04 - Witchcraft...

Another trip to the range with Lucky followed but my improvement started to stutter. I found myself making the same mistakes as I did the first time I tried to play. I needed more help from someone who knew what they were doing. Enter Richie.

Richie is a good player who has been captain of the golf society he plays for. He told me recently that golf for him has gone from a pastime to an obsession. He is always playing, always practicing, always looking for ways to improve. I was looking forward to him helping me but also hoping my uselessness wouldn’t rub off on him (like when you rub a magnet on metal and it becomes a bit magnetised – or summat).

Richie started by asking me to hit a few shots so he could see what I was doing. That was a bit intimidating to be honest, I felt like a stripper on her first night in a flange palace – judging eyes studying my body, checking my form, looking for faults, wanting to stick a £5 note in my thong after I’d wiggled my arse in his face. Ahem.

After a couple of shots Richie got me to move my feet slightly and try again. Low and behold the ball skewed off to the right…but not as much! Hallelujah! After a few more surprisingly minor tweaks the ball was starting to go straighter and straighter. It was witchcraft I swear!

While I was sending Exocet like shot after Exocet like shot down the range Richie caught up with a couple of people he used to play with. They were testing new drivers and pissed me right off by smashing the ball 250 yards without any discernable effort. I was concentrating like a bastard and these were laughing and joking and out driving me. Cunts.

Richie told me to ignore them as they had been playing for years and got me back to my drills. Set the ball properly, address the ball, get my hands right, get my feet right, breathe, slowly back, smoothly round, good contact, follow through the shot then bask in the glory of not looking completely useless.

After my lessons I was flying and couldn’t wait to hit the next ball…until I started to tire and the whole thing turned to shit again. Richie could sense I was flagging although I think what tipped him off was me shouting “my arms are fucked” at him in the next bay. He was adamant that the last few balls would be good shots so I would have a positive memory of the night. Sure enough I hit a couple of crackers and waddled off the range as happy as a dog with two dicks.