job as an assistant pro in order to play full time, but seemed vague on the subject of funding.
They also learned a little about me â namely that the starter on the first tee had said, âOn the tee, representing England ⦠Tom Cox!â not because I represented England in any official capacity, but because I didnât really represent anywhere else.
Having located my ball â a Titleist number two â in the fairway, ten yards behind those of Grant and Michael, I proceeded to flump a wedge shot fifty yards short of the green â and about five yards short of the accompanying divot â thus learning my first lesson as a pro golfer: Donât Get too Heavily Involved in a Conversation Just Before You Hit Your Shot.
My second, slightly more severe, lesson came about ten minutes later.
When the man with the silly deep voice tells you on the advert that Titleist is âthe number one ball in golfâ heâs not just being a man with a silly deep voice talking crap. There are other balls that crop up on the pro circuit â the odd Srixon, the occasional Nike, the lesser-spotted Maxfli â but the chances are, if youâre watching three pros in action, youâll be seeing three pros playing with the same ball: either a Titleist Pro-V1 or the slightly lower-flying Titleist Pro-V1X. Back in my junior golfing days, a soft, high performance ball â which the Pro-Vs are intended to be â also meant a ball that, in the aftermath of a shot struck anything less than delectably, could very quickly take on the shape and texture of a Satsuma. It was an understatement to say that, in the intervening years, golf ball technology had come on. Despite the fact that they cost almost £4 each, I couldnât help being seduced by the Pro-Vs â their smooth enamel texture, the way they were somehow simultaneously soft and robust â and, if you ignored the time a couple of years ago when Iâd won a pack of twelve Nikes in a local long-drive competition, Iâd become a little bit of a purist about them.
One byproduct of the culture of everyone choosing the same ball is that it becomes all the more important to find a way of distinguishing yours from those of your playing partners.
Each Titleist is stamped with a single digit number, usually between one and four, to help with differentiation, but it is a cast-iron rule that, in addition to this, each player must mark his ball individually. Some pros will use their own stamp or, as was the case with the Titleists of Michael and Grant, clandestine squiggle. My plan had been to draw a small Coxâs apple on mine, but since that would have proved time-consuming, and my shaking first-tee hands probably would have made it look more like a pear, Iâd gone for the more reliable â and somewhat old-school â âthree green dotâ formation in permanent marker pen: one above the Titleist logo, and one on either side of it.
The problem with permanent marker ink, of course, is that, like life, or good golf, its permanence is only an illusion. On a dew-sodden morning it can sometimes rub off as a ball makes its journey through fairway, rough and â quite possibly, in my case â shrubbery. And so it was that, as I marked my ball before putting for my par on the second hole, I noticed that it no longer had three dots on it, only two. Consumed by the task of stabbing my ten-foot par putt wide of the hole, I dismissed the matter from my mind. After all, it had happened before, plenty of times. If my Titleist shed more of its ink, then Iâd attend to the situation, but for now the important thing was that it was still distinguished from Grantâs and Michaelâs. I didnât really think about the matter again until I reached my approach shot on the third hole, marked my ball and began to clean it.
I noted, once again, that the ball bore just two green dots.
I also now noted that these dots were in a
They also learned a little about me â namely that the starter on the first tee had said, âOn the tee, representing England ⦠Tom Cox!â not because I represented England in any official capacity, but because I didnât really represent anywhere else.
Having located my ball â a Titleist number two â in the fairway, ten yards behind those of Grant and Michael, I proceeded to flump a wedge shot fifty yards short of the green â and about five yards short of the accompanying divot â thus learning my first lesson as a pro golfer: Donât Get too Heavily Involved in a Conversation Just Before You Hit Your Shot.
My second, slightly more severe, lesson came about ten minutes later.
When the man with the silly deep voice tells you on the advert that Titleist is âthe number one ball in golfâ heâs not just being a man with a silly deep voice talking crap. There are other balls that crop up on the pro circuit â the odd Srixon, the occasional Nike, the lesser-spotted Maxfli â but the chances are, if youâre watching three pros in action, youâll be seeing three pros playing with the same ball: either a Titleist Pro-V1 or the slightly lower-flying Titleist Pro-V1X. Back in my junior golfing days, a soft, high performance ball â which the Pro-Vs are intended to be â also meant a ball that, in the aftermath of a shot struck anything less than delectably, could very quickly take on the shape and texture of a Satsuma. It was an understatement to say that, in the intervening years, golf ball technology had come on. Despite the fact that they cost almost £4 each, I couldnât help being seduced by the Pro-Vs â their smooth enamel texture, the way they were somehow simultaneously soft and robust â and, if you ignored the time a couple of years ago when Iâd won a pack of twelve Nikes in a local long-drive competition, Iâd become a little bit of a purist about them.
One byproduct of the culture of everyone choosing the same ball is that it becomes all the more important to find a way of distinguishing yours from those of your playing partners.
Each Titleist is stamped with a single digit number, usually between one and four, to help with differentiation, but it is a cast-iron rule that, in addition to this, each player must mark his ball individually. Some pros will use their own stamp or, as was the case with the Titleists of Michael and Grant, clandestine squiggle. My plan had been to draw a small Coxâs apple on mine, but since that would have proved time-consuming, and my shaking first-tee hands probably would have made it look more like a pear, Iâd gone for the more reliable â and somewhat old-school â âthree green dotâ formation in permanent marker pen: one above the Titleist logo, and one on either side of it.
The problem with permanent marker ink, of course, is that, like life, or good golf, its permanence is only an illusion. On a dew-sodden morning it can sometimes rub off as a ball makes its journey through fairway, rough and â quite possibly, in my case â shrubbery. And so it was that, as I marked my ball before putting for my par on the second hole, I noticed that it no longer had three dots on it, only two. Consumed by the task of stabbing my ten-foot par putt wide of the hole, I dismissed the matter from my mind. After all, it had happened before, plenty of times. If my Titleist shed more of its ink, then Iâd attend to the situation, but for now the important thing was that it was still distinguished from Grantâs and Michaelâs. I didnât really think about the matter again until I reached my approach shot on the third hole, marked my ball and began to clean it.
I noted, once again, that the ball bore just two green dots.
I also now noted that these dots were in a
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