09 - When Richie met Lucky…

My round at Kirkby highlighted some deficiencies in my game that I desperately needed to work on. Basically my driving is shit, my long game is shit and my chipping is shit. Plenty to work on. On the plus side my putting is not that bad according to Alan, I have a nice stroke apparently but what happens in the woods stays in the woods. Ahem.

I got an email from Richie asking if I fancied a sneaky trip to the driving range at Aintree. This could be a perfect time to work on the many, many facets of my game that needed more attention than a three-year-old with ADD. It would also be the first time Richie had met Lucky.

We got in and Lucky was already smacking balls up the range with his latest pissed purchase. On a recent late night, alcohol fuelled shopping trip around eBay he spotted a Nike SUMO driver that was called ‘Lucky 13’ because it has a 13* loft (is that the right term?). The fact it was called ‘Lucky’ was enough for him to spend £140 without thinking about it. After my round he asked me did I learn anything, I told him not to bother with a driver as they are too hard to control. You can imagine his face after this nugget of information!

I introduced Lucky to Richie; we found a couple of bays together and started practicing. It wasn’t long before Richie was looking over with a confused look on his face. He was studying Lucky’s swing and shaking his head. Lucky is right-handed but plays kinda left-handed with his right hand at the top of the shaft on top of his right.

Richie couldn’t help himself and offered some words of advice to Paul. “The first thing any professional will say to you if you ask for help is put your hands the right way around. I’m nowhere near a professional and I’m telling you to put your hands the right way around!” Seconds later Paul had his hands the right way around and was instantly back where he started a week ago.

Having to literally learn how to hit the ball again was tough on Paul but with some patient tuition from Richie he was soon just as shit as me! After an hour or so Paul was hitting the ball vaguely straight and quite long. His injured shoulder was now aching from having to hit the ball properly but he was as happy which was the important thing.

I continued to practice but soon found it irritatingly difficult to control my 5 or 9 iron shots to the point where I considered lashing the clubs down the range in a scene eerily reminiscent of that son-of-a-bitch par 3 at Kirkby the week before. I took a couple of deep breaths and switched to my 3 wood…which now seemed to be possessed by someone who had a stroke and couldn’t swing properly. Fuck it, time to go home.