Ian Wood: Leisure time largely wasted on sport

Published on Sunday 3 May 2009 22:51

HAVING spent most of Saturday afternoon chained to the TV trying to keep tabs on progress in the Spanish Open golf while keeping in touch with goings-on in the World Snooker Championships, the thought occurred that sport's association with leisure and enjoyment should be viewed with a certain amount of scepticism. Competitors on both fronts looked strained to breaking point and subsequent checks on the football and rugby scenes confirmed that there too, revelry and merrymaking were in short

It's probably natural that things should get a bit fraught in the contact sports, but in golf, for instance, where the damage is more or less self-inflicted and nobody gets hurt unless they walk into a tree or come a cropper in some other freaky fashion, it is often difficult to fathom why the professionals put themselves through it, apart, of course, from the lure of pots of money.

It's not as if there's any relief to be found at club level either, for the mood is generally just as grim and intense there, with the situation being rendered that much grimmer by the fact that there is less hope for the participants. To be more specific – there might be some hope for the better specimens, but very little for most of the rest.

I often wonder if non-golfers ever realise to what emotional depths golfers can sink in their search for enjoyment on the links. The term "carefree, holiday golf," was obviously thought up by either a travel agent who does embroidery, or a maniac. As anyone who has gone on holiday to play golf will testify, it can be a form of hell. Golfers will spend hard-earned cash on air flights, accommodation and so forth and then spend four or five hours a day for a week frothing at the mouth on various golf courses. On their return, utterly drained and wrecked by drink, they will enthuse about the trip and before the week is out will have convinced themselves they can't wait to get back out there for more of the same.

Only one man of my acquaintance has had the moral fibre to face up to the hard facts and resolve never to do it again. I played with him on the day of his revelation and vividly remember the moment, when, after a badly mishit drive had trundled some 50 yards into the bole of a cork tree, he turned, with the sort of mirthless smile usually associated with Regimental Sergeant Majors and serial killers, and announced that he'd enough. He has stuck to his guns and to the best of my knowledge has suffered no withdrawal symptoms. He has led a reasonably blameless life ever since and his family still talk to him.

Most of the misery which occurs at my level, which is lowish, stems from a lack of real application to the game. Any reasonable degree of practice would almost certainly have made a difference to how things turned out and any such preparation for the way ahead should be carried out under the eye of a professional, because left to their own devices, golfers can go terribly wrong.

Searching for secrets the other day, I picked up Lee Trevino's book, Swing My Way, and recalled a brief spell I'd had when I'd first read it. Based as it is on his own distinctive method, it sets great store by the alignment of the feet, hips and shoulders which should aim well to the left. Then, by a series of controlled movements, the clubhead is dropped into and driven along a line directly towards the target. Trevino also recommends keeping the wrist action "quiet." The book gets quite technical after that, but it's clearly laid out and, astonishingly, I had almost a month of passable golf while following its instructions.

The trouble – and there was trouble – had been built into the system years before I read the book. I was brought up on Bobby Locke, who played with an exaggerated draw which required a closed stance, a pronouncedly inside to out swing and a gradual rolling of the right wrist. Far from being quiet, my wrists tended to flop around like freshly landed fish.

Now this, as it turned out, was the rub. I had been programmed to one method and now I was trying to switch over to another, quite different method. All was well, while the second method was being assimilated and taking all my attention, but when things began to go wrong, as they inevitably did, my instincts drove me back to the old ways and there I was, stranded, confused and with nowhere to go.

This dilemma has become all-too familiar. A couple of duffs with a new swing, the nerve goes and it's back to Locke. At least, it used to be. Now, even that option is no longer available. If I swing with a closed stance, I run the risk of breaking my back. There is always Hogan, but then that means I cannot move at all.