They watch it, they play it, they live it, what are our group of golf writers wishing for in 2024……?
Our Inside Golf scribes have their say!
BUNKER-TO-BUNKER
By Michael Court
I have plenty . . . and top of the pops is to stop backing Rory McIlroy to win every week.
He’s favourite or close to it every time he goes around and let’s face it, no-one can win every week.
As a matter of fact, there’s a few others I’d like to sack from my betting systems as well.
I won’t name and shame, but I confess Stuart Appleby NOT winning on the US Seniors Tour is costing me a few quid. John Senden too!!
Now to the serious stuff, closer to home . . . and my own golf game.
For five weeks in a row, I used a different putter every outing – and still my putts kept lipping out.
I didn’t need to hear that it might be me, not the putter, causing the problem.
Then someone pointed out that I must have been decelerating as I made contact with the ball.
Right then . . . this year I’ll be accelerating when the putting stroke begins.
Now we’re on a roll . . . let’s try a new grip on the sand wedge too. Mind you, the old one has only been there for 17 years.
And perhaps a new driver could do the trick and give me back that ‘lost’ 50 metres off the tee.
Alright, so I’m dreamin’.
Oh, and one more thing: I always had Bandon Dunes in Oregon on my ‘bucket list’ as somewhere I have always wanted to go and play before I fall off the perch.
I might switch that to Lofoten Links in Norway. Looks awesome and then I could catch the Northern Lights as well!!
By Michael Davis
The pages of this august golf journal should not be used to publicly declare my path for golf self-improvement.
But please allow me this one occasion to ponder how I might become a better person when it comes to golf in 2024.
It might help if I refrain from drinking, gambling, uttering profanities, four-putting and losing a ball on every hole.
Throw in not watching where a fellow golfer’s ball goes off the tee and then failing to help search for it.
You could also include noisily rummaging in your golf bag while someone in the group is trying to play his or her shot.
Not to mention, of course, rushing to the first tee with just seconds to spare and putting your group on edge from the get-go.
What’s that I see?
My name has been on the timesheet all week and again it looks like I’ll be playing on my own (again).
I cannot for the life of me understand why. Surely it cannot be because I am wearing short black sox, an old pair of sandshoes and my shirt is collarless and not tucked in.
I guess some things will never change.
FOOTNOTE: In keeping with all New Year’s resolutions, mine will have been broken by the time any of you read this.
Still, it would have been churlish and niggardly of me not to have at least made the token effort to alter habits of a lifetime.
Happy New Year!
By Larry Canning
Aaaa this old chestnut, eh? I’m going to begin my list with one of my all-time favourite resolutions. I’m going to go 12 months without buying a new putter. My wife Sandra once said we’d own a small island in the Bahama’s if I had kept the same putter for all my career. What she doesn’t realise is, to have maintained possession of that putter, I would need to learn scuba diving and hope like hell there were no saltwater crocs in the creek right next to the 5th hole at Gosford Golf Club.
I pledge I’m going to study meteorology so I can help customers at my Pro-Shop with those burning questions – “Is it going to rain? What does the radar say”? Come to think of it, I might also need to look at some form of meditation because there’s two questions in this little ripper. My standard response has always been – I’m barely still a golf pro let alone a weather expert, and no I haven’t checked the radar because I’m spending all day in the Pro-Shop so don’t give a s….t!
I think my final ‘reso’ will involve me taking up on my Podcast Co-Host, Gary Barter’s offer to come down to the Australian Golf Club and book my swing in for its 200,000 kilometre service. By now, the oil in my sump must be resembling the viscosity of bitumen and my chipping has now been deemed as dangerous by OHS. Maybe there’s something in this for everyone?
By Peter Owen
NOBODY cares about anything I resolve to do, so instead I’ll focus on some of the things I’d like to see happen within golf in 2024.
I want to see club membership waiting lists slashed. It’s obscene that people who want to join a golf club are expected to wait four, five or six years – usually because boards think having more members might make it harder for current members to secure a favourable time slot on Saturdays. Take the chance – because, although golf’s booming right now, in five years’ time there might be no waiting lists at all.
I want to see clubs acting less like profit-making centres and more like providers of amenities to their members. Send out the drinks cart on hot days, even if doing so might not always turn a profit. It’s about providing a service to members, something that every club says it exists to do.
I hope that officialdom will recognise that when your ball comes to rest in somebody’s divot on a fairway it occupies an area that fulfils the very definition of ‘Ground Under Repair,’ and should warrant a free drop.
I want the world’s golfing authorities to mean what they say and get serious about ending the LIV disruption and quickly find a solution that will allow the world’s best golfers to compete regularly against each other.
And, finally, I’d like to see Adam Scott win another major in 2024, because surely there has never been an Australian golfer who has behaved for so long with such grace and dignity, who has given so much back to Australian golf, or who has given us so much pride and pleasure.
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