Cavanman's Diary: Getting back into the swing of it... almost

Cavanman's Diary

I’d love to say that the first golf shot I hit this year was striped down the middle of the fairway but that would be going against all journalistic ethics, principally rule number one of the charter: Do not start a column with an outright lie.

Like the rest of the golfers out there, I had been patiently, and at times impatiently, waiting for the government to decide that walking around a big field in the open air was a safe activity. Last Monday was D-Day but it was Wednesday before I got a chance to get out.

The great thing about golf is that anyone can play it. Male or female, any age or ability, it is a sport that can be enjoyed by all.

Under the old system, which changed recently, golfers were separated into various categories. Cat 1 was for golfers with a handicap from zero (scratch) to five; Cat 2 was for six to 12-handicappers; those playing off handicaps of 13 to 18 were Cat 3 and the rest, God help us, were above that.

These categories correspond to the actual golfing divisions of senior, intermediate, junior and minor, although, in my case at least, Junior B would be more applicable than minor. Senior cups are much sought-after, in football and golf.

Golfers tend to conform to various stereotypes. There are the flashy guys, with all the gear. The big hitters; the crafty players who don’t wallop it far but keep it straight and know that around the greens is where shots are made – or lost.

Some players have a glorious-looking swing but make too many mistakes, which reminds me of a handballer I knew who was playing a tournament in the States. His attire was pristine, his warm-up impeccable as he threw the ball around the court with perfect side-arm strokes, strutting like a peacock.

And then the game began and he collapsed as a solid, unspectacular opponent who favoured substance over style cranked up the pressure. At that, an onlooker, with a wry smile, passed the immortal comment, “if there was no ball, this fella would be world champion!”

If there was no golf ball, I would probably be a low-handicapper too. My practice swing looks the part; put something in the way of it, though, and it all falls asunder.

Regardless, it’s the one or two good shots that make it all worthwhile. They’re the drug to which golfers are addicted; if it wasn’t for the odd good one and the tantalising wonder as to when the next will arrive, bestowed like a gift from the Gods, it would, to be honest, not be much fun.

At the same time, over the last few months, I’ve been counting the days until the action resumes. The Masters at Augusta really whetted the appetite; I was glued to the coverage for the four days and could not wait to get out to play a bit myself, notwithstanding the fact that my game and that of the professionals adorning our televisions are basically different sports entirely.

Our overlords gave the green light a couple of weeks ago and, on Monday last, around the country, golf returned. Now, players were only allowed to go out in pairs and in many clubs, it was limited to nine holes, but still, it was great to be back.

It was Wednesday before I made my seasonal bow and finally got the opportunity to don a new pair of golf trousers, which I received as a Christmas present and have been taunting me since every time I opened the drawer to retrieve a face mask or some such necessity in the times that are in it.

Standing on the first tee, I wasn’t sure what to expect. “Are you wondering how to turn that yoke on?” jibed my playing partner.

The first hole in Virginia is a par 3, 170-odd yards. Normally, it’s a 6-iron for me; this time, I decided to opt for a 5-iron. For the uninitiated, that means that with the steeper club face and longer shaft, I could in theory generate more power and could drive the ball even further into the trees.

I hadn’t swung a golf club in anger, or in any other frame of mind bar idle imagining, in about seven months. For a player of my ability, that is a lifetime. I felt like a beginner again, which, ironically, wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

For me, good habits on the golf course – proper form, the correct grip, not swinging with the crazed ferocity of the Bull McCabe with his sally rod when he chased those poor cattle over the edge of the cliff at the end of the The Field – are chiselled out slowly and carefully, like someone carving their initials into the bark of a tree.

The bad ones? They’re IN the bloody tree, like rings, growing more prominent by the year. There’s no getting away from them.

I didn’t play golf properly till I was in my mid-20s (which chimes nicely with my handicap, funnily enough) and by then, I had learned all the wrong things from years of playing pitch and putt in MacSeain’s and Keenan’s of Lisnageer, which is now gone. There’s no doubt that, if I wanted to get to scratch, I’d have been better off starting from, well, scratch.

Anyway, I whacked that first shot a good distance but it caught the top of a tree and landed to the right of the green. A par seemed out of the question.

And then it happened. I connected beautifully with the chip and, for a second, it looked like it would go in. Mirabile dictu, as the late, great J.J. Reilly used to say!

Eventually, the ball came to a stop a couple of feet from the hole and I managed to steer it home for a three. Now, the rest of the round was a disaster but that one delicious shot satisfied me for the day.

In the carpark afterwards, the sun was shining and craic was mighty, at a social distance, of course. There was one of the most decorated Cavan footballers of the last 60 years there along with other famous sportsmen, one closely related to the world’s top female jockey, in fact.

The round over and clubs packed away, I gloatingly let my golfing buddies know that I had been out.

“The course is in beautiful shape,” I texted on to my golf WhatsApp group.

“WAS in beautiful shape,” came the reply.

And to be fair, I couldn’t argue. But not even that was going to spoil my satisfaction at my one great shot. Till the next time…