One White Hand, the early years…..

“Alan’s lent me his golf clubs. Do you fancy a go on the driving range at lunctime?”

Seemingly innocuous words, but they were the real beginning. Ashle (pronounced ‘Ashley’ by his wife, ‘Ashull’ by anyone taking the piss out of him), drove us there. We paid out £2.50 and filled baskets with balls and walked out.
There followed about 10 minutes of ‘Urgh!’ and ‘nearly’ and then, during a quiet spell, a perfect ‘click’ followed by a ‘Jesus!’ and I’d hit my first good shot. I was instantly hooked and many say I’m still trying to replicate that moment. Bastards.

Incidentally, a few weeks later I went to the range on my own, put my money in but forgot to put a basket under the chute. Cue one gormless looking bloke with white balls scattering all over the floor, scrabbling round trying to scoop them all into a basket.

Then, one week later, I went back with Ashle. I was telling him this story as I started to count my cash out and feed it into the machine. As I was popping the last 50p in I finished with “That’s the sort of thing you only do once”. His knowing, barely contained grin suddenly vanished and was replaced with full-on braying laughter. I thought “well, it was funny, but not that funny” and then rolled my eyes into my head as the first of 100 golf balls sprayed out of the machine and between my legs.
He was still laughing so hard, even when I’d scooped them all into a basket that I had to help him up from the floor, by his knackers.

Anyway, our first few games of golf were at little nine-holers around Chorley. Highfield, Yarrow Valley, places where we wouldn’t stand out too much if we were hacking very badly, and we were.
We then progressed to our first real 18 holes of golf, Duxbury Municipal Golf Course, Chorley. Wonderful day, great weather, good company, awful golf (this will be a recurring theme).

Then, a bombshell.

I buy a lot of ‘stuff’ from a huge IT company. This company have a number of sponsorship deals, corporate days etc, all over Europe. I worked with a Client Services Manager called Neil. Our conversation one morning…..

Neil: “I’ve heard you’ve started playing golf Mark. I’ll try to get you on the CSC corporate day next month if you fancy.”

Me: “Yeah alright, where’s that then?”

Neil: “Wentworth”

Yes, my second full 18 holes of golf was played out (sort of) on the West course at Wentworth.
On a blazing day we set off, started by a proper starter, in front of the imposing white gothic clubhouse, and I only had to clear about 150 yards to reach the fairway. Gulp.
Thankfully, it was fairly straight and long, for once. No pressure or anything.

Anyway, I had a great time, played awfully, managed to hit our playing partner’s buggy not once, but twice, and generally hacked my way around one of the country's most prestigious courses.
Afterwards in the bar, knowing full well I would never be invited back I confessed it was only the second time I had been round a full 18 holes. The expressions around the table were priceless.

The absolute best memory isn't actually of the course. 3 months later we were watching the World Matchplay Championship. Paul MacGinley is teeing off on the 10th, uphill, par 3. He strikes the ball, up, up, up. Down, about 8 yards short of the green.

Me: “Yeah, I did that too”.