A Game for All Seasons
The year that the golfing world descended upon the small seaside resort of Portrush for the Open Golf championship, I thought of my Dad who treasured his trips to this, and the other windy little golf courses dotted along the north eastern coast of Northern Ireland.
I thought how he would have loved seeing one of the ‘majors’ coming back to the course at Royal Portrush for the first time since 1951. I have no idea whether he saw that championship. Possibly, the year before he married my mother, he had sufficient change in his pocket to buy a ticket and take the train to see the great stars of that era. He may even have told us the story of seeing his heroes in the flesh. But truth be told, we children always found an excuse to scurry off when he embarked on one of his reminiscences about golf, a game we heartily despised.
How cruel we were. Golf meant a lot to a man who had few other outlets in life. He was not a pub-goer and the financial constraints incumbent on bringing up family of six children on an inadequate wage meant that his trips to the bookies were infrequent (though he enjoyed watching the gee-gees on the box on Saturday afternoon – possibly the only time he switched to Channel Four.)
But golf was a weekend ritual, especially in the summer months, when the northern wind and rain would abate long enough to fit in a round or two. We would watch appalled, as he fished out his tattered golf bag from the cupboard beneath the stairs, pulled on an alarmingly patterned sweater and collected his bizarre spiked golf shoes and waited for his golfing mate and old school friend, Johnny, to roll up in his car. Together, the two would disappear to the Massarene club, somewhere in the wilds of Antrim, not to be seen again till well after teatime.
As we grew older, my father tried to interest his sons in the game, enthusiastically urging us round the pitch and putt course in Bangor, where we went on our annual summer holiday, or the putting green in Lady Dixon’s Park, our destination on Bank Holidays. He would demonstrate the correct way of addressing the little white ball, coach us in adopting a good swing motion and how to calculate the necessary angles needed to coax the little bugger into the hole. But we were laggardly and impatient pupils, disinclined to drag ourselves round wind-blown and rain-soaked green mounds in distant suburbs. My older brother was only interested in the big leather ball of the soccer pitch, while I preferred to stay indoors with the pages of a good book.
Indeed, as teenagers are wont to do, we stretched the gap between generations, denouncing golf as an old man’s game – a dull and boring pastime fit only for the fashion-challenged. We laughed at his contemporary heroes, the Jack Nicklauses and Christy O’Connors, who trundled round in gaudy jumpers on our TV screens, and we compared their chubby frames unfavourably with the fit and athletic physiques of the footballers and tennis players we admired. We mocked the servility of the caddy system, hooted at the lumbering golf trollies and snorted at the milk float electric carts. To our minds, they were all symbols of the middle-aged complacency of golf. We chortled too, at his pride when it was announced that British Number One golfer Tony Jacklin would marry a local girl from Belfast. One day, I unearthed Mark Twain’s quote about golf being ‘a good walk spoiled’ and slapped it down triumphantly over a dinner table debate on the merits of various sports.
My father gave as good as he got. He pointed out that most athletes were finished by the age of 30, burnt out by the physical demands of their sports, has-beens after a decade in the limelight, whereas the likes of Gary Player and Arnold Palmer could continue striding through the years collecting accolades well into their 50s. He alluded to the prize-money on offer, in those days substantially more than in other sports. And he told us that golf was played in some of the beautiful places in the world, where the finest courses looked out on to the most stunning views of the sea. Golf, said my father, was actually a good walk enhanced – and provided you could travel, a game for all seasons.
But his arguments fell on deaf ears. Our youthful horizons were too narrow to imagine a time when we might be in our 50s and looking for a weekend break from domestic life. If we wanted to go the Med, or any other lovely seaside spot, we would. In the spring of our lives, we could see no reason at all to worry about what autumn might bring.
As the years progressed, Dad’s golf companion died and the trips to Masserene became less frequent. In our stupid, selfish way we could not comprehend what a loss that must have been to him. Eventually the golf clubs were sold and my father confined himself to watching the game on the telly. Sometimes when I was home from England, I joined him on the sofa as we watched a new generation of golfing heroes swing their way through the fairways of Florida, swotting up a bit on the game so that I could join in a discussion of the relative merits of Nicklaus and Ballasteros.
My father died 26 years ago and I regret that he didn’t live to see the triumphs of Ireland’s golfers – the Opens won by Padraig Harrington, the stirring Ryder Cup captaincies of Darren Clarke and the sublime skills of Rory McIlroy. How he would have loved to see that local boy win a clutch of major titles, or to see his son-in-law follow in his footsteps as a weekend player.
I watch golf on TV myself now, and will enjoy the twists and turns of the Open Championship, savour the sight of seasoned pros battling against the elements and the course and will be the first to cheer if Rory putts a ten footer for another Claret Jug.
As I sit on my own sofa, my sporting interests, such as they were, having reached their own autumn, I will miss my Dad’s insights and acknowledge that he was right about golf all along - it is a game for all seasons.