Grant would have noticed, and I could always have changed the ball for a fresh one on the next hole. Quite a few non-golfers subsequently asked me why I didnât do this (âIt wouldnât have really hurt anyone, would it?â). As cheating went, it probably seemed a fairly mild example to them â the equivalent of a slightly theatrical dive in a football match, perhaps, or keeping quiet about an incorrect line call that works to your advantage in tennis. They had clearly never heard the one about the bloke who comes into the clubhouse and announces that the bloke who sneakily kicked his ball out of the rough in last monthâs Saturday Medal has just been sentenced to thirty years in prison after being convicted on multiple counts of rape, GBH and arson (âHe kicked his ball out of the rough?â responds the Greens Committee Chairman. âRight! He can think again if he thinks heâs playing here again in the next decade!â).
Golfâs indiscriminate abhorrence of all cheaters had been ingrained in my psyche since I had taken the game up.
âYou might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank,â Bobby Jones, the thirteen-time major championship winner, famously said when he was congratulated for calling a two-stroke penalty on himself in a tournament.
I wasnât quite going to go that far â unless we were talking about a small, unusually depleted bank â but had I carried on and not admitted my mistake, I would have been in for a world of self-loathing and a lot of sleepless nights.
The following six holes resembled that period where a love affair has ended but neither party is quite able to admit it. Michael, Grant and I couldnât really see how my situation could be rectified, but since this was professional golf, we needed to find a man in one of those red car-dealerâs jackets driving a buggy, who needed to radio another man in a red car-dealerâs jacket to make my fate official. In the meantime, I played on, somewhat desultorily and, it must be said, shockingly poorly.
âItâs probably for the best,â I said to Michael. âI havenât been feeling very well for the last few days anyway.â
âYeah, I know what you mean. Iâm stuffed with antibiotics myself.â
I watched, a moment later, as he pummelled a drive thirty yards beyond mine. How far, I wondered, did he hit it when he was healthy?
âItâs a tough tour,â said Grant. âEveryoneâs scrabbling for survival, itâs expensive and thereâs hardly any prize money. But that will probably work out well for you, because it means everyoneâs dosh runs out later in the year . I wouldnât worry. Youâll still get some invites to tournaments.â
As we reached the ninth green, a buggy pulled up, and from it emerged a Europro Tour official. He said his name was Steve Cox. I wondered if he drew little apples on his golf balls, but, from looking at his stern demeanour, decided he would deem such an activity far too frivolous. After Iâd explained the exact course of events, he reiterated what the three of us already knew, and offered me a lift back to the clubhouse. I weighed up my options. On the one hand, I would have quite liked to have continued watching Grant and Michael â who were at that point standing respectively at level par and one under â serenely going about their fairway-splitting, flag-peppering business. On the other hand, there was nothing to play for, and I hadnât been in a golf buggy since 1991.
I loaded my clubs into the back. As we motored back past the first green, I replayed a dewy-eyed, dewy-fairwayed montage of my one bona fide completed hole as a pro: the duck-hooked drive, the scruffy wedge that clawed its way up onto the green, the almost-birdie-putt, the frankly quite dull tap-in that followed. I smiled to myself: the first hole was supposed to be the hardest, and at least I could
Golfâs indiscriminate abhorrence of all cheaters had been ingrained in my psyche since I had taken the game up.
âYou might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank,â Bobby Jones, the thirteen-time major championship winner, famously said when he was congratulated for calling a two-stroke penalty on himself in a tournament.
I wasnât quite going to go that far â unless we were talking about a small, unusually depleted bank â but had I carried on and not admitted my mistake, I would have been in for a world of self-loathing and a lot of sleepless nights.
The following six holes resembled that period where a love affair has ended but neither party is quite able to admit it. Michael, Grant and I couldnât really see how my situation could be rectified, but since this was professional golf, we needed to find a man in one of those red car-dealerâs jackets driving a buggy, who needed to radio another man in a red car-dealerâs jacket to make my fate official. In the meantime, I played on, somewhat desultorily and, it must be said, shockingly poorly.
âItâs probably for the best,â I said to Michael. âI havenât been feeling very well for the last few days anyway.â
âYeah, I know what you mean. Iâm stuffed with antibiotics myself.â
I watched, a moment later, as he pummelled a drive thirty yards beyond mine. How far, I wondered, did he hit it when he was healthy?
âItâs a tough tour,â said Grant. âEveryoneâs scrabbling for survival, itâs expensive and thereâs hardly any prize money. But that will probably work out well for you, because it means everyoneâs dosh runs out later in the year . I wouldnât worry. Youâll still get some invites to tournaments.â
As we reached the ninth green, a buggy pulled up, and from it emerged a Europro Tour official. He said his name was Steve Cox. I wondered if he drew little apples on his golf balls, but, from looking at his stern demeanour, decided he would deem such an activity far too frivolous. After Iâd explained the exact course of events, he reiterated what the three of us already knew, and offered me a lift back to the clubhouse. I weighed up my options. On the one hand, I would have quite liked to have continued watching Grant and Michael â who were at that point standing respectively at level par and one under â serenely going about their fairway-splitting, flag-peppering business. On the other hand, there was nothing to play for, and I hadnât been in a golf buggy since 1991.
I loaded my clubs into the back. As we motored back past the first green, I replayed a dewy-eyed, dewy-fairwayed montage of my one bona fide completed hole as a pro: the duck-hooked drive, the scruffy wedge that clawed its way up onto the green, the almost-birdie-putt, the frankly quite dull tap-in that followed. I smiled to myself: the first hole was supposed to be the hardest, and at least I could
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