A little perspective

Today was all about golf.

My first engagement was at the Bristol Golf Centre in Hambrook.  This is a remarkable place.  There are numerous professionals, a state of the art driving range, a well-stocked (have you ever heard of an advertised poorly stocked?) shop and no course, unless you count an albeit excellent Crazy Golf course next door.  I digress.

On Thursdays, the Centre holds a 'roll-up' session for old codgers, £6 for a basket of balls, a bit of tuition from one of the pros followed by a coffee (and some cake which one of my fellow old codgers bakes and brings along - today it was lemon drizzle cake).

Soon I was hitting the ball all over the place which was not where I wanted it to go, which was in a straight line.  "It's your grip!" said the pro.

He tweaked my wrists as if they were made of Plasticine and formed them into a very awkward position.  "You'll get used to it in 10 minutes," he added.  Hmm, not so sure.

But, hey presto, I was hitting the ball beautifully with all five of the clubs I had brought with me.  At last, I had cracked it.

After a quick mingle with the old boys - some of them have been coming along for 15 years - I made my way to the car park.

As I neared my car, two very nice ladies approached me, pointing out this young lad, probably mid teens, in the back seat of theirs.  He plainly had learning difficulties, Downs it looked like, and he didn't seem to want to get out of the car.  The lady asked if I could show him my clubs.  Of course I could.

I found myself talking to him as I would have talked to anyone else I know, dipping into my limited collection of cliches ('top man', 'good lad' and so on).  And he took my driver and started moving out of the car.  

He seemed very impressed with the club (he wouldn't have been if he's seen me swinging it about in the driving range!) and smiled the loveliest smile ever.

The two ladies were full of smiles too and one of them, possibly his mum, said, "Thank you - you're an angel!"

I was slightly taken aback by this.  I'd really enjoyed this chance meeting, I hadn't really thought about what I was doing; I just did it.  And I found myself wiping a tear from my eye, which I didn't expect at all.  Grit, I reckon.

After lunch, I decided that having finally cracked the game, I'd put my new grip to the test and boy does pride come before a fall!  From a driving range where I barely hooked or sliced a ball for an hour, I was now back in the novice stage.  

The Thornbury Par 3, disaster: my shank was back, I couldn't get the ball in the air. I was devastated.

After three holes, I gave up the ghost.  A nine on the 90 yard third convinced me that things were not going to get better.

I obtained 50 balls from the clubhouse and it was like I had never played the game.  Shank after hook after shank after topping the ball and finally missing it altogether.

Having tried and failed to sort my game out on the range, I foolishly tried to start my game again but it was a massive blunder. I felt even worse and after two holes decided to call it a day.

I walked back to my car, slumped shoulders and totally hacked off. I was seriously crestfallen, wallowing in a pool of self-pity.  I felt like just driving off somewhere and being miserable.

As I drove home, I thought of my day.  The driving range was fun, well the morning one was, the afternoon driving range wasn't so much fun and my rounds (I started and stopped twice) were shocking.  But there was one good bit.

Maybe my day wasn't wasted after all.

I don't know where the boy was going but I suspect it was the crazy golf.  I am sure he would have enjoyed it and I hope that now him and the ladies who were with him are happy.

It gave me a little perspective too.

I have endured bloody awful depression and anxiety in my life, gruesome, ugly, totally destructive, flattening mental illness that sapped my will to live.  Whilst of course I knew there were many people out there with much worse lives than mine but the black dog overwhelms you.

I am not particularly ill at the moment.  My anxieties have eased and my depression is suppressed by the techniques I have learned and the drugs I take.

So there was absolutely no excuse for what was my pathetic self-pity at the falling apart of my golf swing.

I can get my golf swing back with a few lessons and by even more practice.  It's not a big deal and I need to get over myself.

I can't get over being described as an angel though.  I've been called a lot of things in my life but never that!