Almanac Golf: The 98 putts of Foxy’s debut

 

 

 

 

 

James Fox makes wine at Rockford. Which is a very good thing to be doing. He’s young, and as fit as a trout. He recently ran the Barossa half marathon in a tick over an hour and a half. His residual stamina comes from time on the mountain bike, riding with one of his wine-making mentors, Ben Radford, up through the Barossa Ranges and Kaiser Stuhl National Park and Flaxman Valley. It also comes from years of playing hockey.

 

He’s closed the curtain on that hockey career, a sport which is popular enough here for locals to have built a top-class synthetic hockey field next to the (beautiful) cricket ground in Stockwell, one of the Barossa’s many villages.

 

Given the demands on Foxy’s time, he’s been looking to find a new sport to play. He does a bit of fishing in the Gulf, but that takes time, and preparation, and is at the mercy of the weather during the colder months. He’s too young for lawn bowls. The obvious choice was to have a crack at the game of his other mentor and founder of Rockford, Robert O’Callaghan: golf.

 

Foxy’s played half a dozen times now, having joined Tanunda Pines Golf Club and, after being busy during Vintage which ran into May this year, he’s finally managed to get his third card in for handicapping. I marked his card for that round.

 

Now, Foxy is a sharp-looking rooster, tall with a clipped beard. Put him in a lemon YSL pullover and he’d get a run in an for BMW Z3s in Golf Digest. He turns up in shorts – always shorts – and a Tanunda Pines golf shirt, with a new set of clubs he’s bought off some poor novice golfer who’s been soundly defeated after trying to learn the game, on Gumtree. His only worry is that he beats his previous best score which is on its way down from 134 and sits in the mid-120s.

 

I turn up with my half-century-old Rob Gibson Slazenger blades. My only worry is whether the Tanunda Pines committee have a shirt tuck-in policy. If a cameraman snaps me at the first tee the photo might be used to promote Neurofen or Metamucil.

 

The Slazenger blades are a work of art – but only in the right hands. I bought them in 1982 at a (happier) time in my life when I could get around Indooroopilly Golf Club (in Brisbane) in a reasonable score. It pains me to say that was forty years ago and I’m embarrassed to admit that my handicap has tripled since then.

 

It’s a calm, sunny day. Foxy stands on the first tee. “You go,” I say, every extra second of stretching time of benefit. He has an elegant address. He seems at ease over the iridescent lime golf ball. Then, whack! With a backswing that makes John Rahm look like John Daly, he sets the ball sailing with a slight push-fade well beyond 200m, catching the fairway about 50m from the green.

 

He’s strong through the ball all day – his irons are OK. But he struggles with club selection and course management and he finds the greens tricky. He’s out in 56 and home in 63 for 119 off the beater. That’s an improvement.

 

That night he sends me a screen shot from the GolfLinks website. Those responsible for Australian golf have given him a handicap of 39.5. Had there been lights around the golf course he’d have teed off that night.

 

But we wait.

 

 

**

 

 

I put our names down for last Saturday’s comp – an 18 hole stableford. Winter. Morning tee off time, just after an Apex Bakery pastie for brekkie. Fine and cool. A solid breeze from the north-east. Pleasant enough, once you get walking. We’re off the blue tees so Foxy’s handicap is 42. He’s even keener.

 

I am there for this momentous occasion: Foxy’s first shot in competitive golf. The backswing is still hockey-player short. Well-timed, the ball starts on a perfect line, fades and finishes 60 metres from the green.

 

I feel the wind over my left shoulder and, still in my 1980s body, think to myself:  “I can get close to this short par 4.”

 

I’ve been watching the US Open from before dawn and I’ve decided that I can start well today. Par at the worst.

 

I haven’t hit a practice ball on the range, I’ve hardly warmed up, and my lower back feels fused, yet I’m still willing to take on the 220 metre carry across the badlands to get close to the elevated green. My drive is adequate, in a powerless sort of way, and falls into the rough where it comes to rest on the wrong side of a Barnbougle-ish tuft. I get my wedge caught on the downswing and promote the Titleist 10 metres or so. I’m still among the clumps and I have to punch into a wedge to ensure contact. It darts to the green and, no chance of pulling up, runs up the bank at the back and back down into the hollow alongside the green. Handy enough, all things considered.

 

Meanwhile, Foxy has considered his options, and pulled out his pitching wedge. He thins it, the ball flies low, misses the upslope at the front of the green, and careers over the back, coming to rest a few metres through He chooses the putter, which is a good selection, given he’s on a downslope with a tight lie. He’s not nipping a delicate lob to a tiny landing spot. His nervy putt reaches the green, trickles down, but leaves himself 20 feet short.

 

The first green at Tanunda Pines is a killer. I survey my shot, a delicate chip which I’m no chance of pulling off either. I’m a metre off the green, perfect lie and I just have to reach the top of the rise and let the ball run down to the hole. Ingloriously, I bail out with the putter. With a decelerating jab I leave the ball about a foot onto the cut section, 15 feet short. Foxy’s pulls his down-hiller catches the break and keeps wandering away, finishing hole high but 12 feet left. “The pace was OK,” I say, encouragingly. He hits an OK putt which catches the right edge and flicks away about 12 inches. He taps the next putt so gently it darts across the face and misses. As he reaches to pick out his ball, he has that golfer’s look: how did that happen? But he retains his composure.

 

I am the golfer with half a century’s experience and I tell myself I need to get my down-hiller on line and let it fall into the hole. After a jerky crunch, I find myself eight foot below the hole. I’m no chance on the one coming back. We’ve both had sevens.

 

The more significant statistic is that together we have used the putter nine times.

 

At the second, we have six putts, and seven putts at the third.

 

We have a combined 98 putts for the round. It would be poor form to mention the split but it was close to 50-50.

 

In a perverse way I’m disappointed that we didn’t make the ton.

 

That night I check the Tanunda Pines website. Foxy has lost C Grade on a countback! I didn’t get a ball in the B-Grade rundown.

 

Foxy can hit the ball and he’s going to be very handy when he comes to terms with the greens.

 

Me? I’ve got some changes to make. The first is my writer bio which until now read: “I may not be the worst putter in the world but I am in the worst three.”

 

Make that four.

 

 

 

Addendum: At the 150-odd metre par 3 13th the wind was solid, into us right to left, the pin tucked left side on the lower tier under the ridge. I hit a ballooning high draw which tracked left, landed three feet from the pin on the top side and trickled with the slope to about two feet. I hardly touched the birdie putt but it dribbled- five feet past and left the one back on the lip. Bogey four. The last five holes were traversed in a state of defeat. I did return home with 22,000 steps on the Fitbit which put me well ahead of the kids, so I’ve got that going for  me.

 

 

Read more from John Harms HERE

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