A pyrrhic victory

I had waited 38 days for the opportunity to play a round of golf, so I was loathe to let a dose of man-flu (or was it ebola?) rain on the parade.




It was already fairly warm by the time Noel and I teed off at Cambridge Meridian GC, a very pleasant track in the wilds of Cambridgeshire. Coming into the game with low expectations, coupled with watching the group ahead of us spray their opening tee shots to all points on the compass, I had a sense it would be a long day. In short, I won. I was giving Noel 6 shots and I scored 30 Stableford points to Noel's 23.

So, why do I regard this as a pyrrhic victory? It really wasn't pretty to watch - sure there were some shots that make you think 'ooh, that was nice' or 'yes, pleased with that' but, generally, it was an ugly round sprinkled with a liberal dose of ring rust.

To be honest, it started brightly enough. On the first (289yd par 4), it was textbook golf. A crisp 5-iron off the tee, a lob wedge to fifteen feet and a birdie effort that brushed the edge of the hole, leaving a tap-in par. Happy days. 

From the second however, despite crashing my driver the guts of 300yds, the rustiness and inconsistency started creeping in and that affected my confidence. For the rest of the round, I would intersperse good shots with crap of truly epic proportions. On the eighth, for example, I played a lovely 3-wood off the tee which flew more than 280yds, skirting the fairway bunker and leaving me some 50yds to the flag. Spot on. This would be the perfect time, therefore, to produce a thinned lob wedge which squirted to the left, hit the trees and rebounded next to a greenside bunker. This was really the theme all day - getting into decent positions off the tee and then not following up with even half decent approach shots. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of my putting, which was deeply poo.

Hole #8 from the tee

I am sure you could argue that a W is a W, regardless of its aesthetic qualities and in the pro ranks, where your livelihood is at stake, that is definitely true. On a 'friendly' weekend stroll with the father in law, it doesn't quite have the same appeal.

Whilst I enjoy winning immensely, and I will admit there have been times when I have milked the occasion as far as humanly possible, I find it very hard to truly savour it when the quality of the golf is so ordinary. I also know, from personal experience, that Noel would not have been happy losing to such chod.

Perhaps this is something I need to work on - my acceptance of the fact that being a P-TG means the rustiness and lack of feel is an integral part of the game. Maybe I am guilty of taking the game more seriously than my frequency of playing merits, putting myself under extra unneccesary pressure to produce the kind of golf I know I can produce, to the potential detriment of enjoying the occasion & the course?

That sounds quite depressing and implies that I didn't enjoy the round at all, and that's not true. It was massively infuriating at times, especially when missing the green with a pitching wedge (a largely unforgivable sin) but I absolutely loved the golf course and was really glad to have got out to play when earlier in the week, all joking about man-flu/ebola aside, I didn't think I'd be able to.

I am The Part-Time Golfer