THINGS which are familiar tend to be neglected. They're taken for granted, become part of the scenery and are walked past, snubbed and ignored. For instance, all my kitchen appliances, bought when I moved into my flat almost 30 years ago, have stealthily turned into collector's items without me noticing.
To me, they have remained brand new. I've only started to replace them since alleged friends began making derogatory remarks and looking sniffy when they looked around them. So far, the replacement units haven't impressed me overmuch and I'm not conv
inced that having them installed has been worth the upheaval involved, but they certainly look cleaner.
The old ones hadn't looked decrepit to my eyes, but I can see now that they probably were. I suppose that much the same goes for me and when my time comes to be regarded sniffily I'm ready to go quietly. This riveting line of thought was prompted by the news recently gleaned from reliable sources to the effect that a club golfer is known to be playing with clubs which haven't had the grips replaced for 17 years. As was the case with me and my kitchen equipment, this golfer has become comfortable with his grips and I can see why he's reluctant to part with them, though how he manages to hang on to the clubs is hard to imagine.
Indeed, now that I come to think of it, 17 years is a fair time to stick with a set of clubs, never mind grips, but then this is a spoiled, wasteful age and such thrift should not be disparaged. If the clubs do the trick, then that's all that matters and the only question to be asked is whether they would do the trick even better if the grips had a bit of tread left on them. The game is rough enough without having to cling to the clubs as a shipwrecked soul might cling to wreckage.
New grips can rejuvenate a set of clubs and, irrespective of the results, the clubs feel better. I remember when first I forsook leather grips for the then new ribbed rubber or corded variety and was faintly alarmed at finding myself practically glued on to the club. I felt I couldn't have let go even if I'd wanted to. This euphoric state of affairs didn't last, unfortunately, which suggests that either the development of grips hasn't forged ahead as it might have been expected to, or else I've grown careless and am not paying sufficient attention to the business of laying hands on the club. The light grip I've been favouring of late might have something to do with it, of course, but then that's typical. Grip like a vice and you can't move a muscle, ease off and you throw the club away. It's just one lousy thing after another.
Indeed, the mayhem that goes on with state-of-the-art equipment and pristine grips is bad enough. A golfer of my acquaintance, who seemed to be settling into a good stride early in a recent round, suddenly went critical on a drive, swung at roughly three times his normal speed, reeled backwards and launched the ball on a near vertical trajectory into the leafy canopy of a nearby copse of trees where it seemed to loiter interminably before it was spat out, as it were, on to a bridge from which it bounced, quite miraculously, over a burn and into what turned out to be a ridiculously reasonable lie.
There hadn't been any sort of warning that this was going to happen. That line about coming out of a clear blue sky springs to mind and would have been appropriate had it not been for the fact that it happened to be overcast and raining at the time. It was doubly shocking, for steadiness is this man's middle name. He does not readily take to the trees. The incident, however, triggered an uncomfortable memory of a similar shot he'd unleashed on the previously tranquil island of Tenerife during a golfing trip some years ago.
Again, the setting was a tee – this time on a long hole – and again our man had been going well, playing his usual measured game with mind and body acting in smooth collaboration and the whole ensemble operating in a cocoon of concentration.
Then, suddenly, we were off. The quick jerk of the take-away was followed by the quicker jerk of the downswing, which followed the sort of path which might be taken by an axe swung at a log by someone in a bad mood.
We have since tried to figure out what part of the clubhead, if any, could have made contact with the ball in order to produce the take-off which occurred in the Tenerife incident. Suffice it to say, it made the take-off in the more recent happening look like a lazy climb.
Having attained a height which must have gone close to making it a potential threat to low-flying aircraft, the ball eventually returned to earth to lie just ahead of the man who'd sent it on its way.
He'd given it his all and gained about nine feet. There are times when the futility of the game is quite overwhelming.
The full article contains 888 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
