Golf by Luke Dilworth
Golf, what a topsy-turvy game: from Rory McIlroy’s extraordinary final round meltdowns at the Masters Tournament in Augusta on April 10 (final round) and the BMW PGA Championship in Quail Hallow in early May to his amazing turn-around in Hong Kong on December 4th. What I really dislike about golf is the way in which they make putting from 30 to 40 yards look like a piece of cake. I always try to whack a golf ball 200-250 metres but to no avail; I end up almost rolling it 2 or 3 yards at a time. If I were entered into a 4 round golf tournament I’d probably get a +5 par every time. I often wonder how on earth they lift the balls to such great height and how they can chip in from a bunker with a torrential downpour and gusts of 100 mph.
Like most other sports, your personal life will affect your sporting life. Tiger Woods went from World Number 1 down to outside the top 50 in a matter of months because of infidelity.
Golf dates back to 1297 to commerate the capture of the assassin of Floris V of Persia the year before.
There is an amazing glossary of phrases in golf such as, “The 19th hole is the clubhouse bar” and “a dog licence” which is when, in a matchplay, you and your teammate lose 7 and 6. Then there are words: an Austin is any ball that lands off of the green yet is still on an imaginary line passing through the flagstick; an ostrich is when a player scores a hole in one on a par 6 hole; a scratch golfer is someone who has a handicap of 0; a whiff is when a player fails to make contact with the ball and it is counted as a stroke; when a player gets 3 consecutive birdies it’s called a turkey while a condor is a four under par score. Did you know that a hacker is an unskilled golfer or that a snowman is when a person scores an 8 on a hole? It is so-called because the number 8 looks like a snowman; a sprachle is when you play very badly.
There are plenty of others also. My chances of reaching golf stardom are over 1,000,000,000 to 1 {1 billion to 1}. In other words, for me golf is an amazing hobby but not a profession!