The government notwithstanding, life is returning to normal. Restaurants and rugby grounds are beginning to fill up and at the unassuming golf course I call home, a few Covid protocols are being relaxed.
We have rakes at the bunkers for the first time in two years and those clever little devices for lifting the ball out of the hole without touching the flagstick have disappeared. This presents something of a problem for me, as my knees and back have to combine to get me a foot lower to the ground than before. Sometimes I have to kneel.
Gone, too, is that sinister gathering of masked people on the 1st tee. At the height of restrictions, technically you had to wear your mask the whole way around, but what really happened was that you wore it for your opening shot and then put it in your pocket until the halfway house. Remember, you couldn’t even share a golf cart with anyone other than a family member.
One day we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny, but right now it just feels liberating. It reminds us, in fact, that we should never take liberty for granted. Just ask the people of Ukraine. How might they react if you were to suggest nine peaceful holes of golf followed by a glass or two of beer? Doesn’t that sound like fun? That’s what we have been missing and what they look upon as unattainable.
It goes to the very heart of what makes golf special. You are forced to put aside life’s vicissitudes to make it to the course in the first place, because playing golf is like marriage; a commitment. Once the round has begun it’s just you and your playing partner/s in a life or death struggle with the dimpled ball.
From the moment you take back the club, your mind is cleared of all thoughts beyond the myriad possible destinations of your ball. The psychiatrist has not been born who can match that achievement.
And if you happen to get ahead of yourself, becoming perhaps entangled in the mechanics of counting your shots, nothing settles the psyche better than a five-minute search for your ball in knee-high rough. In what other sport does the object of the game change in mid-match from keeping score to keeping out of the way of snakes?
Furthermore, in what other sport does everything stop while you consult the rule book? The rules of golf have been simplified recently, but Dylan Frittelli’s infraction at Harbour Town in April proves that some aspects are still ridiculously obtuse. The ‘standing astride’ rule was inserted to stop Sam Snead putting croquet style, not to stop a player flicking the ball out of a tree, for the love of Pete.
It is, however, amazing what you get used to, as Covid has proved. Centuries of taking the flag out of the hole before putting out were overturned in one stroke of the pen. Last week my neighbour and I both hit the flag with short putts, spitting the ball back into play. On the next hole my neighbour was lining up a four-footer when he suddenly stopped, removed the flag, then holed the putt.
‘Oh,’ I said in admiration. ‘I never thought of that.’
– This column first appeared in the June 2022 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine. Subscribe here!
