Last Rounds

The week started with one of those jobs that I had been putting off for as long as possible.

Having reluctantly decided at the end of last year that I had to accept the inevitable and acknowledge that my golfing days were now behind me, it was time to visit my club, Delamere Forest, and inform Adam, our secretary, that it was my intention to resign my membership.  It’s surprisingly difficult to take those final steps even though my last full round had been as long ago as October 2021 – a couple of weeks before Covid came calling and changed everything for ever.

In the interim I had managed a couple of nine holes, a six-holer and a four-holer – and that’s pretty much been my lot.  My body doesn’t like rotating any more and as for attempting to apply power – well, you can forget it.

The search has been on for a new pastime and that prompted me to have my first Nordic Walking lesson last week.  It was a one-on-one with the fantastically knowledgeable Shelagh and I really, really enjoyed it.  What I love about it is there’s a degree of technique to get your head around, which seems to resonate with my golfing background.  It also promises that the more proficient you become the more you will benefit from an all-over body workout.  That, for me, makes it much more interesting and beneficial than simply power walking, which was my exercise of choice when trying to regain a little fitness over the last three years and with which I failed to build up any arm strength.

It’s early days, for sure, but I am excited to keep exploring and see if I can improve and, in the fullness of time, find a few congenial groups to join.

So, if faced with your own last-ever round of golf which venue would you choose……..and which companions?

Over many years frequenting TV compounds and media centres at golf tournaments I have listened to and taken part in numerous conversations on the above topic.  These chats always provided enough fodder to while away interminable rain delays and such like and, depending on who was around, threw up some interesting and intriguing choices.

Some folk name a bucket-list venue, others their home club or a holiday favourite.  As regards the make-up of those playing, many choose family members, some choose global stars and yet others close friends.

Dai, my late brother-in-law’s choice of course was one I’ve never played – Royal West Norfolk, aka Brancaster.  He was granted his wish but, of course, you never think at the time that it’ll be your final round.  My final round was at Delamere, a club that I have had a close association with since the early 1980s and a course I love.  In the interests of total transparency, given a choice, I would probably have picked Portstewart or Portrush because rounds of golf there, for me, are inextricably bound up with decades of memories of family, friends and competitions going back to an idyllic childhood.  The emotional ties are strong.

But I have no complaint whatsoever about Delamere – it would always have been tucked in there closely behind the two Irish courses and the emotional ties are strong there too.  My companions on that day were my “Tuesday Four” and I have to admit (secretly) that I was as blessed with my companions as with the venue.  I didn’t tell them that though!  I told them I was still in recovery but I have to admit there was a tear in my eye when one of them said:-

“I absolutely loved our times out on the course.  We laughed so much – happy days.”

I concur.

It’s interesting the rounds of golf that stick in our minds – out of the thousands and thousands that we play.  Obviously rounds that mark a great personal achievement will figure but perhaps not as much as you think.  At the recent PGA Merchandise show in Florida Tom Watson was doing a one-on-one interview to a selected audience when he was asked if he’d share his favourite memory about the game of golf.

Would it be his phenomenal performance on the sun-baked fairways of Turnberry in 1977 when he and Jack Nicklaus traded one brilliant shot with another in what came to be known as “the duel in the sun”?  Watson prevailed and won the second of his five Open Championship titles there.  Perhaps it would be his chip-in at Pebble Beach’s 17th hole on his way to his US Open victory?

The dewy-eyed Watson, owner of eight majors and pretty much every other award the game could throw at him, bypassed all of those magnificent achievements in favour of a quiet round with his Dad and his Dad achieving his goal of breaking 90.

And right there is why this game hooks so many of us in.  Most of us haven’t the skill or application to win lots of stuff – there are tons of people better than us, after all – but we’ve all enjoyed rounds with pals, parents and children.

Perhaps we’ve met folk on the 1st tee who’ve gone on to be significant in our lives – that might make for a favourite memory.  Whatever it is that causes one round to stand out over another you can bet your bottom dollar it revolves around the amount of fun, banter and laughter you’ve all shared as well as the frustrations and emotional highs and lows that seemingly accompany every round.

Cups, trophies, handicap reductions – yes, they’re all great if they happen to come along, but, it’s the craic that we remember and hold in our hearts.

Ah yes, it’s a great game.