BUNKER-TO-BUNKER….Inside Golf writers have their say!
By Michael Davis
MOST of the things that annoy me during a round of golf relate to just one person – me!
It starts when I am running late for my tee time, scrambling down the path to the first tee with golf shoes half on, managing to empty the contents of my golf bag in the process.
Bugger! No putter. Back to the car while leaving buggy and clubs blocking access to the course.
Here we are at last. Nobody here. I was sure they said we were off the 10th.
A dash to the first and there they all are, pretending they are not fuming because they had to let a four-ball go ahead of them due to my tardiness. Humble apologies fall on deaf ears. I am a serial offender.
Whoosh! I spear my opening shot right off the tee into a viaduct (I think). I have no idea where it went because I turned my back in disgust once I hit it and walked off the tee.
Now I’m rustling annoyingly in my bag for another ball while the others try to get their first shots away. Somehow they all get on in regulation while I insist on counting every shot, finally arriving on the ‘dance floor’ in eight.
Undaunted, I take at least a minute to line up each of my four putts.
The field is banked up now and I am bemused that my playing partners have long ago headed for the second tee.
I get the message. Do you?
By David Newbery
PERSONALLY, I always arrive at the first tee thinking ‘nothing is going to annoy me today’, but that thought is lost when I begin to choke.
No, it’s not that I’ve missed a short putt. I choke on cigarette smoke when someone lights up to help their yips problem.
When I go to golf I pray none of my playing partners are smokers. For me, there is nothing worse that inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke.
When I do encounter a smoker, wind direction becomes important – just as it does for a gazelle being stalked by a big cat in the veldt.
Some clubs allow golfers to smoke on alternate holes (fairway and rough areas). Well, I have been known to spend a fair amount of time in the rough and if there is a smoker puffing away nearby, I fume.
If you can sit on an aircraft for four or five hours without lighting up then surely you can get through a round of golf without polluting my airspace. My old mate Hoges had a habit of saying, “David, just take a deep breath, slow down and enjoy being out in the fresh air”. Yeah, right!
Now that I’m fired up, I do wonder how my brand-new golf ball has a habit of hiding in the short rough where I know, within a two- or three-metre radius, it should have come to rest.
But no, it remains invisible.
After three minutes, I trudge back to the tee-box to reload with smoke coming out of my ears. Can I come up for air, now?
By Larry Canning
IT’S a little sad that at my age its way too easy to think of things that annoy me.
I had a vivid dream the other night and woke up pissed off … I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.
Even after playing this game since I was a kid, I still haven’t found a way to avoid bunkers. Fortunately, I’ve been in enough to have learnt how to extract my pill – unless I find my golf ball has rolled up against a rake some knucklehead has left inside the trap right near the lip.
My straightforward trap shot has now become virtually unplayable and my personality virtually unbearable.
On the tee my playing partner has the honour and he has his feet up in the cart, marking his bloody scorecard.
For the sake of playing “ready golf” and maybe making a point to my self-absorbed mate, I hit off. Now I’m accused of being rude and impatient.
“Aaah, I can feel my rotator cuff beginning to play up … might have to stop after nine holes mate.” (And get home before my wife re-marries).
The last time I hit a green in regulation I needed to make sure everyone in the group noticed it, so I made a really obvious point of fixing my pitch-mark.
In fact, sometimes I pretend I have hit the green and fix someone else’s pitch-mark.
Hang on. Why is there an unrepaired pitch-mark on the green? Crikey, they’re everywhere!
By Michael Court
ACTUALLY a lot of things can spoil my round of golf.
Bad shots, poor etiquette, no water available in hot weather (it happens), unrepaired divots because people are too lazy to find some sand, temporary or cored greens aren’t much fun either – especially when a club takes your green fees and doesn’t even mention you’ll be putting on some very rough surfaces.
And ‘sheep golf’.
What’s that? That’s when all four players in the group ahead of you walk to one ball, stand there together, have a chat and eventually hit a shot and then all march off together to the next ball and do the same.
Just like sheep.
By the time they hit all four balls, you’re just about ready to hang them. But you know something? Half the things that spoil your round of golf are created because of SLOW PLAY.
Even if you are not a slow player it still affects you when someone else is. You find you are swinging twice as quickly as you normally do when it is your turn because you’re frustrated at waiting so long for your next shot.
I have a playing partner with the patience of a gnat and he is that steamed up by the time we’re midway through our weekly round that there are actually a couple of his golf clubs stuck up a tree where he has thrown them in frustration at a bad shot brought on by, you guessed it, slow play.
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