BALL OR FEET IN THE WATER' !

Your weight should now be entirely on your rear leg ( that is, right if you're right-handed and left if you're left-handed ), your front foot heel raised and your stomach muscles coiled around your solar plexus as strongly as possible.

That's the easy bit because you now have to reverse everything you have just done but with explosive force, maximum acceleration and control bringing the club head back to the original position it was in less than half a second before whilst transferring all your weight onto the left leg, raising your right heel ( try and remember which 'handed' you are otherwise 'strains' can occur ), rotating the ball of the foot and allowing the club head to 'follow through' ( which is not the same as the embarrassing thing that happens a few hours after eating a 'Durham Meatball ' meal when you attempt  a release of several tons of highly pressurised built-up gas ! ) to a position that in cartoon terms leaves you looking like you've rotated your entire body three times around one leg !

The longer you hold this pose, the more other men will admire you ! In fact even if you know that you have missed or mis-hit the ball, you must still hold the pose !

It's really not a difficult thing to hit a ball but unfortunately the driver tends to have a mind of it's own and may well choose to pass cleanly right over the top or directly underneath the ball without imparting any forward movement to it !

It may well decide to clip one end of the ball or the other and send it at a frighteningly fast speed at right angles to the left or right of your intended direction !

You will have no idea where it's gone but will soon appreciate your companion's lightening-fast reactions as they scream " FOUR! (or 'FORE!' I really don't know or care which)" LEFT!" or " RIGHT! " as loudly and hysterically as they can whilst whisking their heads into the safety of their arms !

When playing with deaf or dumb or deaf and dumb people, holding up four fingers whilst pointing in either direction will suffice !

If you do manage to move your ball even slightly forward feel very proud of yourself and read part two of my ' GOLFING FOR BEGINNERS-THE SECOND SHOT '  if I ever get round to writing it !

ANYONE NOT INTERESTED IN GOLF WHO HAS GOT THIS FAR DESPITE MY EARLIER WARNING NEEDS TO GET A LIFE !