Flog the clubs!

As an avid golfer, I have recently had the opportunity to consider playing more often. This is very much welcomed as I look forward to improving my game over, what I hope will be, a great British summertime.

Mind you, I first wanted to delve a little deeper into the topic of golf. Please bear with me on this one…. I know the whole pro golf situation remains in turmoil and I may cover this in a future blog but this is more self indulging so here we go…

Some of you may be aware of the quote, generally attributed to the author Mark Twain, relating to the playing of golf as “a good walk spoiled”. This is interesting but in my opinion “floored”.  I believe it should be that “a walk is the journey of a forgetful soul who has misplaced his clubs or hit his ball so badly as to no longer be on the golf course”. You can probably tell from this that I absolutely adore golf and would play it everyday if the body was willing!

However, in the actual art of the playing of golf, I can fully appreciate the quote!  It is not a simple game. In fact, it is far from simple. Any game that states it’s 18 holes and that’s it, would be done for blatant misrepresentation!

A snooker table has six pockets but it doesn’t have 500 yards of undulating land before each of them or a sandpit, water feature or scrubland (more commonly known as bunkers, water hazards and out of bounds).

In my humble opinion, I think the origins, which for modern golf are generally attributed to Scotland and the R&A at St Andrews, missed a piece of important information out… maybe they wrote the letters from right to left in those days…as the word “flog” is far more apt for us part time golfers.

If you look up the meaning, you will read flog as “an arduous struggle” - the way I play it, it certainly does look like a struggle as I carve my way through the rough like a scythe and seem to ignore the nicely cut strip (known as the fairway) that runs the length of the hole, as I slice my drive onto the adjacent cow field - "time for a reload, let's call that one a mulligan" (a slightly dubious process of ignoring the previous bad shot and having another go...). 

Maybe one of the alternative meanings for flog may work better, “to beat with a stick”. Again, if you see me play, it could certainly be considered beating the poor ball with a stick as I hack at my third attempt to extricate the poor little white sphere from the pot bunker rather than having gracefully caressed it 300 yards down the fairway like the pros!!

However, no matter whether you are a weekend regular or a once a year get together with your mates type of golfer, there will always be that one shot... The one that just leaves the clubface with effortless grace and lands softly next to the pin. Or the drive that lands 50 yards past your playing partners. Or the 30ft putt, the chip in from the rough or the extremely rare but certainly achievable "hole in one". The shot you know a pro could have done no better. That's the shot that makes you come back again and again. Not even the torturous 99+ shots beforehand, the six lost balls, one lost club in the lake and the four putt greens put you off - it's that one shot you remember and chat about over a beer or coffee in the clubhouse.

My son has also recently taken up golf too. He and I regularly try to improve the swing at the local driving range in preparation for the trip to the course. He too now has the experience of the chaotic and spirraling mindset of a golfer. One day following a good session at the range he came back exclaiming "that's it, I'm joining the Tour, I'm amazing". Sadlly, the following day he came back with a grimmace and frown huffing "that's it, I'm never playing again, I couldn't hit a thing" and to great cost to me... "Dad, how do you replace the shaft on a 5-iron?". "What..?" was my slightly tetchy response!

Why do we do it to ourselves? Is it the love of the game? It must be because otherwise, I guess in simple terms we would come back to a further meaning of the word flog - and just “flog the clubs”. I’m sure we would get something for them on eBay!