For me sport is not all about winning. It’s about friendship, skills, timing, focus, social fun, health and just having a good time. I have had my moments, wins, placings, trophies, good times, but never good enough to get ahead of myself.
However, I have to admit that I’m psychologically unfit to play golf.
I played lawn bowls for 20-odd years. A simple game in theory. Get the big black ball closest to the wee white one. In practice, it is anything but easy. I call it character-forming. It is a great game and a great culture to be part of. Good people play bowls and it abounds in strength in Whanganui.
The two basic tenets of lawn bowls are weight and green. That’s all you have to think about most of the time. But then there is the state of the rink, the wind, the weather. All are factors that can impact hugely on an outcome. The player or team who masters every one of those factors the quickest in any game stands a good chance of winning.
It’s a restful atmosphere on a beautiful day at a bowling club. There is morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. A bar for afters and the odd raffle or two to liven the day up. It is usually a quiet game, all skill, concentration and focus.
There is of course the serious side. Representative teams, nationals, international selection for Commonwealth Games teams.
But club days are the bread and butter of the sport. Days where everyone from novices to champions can play in the same team in tournaments or just a roll-up at their level. Some players are hugely competitive; others just quietly cruise on by. It is a sport for everyone.
I’ve never been interested in golf: as the saying goes, it’s just a way to ruin a good walk. However, I found myself part of a group of between four and eight guys who liked trout fishing, had boats and competed in the Kinloch trout fishing competition for many years straight.
The others were all very good golfers so I got dragged into Ambrose-style games, nine holes at Kinloch or Wairakei courses.
I thought initially I’d just cruise through. Stick and ball, no worries, how hard can it be? My mates smacked the ball for miles off the tee. Well, blow me down. No amount of coaching from my mates, concentration and effort from me worked. Getting past the ladies’ tee was usually a good day when I started.
Funnily enough by the time I eventually found my way to the green after zig-zagging up the fairway, exploring the long grass and the trees on the side and occasionally losing my ball, the putting was easy. Probably the years of lawn bowls helped there - weight and focus.
The madder I got the worse things went. Getting heaps from my mates didn’t help. Mind you I can dish plenty out so I just took it on the chin.
Over the years four of us would also play at Tawhero or Castlecliff on some Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings. I never had clubs; being a fiscally prudent individual with no real interest in the game I just borrowed my mates’.
Golf never grabbed me. When a sport grabs me I really get into it, all the gear and clothes. I join the club, get involved in the committees, fundraising, selling raffles, working on the bar, arranging trips to other clubs, all that good stuff that thousands of sportspeople enjoy doing around the country.
My mates kept mentioning slow improvement, hinting that it was time I got my own clubs and stopped bludging theirs. I just laughed of course as I reached for my partner’s hugely expensive driver.
But over a period of some weeks I began to feel maybe I should get some bats. I was now only mildly hopeless at the game, didn’t enjoy it, only doing it to make up the numbers and because my mates are really good guys I enjoyed being with.
I decided that, friendship aside, golf was not really for me. I always struggle to see why people like it so much. Also, it’s probably the only physical activity that just remained well beyond my competence and skill sets.
We don’t do Taupō anymore so I don’t need to suffer through nine holes of self-inflicted frustration, temper, and embarrassment.
