Free Nice Jumper by Tom Cox

minutes before tee time, allowing myself ample opportunity to check on the day’s early scores, slug a leisurely fifty or so shots up the practice fairway, develop a feel for the pace of the greens, and receive a good-luck dead leg from Nick in the shop. My pre-round routine was planned out in the finest detail in a notebook the night before under such headings as ‘Alignment’, ‘Exercise’, ‘Relaxation’ and ‘Mental Adjustments’. I was, after all, due to turn professional in just under a year’s time.
    Today was a Sphincter day, so I insisted my dad drop me half a mile away from the club in the car park of the local Texas Homecare superstore. Given a choice between humiliation at the hands of newly-weds buying woodchip or humiliation at the hands of members of the Cripsley league team, I opted for the DIY enthusiasts every time.
    As I walked up the club’s winding drive, a familiar figure came into focus, sitting by the first tee, wishing a foursome of octogenarian Irish doctors good tidings for the day. ‘Morning, Seve!’ shouted the figure. He was wearing a Pringle sweater, identical to the one Nick Faldo had donned to win the World Matchplay Championship the previous year. The crease in his Farahs would work equally well as a culinary aid and samurai weapon. As I got closer and my gaze moved down his immaculate figure, I tried to ignore my stunned face looking back at me from a pair of spiked Footjoy shoes that had been buffed to within an inch of their life.
    ‘I did say I was teeing off at two forty-seven, didn’t I? Not one forty-seven?’ I asked Gary.
    ‘Yeah, I’ve been here a while.’ He sounded chirpy.
    ‘You managed to find the club OK, then?’
    ‘Oh, easy. I took the liberty of scoping out some of the pin positions. Checked some yardages as well. My dad whizzed me up in the Testa Rossa an hour or so ago. It’s just his runabout for weekends. Your club captain seemed to like it. I thought he was going to make my dad an offer.’ He chuckled.
    Speechless, I surveyed my own attire for the day: £2.99 jumper from factory seconds shop, school trousers, cheapo polo shirt handed down from Dad, £13 all-weather golf shoes replete with ill-concealed hole in left toe.
    ‘Hi, Gary,’ hollered a passing Mike Shalcross, ignoring me.
    ‘Right, buddy. Are we ready to kick some arse, or what?’ said Gary, turning to me. But I hadn’t caught up with him yet. I was still a good forty seconds behind, my mind attempting to process the fact that he really had used the phrase ‘scoping out some of the pin positions’.
    The first hole passed tidily if uneventfully, Gary silently observing as I racked up a couple of model tee-fairway-green-putt-putt par fours. The trouble began on the third, as my squirty seven-iron approach tailed off into the greenside bunker.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about something quite obvious that’s wrong with your swing,’ said Gary, as we left the tee.
    I allowed him to continue, poised to crush him like you might crush a caterpillar that had misguidedly crawled beyond the spectator ropes at the British Open.
    ‘Well,’ he went on, ‘John Jacobs, the golf teacher, whose book I was reading last night, says that a strong left-hand grip can leave a player guarding against a destructive hook shot. I’ve noticed that your left hand shows four knuckles when you grip the club, which is very strong, and leaves you trying to compensate at impact. You kind of got away with it on the first two holes’ – here he began to demonstrate – ‘but it crept up on you on this shot.’
    The guy had spent a couple of hundred quid on golfing paraphernalia and suddenly he was Tom Kite.
    ‘Really?’ I replied, doing my best ‘you-have-much-to-learn-young-Skywalker’ voice.
    The problem was: he was right. My grip was too strong. And, if I gripped a club now, I’m sure it would still be too strong. It’s the least conventional thing about my game, and leaves me holding the club awkwardly