Hooked on Golf - A Slice of a Golf Addict's Tale (part 2)

In my first article, I described how my interest was aroused in this frustrating game called golf. This next article describes my slow descent from interest to fascination, which is only a step away from addiction!

At my boarding school, all sports periods were taken up with team games apart from one day a week when we were permitted to play a sport of our choice. I chose golf, as the second tee of Stirling golf course in those days (it has since been remodelled) was directly across the road from my school. Junior membership of the club for the year cost two shillings and six pence and juniors were only permitted to play during the week at certain times. New golf balls cost two shillings, so in order to afford to start play, most of us had to find some.

My first golf clubs were adult cast offs consisting of a Brassie (2 wood), Mashie (5 iron), Mashie-Niblick (7/8 iron) and a putter, which were roughly cut down to size. A Cleek (roughly any straight-faced iron, often one you could also putt with) was added later. I acquired a 6 inch bag at the same time, as most players in those days carried their golf clubs, then went looking for golf balls on the local course.

Golf balls were not difficult to find, as the golf courses in Scotland in those days had narrow fairways some 25 yards across (as some do even today), and the rough, which was about 6 inches deep, was deceptively dense and often liberally sprinkled with very prickly gorse. You had to brave the thorns or virtually stand on a golf ball to find it. Consequently all we had to do was to watch where the adults usually sliced or hooked their balls and when the coast was clear, go there and brave the thorns or stamp through the long rough picking up all the golf balls we stood on.

(Check out some of the game's history and old equipment on the web at http://www.golfforallages.com and http://www.golfeurope.com/almanac/history/or http://www.antiquegolf.com, or in books at http://tinyurl.com/mx283a.)

Did I but know it, that was a tentative step down the slippery slope of addiction to golf, as there is a certain thrill associated with finding a golf ball in difficult terrain,knowing you have just saved yourself the cost of several tasty items in the school tuck shop. Such were the economics practised by ever hungry pupils at a Scottish boarding school in those days!

Unfortunately, at that time, coaching of juniors was unheard of. We relied on watching adults play and attempting to copy the better shots we saw. We also occasionally had tips passed onto us by a passing adult who saw us play, presumably out of pity for our efforts, so in my next article I will describe further my steady descent from interest into addiction.

Hooked on Golf - A Slice of a Golf Addict's Tale

This is a first slice of the sad tale of how an addict became hooked on golf, a game invented by sadists for masochists, which should really be called flog.

In 1955 I was staying with my Aunt & Uncle in Scotland prior to attending boarding school. Whilst exploring a garden shed, I found some hickory shafted clubs and small balls with rectangular dimples. On inquiry, my Uncle explained the clubs were for playing golf which consisted of hitting the small ball into a hole some distance away.

He demonstrated the action by hitting a ball into a neighbouring field, and informed me that good players were supposed to play around courses in a certain number of strokes determined by the degree of difficulty of the course. I spent the rest of the day attempting to copy him, which resulted in large lumps being taken out of the lawn until I was banished to an adjoining field.

That was how I became hooked on golf, an addiction which persists to this day despite all my attempts, conscious & unconscious, to overcome it by becoming good enough to play around a variety of courses in the designated number of strokes, preferably also getting a hole in one to demonstrate my superior skill, and therefore having no further need to play the game.

For some books on the early days of golf see Early days of golf

For some prints of the early days of golf see Early golf prints

For a good history of golf & golf equipment see http://www.golfeurope.com/almanac/history/