In the absence of any meaningful exercise since before Christmas, I finally forced myself to drive up to Thornbury’s Par Three course for a round of golf in my role as Billy No Mates. It’s always been the plan to play a bit more this year but what with all that rain, added to appallingly low levels of motivation, I never quite made it, until today. To say it was hard work would be an understatement. I’m absolutely knackered now.
Normally, when my fitness levels aren’t this low, the Par Three course is a decent work out. I usually walk as quickly as I can to get the maximum benefit from the round, but today it was more about completing the round in one piece.
While the course is not a quagmire, it’s very soft and tacky underfoot so walking is more of an effort than it usually is. Annoyingly, my back stiffened up early on, which didn’t help, and it is hard, especially when you’re not up to golfing speed, to get any distance with a shot when as soon as the ball lands, it pretty well stays where it landed. Hitting the ball out of what is effectively mud doesn’t help and I hit an awful lot of awful shots.
There were times on the front nine when I felt like giving up altogether and slipping into the 19th hole for a warming cup of tea, especially after a disastrous seven on the barely 70 yard long sixth hole and I was glad I didn’t. My score, a miserable 74, compares poorly with my efforts from a few years ago when I usually scored in the low sixties and a few times in the fifties, but I know I can play better than that so it was a triumph of sorts.
The trouble with good golf is that it is a game of nearly perfect. And I was nowhere near nearly perfect. On a Par Three course I made the green on four of 18 occasions, which is embarrassing bad. My short game is so terrible at the moment, I doubt that I could hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.
The few good shots can make up for the bad ones, but it took me until hole five to hit one of those and that gnaws away at your confidence. Yet oddly my back nine, as my back got worse and I tired, was far better than the front nine. Maybe I was so weary I forgot to be nervous?
Either way, it was good to be back. Well, sort of. I’ll probably have another go later this week or early next and see if I can play any better. One thing is for sure: my Ryder Cup chances took a big hit today.
