Swapping out a High Tea Time for a Tee Time.
Nothing could be more boring than someone banging on about their golf game but stay with me on this one. We need more Girls that golf.
Golf is one of those sports that gives a false sense of accomplishment. Just when you pull off that perfect drive that pings through the sky and you start to question if maybe you should chuck in your current career and join the pro tour, golf will give you a swift reality slap across the face on your next shot when you swing and the ball slices, ending up on a direct course of impact to the player who is about to tee off on the next hole.
As someone who can literally pick up any sport and nail it (try me), Golf has tested me to my limits. Golf will take you to the edge of a mental breakdown, it will destroy your world as you know it and you will say curse words that will make you want to wash your own mouth out with soap.
BUT it will also give you the most incredible sense of being at one with the world, like catching that perfect wave or skiing down a perfectly groomed slope. In one freak moment your whole, body mind and spirt is in perfect unison and you stroke through the ball sending it not only in the actual direction you wanted, but with perfect trajectory and strength that it lands exactly where you wanted it to go. Absolute BLISS!
I got a couple of lessons in the beginning at the local driving range and could not believe the absence of females down there. After getting my hot tips from my coach who told me “Don’t look directly at the ball”, “Don’t hit the ball” and “Don’t think about it, just swing” my impressions of golf were that it was totally nonsensical. But after having hit balls, sorry “stroke through” balls, at the range and then venturing on to the course… and a nice 4 hours of 18 holes in the fresh air with lunch and beers afterwards, I have become a golf nut.
The golfing mantra is “you don’t play golf to relax, you have to relax to play golf”. Golf will teach you to still your mind and relax your body. It teaches you about the connection between the mind and body. They must be in synch to hit the ball. It teaches you this hit after hit, after hit. If you do a bad shot and take that energy to the next shot, you will fail. Have I thrown clubs in pure frustration? Yes. Have I intently abandoned a sand wedge club in a bunker after failing to hit a ball out, after 32 attempts? Yes. If you learn to reframe that energy though, take a deep breath, and relax the body, you’ll nail it. A great life technique to learn.
Golf culture politics are intense. Everyone sizes everyone up.
“Are they good? Oh wow…He looks like a TOTAL player… Oh yeah, take a look at their gear, pressure is ON now or he’s going to want to play through us… that would be so embarrassing… we got to bring our A-game now… oh golf gods give me strength!” or “Oh no! They are going to hold everyone up… He’s just hacking it about, FFS! He’s in the bushes trying to find his ball now! Just drop one already…”. There is also the unspoken furore between walkers versus those in carts. Wait times on holes. Yelling “Fore” if your ball is about to kill someone and judging how big someone’s ego is by which colour they tee off on.
Golf has taught me so much about myself. That when I’m pushed to my absolute darkest of limits, I will never commit murder.
But not only that, golf is indeed not just a guy sport. When I started, I did feel intimidated. Most of the time I was the only young female on the course. But over the last couple of years, more and more young women are taking up the sport and so we should. We are just as entitled to have our souls destroyed when we swing and miss the ball 11 times… just as we are entitled to drown in the euphoria of sinking that long putt. Don’t let your partner be the only golf bore as they say, “if you can’t beat them- join them”. Forget couples therapy too, go play a round of golf with your partner. Swap date night at the local Italian and book a tee time. If you can survive a round of 18 holes together, you can survive anything.
The best thing about golf is that you will never master it. Even the pros have bad days. You grow with it. It’s slow but addictive. Nothing will get your heart pumping more than standing at the tee off on the 1st hole with a bunch of people intently watching and waiting for you to take your first shot. At the end of the day, I’ve learnt that golf is the best human equaliser, no matter who you are. So may the ‘fores’ be with you.