Eat Sandwedge, sleep Sandwedge, drink ...

WELL, where to begin. As they say in all the best comics: When last we saw our hero he was recuperating in the intensive care unit of Morons Hospital after coming out the worse in a contretemps with a flight of stairs. I was out for five full weeks, the entire month of April, and missed, among other things, outings to Portmarnock and St Margaret's. I was particularly disgusted about Portmarnock.

Then, at long last, I was back. A brief visit to the driving range proved I could swing a club without wincing, and I headed off to get my first lesson. I called in to my prospective teacher/coach/ guru on spec, expecting only to arrange a time for our first lesson. Instead, we spent an hour and a half together, and I entered (I now know) a class of a parallel universe in which the only life form is The Golfer. It's a bit eerie, but I'm getting used to the place.

He was around at the side of the clubhouse, at the practise ground, popping balls onto the green with a sand iron. Although we had spoken on the telephone a few weeks earlier, it was clear he still wasn't certain he wanted to be associated with this enterprise. One of the first things he said, in his quiet way, was: Don't you think you're being a little naive?" Ouch.

But he decided to test the water. Now, if you were going to introduce a novice to golf, which club would you start with? Something simple, right, maybe a five, a seven? Nope. Go get your sandwedge. Stash all the other clubs in the back of the closet and get out the sandwedge.

It surprised me. But I later put the query to a colleague in here who's the neatest of golfers, plays off 10 with his eyes closed. "Sandwedge," he said. Why? "It tells you everything you need to know about a golfer: how you grip the club, how you set up, what sort of rhythm you've got. And he wanted to see if you could manufacture a shot."

Right on all counts. He watched me chip five or six balls (it was always the worst part of my game), and he stepped back. He then spoke for a couple of minutes, and although I can't really recall any of it precisely, by the end I realised what he was telling me in his delicate, polite and rather roundabout way was:

"If we are to do this, then you, sir, will have to start from scratch. You will have to make many changes. You will have to do precisely as I tell you, whether you agree or not. And you must practise." I committed myself to him, and it was then I entered this parallel world.

He changed my grip, but that I had expected. Over the years it had become ludicrously strong. All the videos and instruction books say you should show at most two knuckles of the top hand; I was showing five (honest) and there was room for a sixth. And he got me to overlap the left little finger with the right pointer (remember, I'm a ciotog). It was awkward initially, of course, but it also, in a strange sense, felt right straightaway.

Then it was time to manufacture a shot. He wanted me to pop the ball straight up into the air, a Phil Mickelson special. To do this you hold the club face open flat, and break your wrists fully and instantly as you start the takeaway. Then, with a long, steep backswing, you chop down through the ball with a snap of the wrist. The thing hops up off the ground as if it had rolled onto a small landmine.

After a dozen - failed - attempts at this, I inquired sheepishly if this wasn't a rather sophisticated shot. "It is," he said. "Try again."

Practice? Since that day just over three weeks ago I have spent at least an hour, and usually more like two, every single day (bar two in Galway) popping golf balls up and down the Bull Island or out at Hollystown. The first two days were hellish, but then something clicked and I understood the method behind the apparent madness of asking a beginner to master a difficult shot: it is the essence of the golf swing, getting the hands to move through the ball.

Pop, pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop. When I got tired, or bored, or lost the rhythm, I'd have a right old cut at the ball - and lo and behold, the bloody thing would fly high and straight as an arrow. I could never do that before.

When I returned a week later for our second lesson I was delighted to see that the enormous improvement I thought I had made was as obvious to the boss as it was to me, and I think it was then that he began to believe that taking me on as a pupil wasn't going to turn out to be the worst decision of his life.

On our second lesson we hit a few seven irons, and he got me to steady my left (rear) knee to help transfer the weight. It had an instant effect: suddenly I felt remarkably balanced and, as a pleasant side effect, felt that I didn't need to swing so hard.

During that week I still spent the majority of my practise time pop pop popping, but I'd treat myself at the end of the session to firing off a few seven and five irons. I have never hit the ball so cleanly.

The third lesson, the entire, hour long lesson, was back pitching balls onto the green.

In these three weeks I haven't played a single round of golf, and yet, at the risk of sounding utterly ludicrous, I know that my game has entered another, much loftier plane. I'm striking the ball with an authority I could never have imagined.

That's all well and good, says you. Can you bring it out on the course? I don't know. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks.

I'll also tell you who this miracle worker of a coach is who has brought about this transformation.