Almanac Golf: House Rules

 

 

One of our teenagers had Covid so we have been in iso. I was swinging a couple of clubs in the back yard, reflecting on home golf practice as a kid. These are my memories; I would love to hear from other Almanackers on theirs.

 

Dad, my brother Chris and I took up golf with a vengeance in the early 1970s in Eaglehawk. Like many golf fans we developed our own home practice facilities. As with all great golf venues, our practice facilities incorporated different configurations, each with their unique features.

 

The simplest configuration was the lounge room. Practice putting on the lounge room carpet, normally aiming at a chair leg. Sometimes we would change it up a little and Chris and I would aim for the cat (named Gunston Mark I or II after the brilliant Garry McDonald character) – contact was extremely infrequent, feline evasive skills far surpassing the putts propelled by our Schenectady putters.

 

Our lounge room had some form of tightly woven, tough carpet – no shag pile in Eaglehawk. When Mum and Dad were elsewhere, the lounge room also proved useful for practising 9 irons and wedges off the carpet and into the heavy drapes covering the living room window. Oh, for the confidence of youth – pretty much full blown shots with a shallow swing were the order of the day. There was the odd close call if you hit one skinny. One evening a badly shanked pitching wedge narrowly missed Mum’s prized crystal cabinet.

 

Unfortunately, lounge room practice did not prepare me particularly well for future endeavours. Years later at Melbourne University’s Newman College, I was in the room shared by a couple of friends who are still among my best mates. One is now a significant Australian business figure and his roommate, Jacko, significant but definitely not a business figure, remains the most uninhibited person I have ever met. I was demonstrating the sand wedge shot and took a full swing. Newman College carpet circa 1977 was a softer pile than the carpet at home and, in fairness, probably had a few decades of beer and red wine softener applied to it. My effort produced a nicely shaped (being critical, perhaps hit a trifle outside in) 8-inch carpet divot.

 

Anyway, back to Eaglehawk. Chris and I also practised putting up and down the long hallway from our parents’ bedroom to the kitchen. We shut the doors at both ends and padded them with pillows. Initial good intentions and serious putting would deteriorate into kneecapping line drives aimed at each other’s shins – at least until Dad intervened.

 

Our rectangular brick veneer home sat on top of a hill at about a 30-degree angle towards the rear of a 900 square metre block. Chris and I had a 3-hole course around the house. The ‘turf’ was grass of indeterminate origin; the holes were old jam tins. You played with a single club – usually a pitching wedge or 9 iron, no putters allowed.

 

First hole, par 3, from next to the carport over the side fence, hopefully avoiding the old caravan. Next another par 3, along the back of the house with a tricky bottleneck between the back steps and the Hills hoist and then under the lemon tree. The final signature hole, par 4, started in the corner of the back yard, dog legged around the side of the house, then diagonally across the front yard to a hole next to the battered brick letter box (which was strategically positioned so that anyone backing a vehicle out of the curved driveway ran into it). An eagle was gettable but you had to lay a pitching wedge way open for elevation and hit over our parents’ bedroom window. It was the ultimate risk /reward proposition and not often attempted.

 

In 1976 the neighbours moved out and next door was empty for a while. So we introduced a quasi-19th hole. You hit over the side fence into their yard and climbed the fence to putt out. While playing this hole, Chris wondered why the small door to access underneath their house was ajar. Upon investigating he discovered my stash of underage illicit alcohol – easily transportable, small flasks of Corio 5 Star Whisky and Bacardi. I swore him to silence from our parents – he complied but blackmailed me for months.

 

Across the road and downhill from the house was a semi-cleared gully area, full of bare dirt, quartz-based rocks and scrub. Once or twice a year, to prepare for fire season, they ran over the area with a slasher behind a tractor to keep the scrub and grass under control.

 

Our third practice venue was hitting balls off the front lawn (we didn’t have any front fence) over the road and down into this area. Maximum distance might have been a bit over 200 metres. Even Dad would slice a few 4 woods down into there on Saturday morning as a warm-up before golf; our golf club had no practice fairway as such at that time. If you failed to clear the road, the ball ran downhill into a drainage inspection pit where you had to vie with the redback spiders to recover it. The prime, in fact, the only directive, care of Mum, was no hitting back towards the house.

 

One day, way down in the gully picking up balls, Chris said “Bet you can’t hit a 3 wood back onto the front lawn.“ Challenge accepted, of course. I swung the old PGF 3 wood easily (memo to self “Don’t hit this too far”) and the ball came right out of the screws. Said ball cleared the road, then the front lawn, missed the old ironbark tree near the front door and smashed through the left of 2 lounge room windows.

 

That window took a battering over the years. It bordered the carport we used for tennis practice and was in the firing line for the forehands of my right-handed siblings, Chris and Jeanne, and also my lefty’s unreliable backhand. I estimate 4 or 5 breakages over the years and a hiatus period when Mum temporarily gave in and glazed it with cardboard. Finally, Dad drilled some holes into the mortar between the bricks and hung an old tarp off some nails. That worked well.

 

The area hasn’t changed much today. Unfortunately, our house is now demolished but a couple of years ago I took a sentimental drive through the area and spotted a golf ball down in the gully. It turned out to be a battered and decrepit Slazenger B51 with deep mower slashes on it, testament to our practice nearing half a century ago.

 

 

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Comments

  1. Good stuff, Mark, as it takes me back to what passed for my version of the same thing. Unfortunately it didn’t involve golf clubs or golf balls – we didn’t have any! Instead, it was a tennis racquet used as a putter and a tennis ball with a few holes dug in the front yard at the farm. There were enough undulations to make it interesting. The side wall of the garage doubled as the tennis practice wall using the very same equipment.

    Later on in tertiary study years, when we had the right equipment, it was a 3-hole putting layout on the not-all-that-friendly front lawn of 1 Winchester Street. If we wanted to hit something longer, we went over the road to the main oval of Concordia College to smack a few irons but the oval wasn’t long enough to drag out the woods.

    Then, in the late 80s, JTH and I used to use the layout of the H Block staffroom as we had our weekly planning meeting for our shared Year 11 History class.

  2. Enjoyable read Mark. We weren’t brave enough or didn’t have a big enough back yard for serious home golf. I remember the hard plastic practice balls with Swiss cheese style holes were our go. Must have been 18 before I ever bought a new golf ball. We scoured the course for lost balls. Dad got the best ones. I played with the seconds. Soft skinned balata balls of the 60’s & 70’s were easily cut by errant swings. Loved debating whether symmetrical cuts on either wing would generate a straight ball flight.
    On the broken window front my best effort was a stunning Greg Chappell on-drive through the largest picture window in the house. Dad was mad. I was confused that I finally hit one out of the middle and got punished for it.

  3. Great story Mark. There’s nothing like the games of our childhood, often set in, around and sometimes through the family home.

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