More facts about golf

While 'Birdie' is something we want to show in our scorecards, my friend Augie was not happy with this birdie, a crow which took off with the ball at the Bangalore Golf club. He looked upset as he spoke about it much later in Bangkok. He said he had missed a birdie opportunnity. Mohan who had joined us on that day came up with a nice comment, ' You could have still called it a Birdie in your score card'! There was some fun speculation about what the rules would say if the crow had actually dropped it into the hole.

Here is a tale from my much younger pre-golfing days. Being an avid reader of P.G.Wodehouse I knew clubs had funny names like Niblick, Mashie and so on. I found out that these are not current in an embarrassing way. I was visiting with my mother the family of a very senior person in the administrative services and a nice one. He had just returned from a game of golf and thinking that I would impress him, hoped his Mashie behaved that day. He looked at me strangely and said that those were ancient names as clubs have numbers now.

They sure do, bigger numbers are shorter and are in different types like Irons, Woods, Wedges and of course the Putter.There are recent additions like Rescue or Utility clubs! As we are allowed to carry only 14 clubs, we take a combination of these. The club shafts can be of steel, graphite with many flexes. Golf club technology seems to have run riot and choices are mind boggling. The criteria for the choice of clubs are many and the subject huge. Actually it makes sense to get your first set from a garage sale as it does not really matter initially.

There are stories of Pros who were disqualified in a tournament as they had more than 14 clubs in their bags. It is strange as even 14 appears too many, could be an honest counting error. While we amateurs can manage with half a set most of us carry the full set. It is known as ‘vana Jambha’ in Kannada, the need to show off while being without real substance!

The bag with the clubs, umbrella, balls and water is heavy and it is tough carrying them around the golf course for 4 to 5 hours at my age. While in the US, I managed with a struggle or took a ride in the buggy. Luckily it is different in Asia as caddies are usually compulsory.

I heard this story from one who came as a VIP delegate from a neighboring country and played in one of Bangkok’s exclusive courses. He said that each player had four ‘lady’ caddies. One for the clubs, another for the umbrella, the third to write the score and the role of the fourth he forgot to specify. We can imagine and marvel at the crowd at the Tee and on the Green. I forgot to ask him if they had golf carts as well. The convoy would have been indeed impressive! We poor amateurs make do with one caddy . The caddies are normally women and very pleasant and I think they have a sense of humor as I hear giggles occasionally; unfortunately my Thai is not good enough to understand why.