A gra for golf? The myth debunkered

SURVIVING THE SUMMER: The best plan is probably not to make a plan. It's a terrible trap, making plans. Because of course, once we do, we expect them to materialise. Caroline Murphy reports.

This summer, we didn't have that many. But one of mine was to allow myself to continue. . . to attempt. . . to be persuaded. . . to learn. . . to play golf. That I should do so has been an aim of both my husband and two of my sisters for some years now. But I have valiantly resisted.

My line in the beginning was that I wasn't old enough to play golf. However that excuse has now worn thin even to my ears, and it has to be admitted that I might now even be too old.

I have other excuses. Expanding somewhat on the cliché that "golf is a good walk spoiled", I used to say that I hated walking, and I would ask why on earth anyone would want to play a game in which, the better you got, the fewer chances you had to hit the ball - and the more walking you had to do in between shots.

As I am currently back at college studying, I find myself enjoying the long summer holidays I was used to in my youth. Now I also remember that with the long holiday period there are fewer opportunities to escape the inevitable.

Take, for example, one day last year. It was late spring and I was walking with a friend, about my age, to a car park.

"Are you planning to do anything nice over the summer?" I inquired.

"Play loads of golf, I hope," she replied.

"Oh, do you like golf?" (I didn't know she played at all).

"No I hate it!".

What are we like? When we had stopped laughing hysterically at the idea of her punishing herself with a hated pastime, she managed - eventually - to come up with some sort of an apologetic explanation: "I know it's absolutely mad, but I just feel I should".

Why do we feel that we should play golf? Because we have husbands, (the husbands are usually the first converts), friends or siblings who keep on pushing? The world seems to be full, on the one hand, of those who play already and have persisted for long to enjoy it, and, on the other, of those to whom the former group keep on saying: "You really should, you know, you'd love it

. . . eventually."

But let's face it, there is quite a bit of the "eventually" about it. Starting golf is not fun. Fresh air. Lost balls. Horrible hills. Rubbish shots, with the ball dribbling about 10 feet before coming to a stop. And RULES. There are so many rules! Drop here, pick up there, ring the bell, rake the sand, replace the divot, keep your mouth well shut when anyone is about to swing and never, ever, let your shadow fall across someone else's putt. Those are ones I have picked up on the basis of just four nine-hole outings with a patient and restrained pal. How many more would be revealed if I actually went searching?

Let's be fair, though. If you are really careful about the company you keep, if you start to show up at the driving range every so often, and if that patient and restrained pal takes you out a few times and turns deaf when you curse with frustration and blind when you take three swipes to make a connection, then maybe you might get to the stage where you make an arrangement for another game that you actually intend to keep. You might even plan to visit the driving range on the Sunday in between. But then you might catch your thumb in the car door.

In the general scheme of things, accidents really don't come much smaller than catching your thumb in a car door. Especially when it's your left thumb. But it's still very, very, sore. And you would be amazed how many things become really difficult when you have a sore thumb. Like pressing the numbers on a mobile phone, or closing a zip - or holding a golf club.

So, the Sunday at the driving range was a write off. The day was spent in bed taking pain killers. The Wednesday game never happened either. The easy rhythm that might have led to me getting involved without quite noticing had been rudely interrupted.

So what now?

Well, the black thumb was handy. It took quite a while to grow out, and could be produced in evidence to justify my avoidance of the glorious game. On the other hand, the truth is that it was really no more than a minor inconvenience.

But the rhythm is gone. The Wednesdays are no longer so easily available. One course companion is on holiday, another would probably oblige, but now time has passed, and it's up to me to take the initiative, to make the arrangements. I am no longer being dragged out. Now, if I want to go and play golf, it's up to me to make that call.

Of course, if I do make it, I really will be setting out to play golf by choice. I just cannot tell you enough times how I never thought I would be this person. It was grand being dragged that was part of the plan. Choosing never was. What will become of me if I actually start saying to people: "Yes, this summer I am trying to learn to play golf".

It was so much more comfortable being dragged.

Like I said, be careful about making plans!

Caroline Murphy is a broadcaster and mother of six