Ian Wood: Looking for goldmine in Canaries

Published on Sunday 15 March 2009 21:06

EVEN as I write, I stand poised to inflict my golf on the fair island of Tenerife. I realise, of course, that writing is by no means easy while standing – poised or otherwise – but I think the overall gist is clear enough. The reason I mention this modest annual golfing trip at all is because this year my preparation has been a bit different. In the past, I've come to the line, as it were, in a lather of competitive sweat, honed mentally and physically and ready to give it all I've got

Due to the daunting mix of wind, water and ice to which our own beleaguered islands have been subjected before and since the New Year tottered in, golf has figured low on my agenda. Somehow, the links have lost much of their attraction, and survival and a degree of comfort have become the orders of the day. While the hail is beating its glacial tattoo on the windowpane, staying put has never seemed to make so much sense. Also, even on days when the sun is shining and summer seems about to burst forth, I don't believe it and so far I've been dead right. Put a foot out the door and you tend to freeze to the ground.

As Tenerife time has drawn nearer, however, I have become edgy and slightly anxious. Worries about the state of my game have begun to preoccupy me, which isn't really surprising, for my game, on the evidence of the few brief airings it has been given over the winter months, has been fairly awful. Accordingly, I have relaxed my strict regimen of warmth and pampering to a slight extent and have ventured one round of 18 holes on a drastically shortened course and a few nine-hole spins fitted in between blizzards.

It would be overstating things to say that I derived much encouragement from the outings, but I felt that at least they got the wheels turning again and it's always on the cards that something decent will crop up when least expected. There was an occasion, for instance, which occurred on the last of the nine-hole dashes, when nothing much had been happening.

Not that much happens at the best of times, but on this round the drives lacked even more length than usual, the general shot-making lacked snap and the putting lacked just about everything.

I'd tried something on the seventh tee which felt a bit better, but I couldn't see the ball because of the lowering sun. That, incidentally, is another thing about this weather. When the sun does appear, it seems to be with the sole purpose of spreading more confusion. Heat doesn't come into it. Anyway, when I located the ball, it turned out to have leaked to the right, but, I reckoned – and this is the crux – it had travelled rather further than I had expected it to.

This discovery, though relatively minor, nevertheless caused in me a tightening of the chest and a certain narrowing of the eyes. Something significant might have happened and it was important to work out what it was. I had, in fact, tried something on the seventh tee, though not without any great hope. It was based on a tip which Peter Thomson once gave on a LP record I used to own before it was nicked by some visiting felon. Thomson, having taken his pupil to the top of the backswing, recommended commencing the downswing by getting the left foot, the heel of which had come up with the backswing, firmly replanted.

This, while undoubtedly based on sound fundamentals and well worth heeding, I found extremely difficult to do without totally disrupting the whole ensemble. As I understand it, if done correctly, this grounding of the left foot gets everything coming down on proper planes and sets the swing nicely on an inside-to-out track. Sadly, in my case, all it did was cause me to do a sort of dithering movement at the crucial moment and the results varied between quick hooks, complete duffs and violent slices.

Having tried the move again on the occasion in question, something seems to have gone right. This time, instead of throwing everything out of kilter, it seemed to have knitted it all more or less together. Not being able to see the shot was something of a drawback, but it had felt solid in an unfamiliar way and gave definite grounds for hope. The rest of the seventh hole passed uneventfully which, I submit, was quite a feat for someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The eighth hole, a par 5, really did it. The tee had been brought well forward, but I usually play well short of the burn with a driver. This time, some supernatural presence told me to take a 3-wood. I brought down the heel bang on cue and the ball went off like a shell, finishing just short of the burn. Was this, I asked myself, a turning point in my golfing career? If it was, it's been a long time coming, but you can't go looking gift turning points in the mouth. Bring on the Canaries.