Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia (14 page)

I was so busy doing sums, attempting to keep the sole collective scorecard from turning to papier mâché, worrying about the shooting white-hot pain in my wrist that was getting more extreme with every shot, and keeping up with Gary, Gordon and Nathaniel's banter, that it wasn't until I reached hole seven or eight that I began to look up and properly notice the course. When I did so, I couldn't say I was massively impressed. I probably should have known Worsley Park would not exactly be Pebble Beach, from the concise conversation I'd had about it with David Brooks (when a tournament organiser describes the venue for their tournament as ‘not bad' you've got to be a bit sceptical), and it turned out to be the kind of place that, if you'd been dropped on one of its fairways after a blindfolded secret car journey, you could have mistaken for any one of several hundred newish, tidily arranged, unimaginative parkland courses in Britain. It was also extremely long, particularly when
you
were playing off the pro tees, set twenty to fifty yards behind your playing partners', to fairways so wet that anything other than a skulled long iron was likely to embed in them upon landing.

The idea of a pro-am is that the professional is the rock of the team. The amateurs may weigh in with the occasional birdie or better, aided by their handicaps, mixed in with a few disasters, but the pro will always be steadfastly not far away from par. By the back nine, I'd contributed to the team score on only three holes. The best thing I could say about my performance was that there were some truly great shots in there – about four in total. Concerned as I was as to whether my playing partners would think they'd got their money's worth, on a purely personal level my poor form didn't bother me. I'd long since decided that today was not about scoring well: it was about managing to stick out eighteen holes of dripping, snivelling and shivering without making too many whimpering noises.

On the second hole (our eleventh of the day, owing to the ‘shotgun start' – each team had teed off simultaneously, utilising all eighteen holes), after a particularly muddy bunker shot, I cracked slightly, admitting to a probing Gary (‘Is this all you do, then, play golf?') that this whole pro thing was new to me, and that only a few months ago I'd been playing off five handicap. That, at least, took some pressure off. Gary and I had a stress-free conversation about the social differences between golf and rugby, which he'd once played professionally for Cardiff (‘They're a bit solitary and, what do you call it, introspective, aren't they, pro golfers? Us rugby lads like to have a drink and a laugh'). I then had three slightly
less
stress-free conversations, where I found myself having to explain separately to Gary, Nathaniel and Gordon exactly why I didn't wear waterproofs. Each dressed in high-quality virtual wetsuits, they listened thoughtfully to an argument that no doubt would have stood up better if: a) they hadn't been experts in raingear, and b) I hadn't made it whilst wearing a synthetic 1970s jumper from C&A and a sodden REO Speedwagon trucker's cap that was dripping water onto my nose like a burst pipe. I then borrowed some of Gary's Titleists, after losing the last of the half-dozen I'd bought from the pro shop (‘Did you not get one of the goodie bags from the clubhouse with the free ones in?' he asked), Gordon offered to mark the card for the last three holes, and Nathaniel loaned me his umbrella. By this point the score was the last thing on our minds, as I'm sure would be obvious if you'd seen the picture of us smiling through dripping, gritted teeth taken by the Morson International Pro-Am Challenge's corporate photographer (‘Tom, can you just pretend to be pointing at that flagstick and laughing at a joke Gary's just told you?') two thirds of the way through the round.

After we'd finished the ninth hole – our final one of the day – Gary, Gordon and Nathaniel decided it would be logical to play the tenth, since it was clear of other players, and it led to the clubhouse anyway, but I bowed out. It was obvious that, with a total of 58 points, nothing short of a miracle would put us in the running for a prize. I knew I'd feel slightly guilty about my escape later, but the guilt of not having gone for a sociable drink with my Zentex Fabrics teammates was easily conquered by the same urge that I'd had after my Europro
Qualifying
School mishap. It was that old instinct to flee from golf – from all it represented, from all it inflicted – overriding everything again. I thanked my teammates and shook their hands, wondering just how miserable I might have felt if I
hadn't
been playing with three admirable, easy-going human beings. Nathaniel kindly offered to hand our scorecard in on my behalf. I deliberated, for a split second, over giving him that tip I'd been intending to about aiming not quite so far right, to help cure his violent hook. Then I thought better of it, and headed for the car. On the way there, I noted, as well as my humming wrist and a slight twinge in my lower back, my right hip had begun to ache and make a clicking sound when I walked, not unlike the one my dishwasher made when I blocked its cleaning arm with inconveniently tall crockery.

Six hours later I arrived home and opened a letter informing me that, in a few weeks' time, I would be competing in the world's most illustrious major golf championship.

1
Not only is Harrington an accountant-like player, he actually trained as one, not long before turning pro and joining the European Tour.

2
I like to think this isn't
just
down to a swift-fingered research team and an extensive database.

3
This might go some way to explaining why he has not yet been awarded his own fake middle name in inverted commas.

4
Involves the player putting into a small gap between his or her partner or spouse's feet. Every time he or she ‘holes' five putts in a row, the gap gets smaller. Simple, but surprisingly effective.

5
Like normal sand-iron keepie-uppies,
a la
Tiger Woods in the Nike ad, but with the addition of a low-lying glass coffee table beneath the player, and a steaming mug of freshly-ground in their non-club hand. Generally recommended only to those of a nine handicap or better.

6
A classic. Can be played on a normal Astroturf putting mat with a gentle upward curve, but for proper authenticity if's best played on the mouldy, dog-eared one bought for me by my parents for Christmas 1991. Extra points go to those who can successfully negotiate the bit of dried yoghurt stuck to the surface about a foot from the hole.

7
This landmark of Supernintendo gaming might not be as sophisticated as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007. It does, however, let you pretend to be a dragon while playing a course with cactuses taller than your house. Metal Mario, the most advanced of the competitors on offer, hits the ball over three hundred yards: a remarkable achievement for a man wearing dungarees.

8
It wasn't that I was embarrassed to do this in front of the members of the actual club, who, being golfers, and eternally in search of The Secret, were probably as likely to imitate me as take the piss. My trepidation came more from the fact that the practice green was a matter of a few feet away from one of the town's main roads. A road used frequently by gangs of young people in souped-up, brightly coloured Peugeots, some of whom had, only a few days ago, complimented me on my bucket hat in a manner that I wouldn't want to repeat in front of an elderly relative.

9
A steal, this, from Simon, who during our last game at Richmond had found great poise and fluidity from imagining a brand of golf perfume while in his address position. Even my speculation about what
Eau de Golf
would smell like in reality – a mixture of teacakes, damp inner soles, sweat and pipe smoke – had not detracted from his fantasy.

10
I might not have been too interested in conforming to golf's prevailing fashions, but since I was already wearing ripped trousers, I didn't want to look
completely
as if I'd just come from a part-time job at the waste disposal centre. Besides, unless you've got a caddy, umbrellas only make your hands wetter when you're playing golf.

11
Not so much an alternative golfing scoring system as an alternative golfing language, created half out of a mission to speed up play and half out of boredom. In truth, stableford is just like normal strokeplay in disguise (one point for a bogey, two for a par, three for a birdie, etc.), the only difference being that double bogey or worse doesn't score, allowing the more unfortunate player to pick up his ball and move on. Often confused, in my youth, with Stapleford, a suburb of Nottingham where I drank my first bottle of Thunderbird and stole some milk bottles – possibly for the reason that its existence is very nearly as pointless.

THE DOCUMENTATION CERTAINLY
looked authentic enough. If this was a cruel ruse concocted by Scott and Simon, I had to admire their professionalism. There was the unmistakable Open logo – the silhouette of the sacred claret jug – and a letter from Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of the R&A, wishing me ‘a very enjoyable and successful championship', followed by the obligatory sheaf of rules, in migraine-inducing point-size, that tends to accompany any golf tournament of substance. I could be found a couple of pages further on, listed in the thirty-fourth group of the Hollinwell branch of regional qualifying, with a 1.18 tee time: ‘Tom Cox, representing Diss,'
¹
paired with John Ronson from Tydd St Giles and Michael Hempstock from Doncaster. Possibly such information might not have seemed quite so overwhelming if I hadn't
received
it whilst still feeling like the survivor of a minor shipwreck, but I would still have needed a lengthy horizontal moment to digest it. Me. Playing in. The Open. Very soon. Maybe if I rearranged these facts, they would make more sense? The Open. Very soon. Playing in. Me. Nope: it still sounded implausible.

Obviously, competing in the regional qualifying stages of The Open is not quite the same as competing in The Open itself. To play in The Open as recognised by armchair golf fans the world over – the seventy-two-hole part, in mid-July, due to take place at Hoylake, near Liverpool, for the first time in thirty-nine years – I would need to pass through the regional qualifying stage by occupying one of the top nineteen places at my allotted course, then travel to Merseyside, play a further thirty-six holes in the local
²
qualifying stage, and defeat my fellow Stage One qualifiers and hundreds of their international equivalents to grab one of twelve coveted spots. But does the unfancied reserve for the Bulgarian national football squad, called up out of the blue for a World Cup pre-qualifying clash, ring up his mates and say, ‘I've just been called up to play in a World Cup pre-qualifying match!'? Of course he doesn't! He says, ‘I'm playing in the bloomin' World Cup!' By the same logic, I was playing in The Open. I had sent my qualifying form off to the R&A two months ago, and it had been smoothly processed, along with several thousand others from around the globe.

So who, or what, was responsible for this
administrative
cock-up? Famously, in 1976 an out-and-out hacker called Maurice Flitcroft had attempted to qualify for The Open, ticking the box on the entry form that said ‘professional', and gone on to shoot 121 – the worst round in Open history, and, alongside a couple of particularly bellicose streakers, one of the most humiliating moments in the R&A's history. Flitcroft had returned under a variety of pseudonyms in later years – e.g. Gerald Hoppy, Gene Pacecki (pronounced ‘Pay-chequey') – only to be rumbled by officials and pulled off the course. I'd imagined that security might have tightened up since then. But no. Here I was, without a professional top-ten finish – without a professional
finish
– to my name, and golf's governing body was only too happy to take my £110 entry fee. Could my seventy-six-year-old non-golfing nan have done the same thing, if she too had agreed to relinquish her amateur status?

As a veteran, bemused observer of unnecessarily long-winded golf paperwork,
³
I'd been surprised by how simple filling out my Open entry form had been. I'd pictured the most long-winded job application form imaginable, asking for all manner of information about my golfing background, from ‘best round' to ‘biggest divot', along with references from my last three Handicap Chairmen, my school PE teacher and the Secretary of the Norfolk County Golf Union, but in reality it had just been a matter of submitting a modicum of banal personal details, stating which tour I played on, which one of the
sixteen
regional qualifying venues around the country I would ideally like to compete at, and my debit card number. Somehow unable to convince myself that I'd done enough, I added ‘PLEASE!' next to the box where I nominated Hollinwell in Nottinghamshire as my preferred course.

The reasons why I wanted to qualify at Hollinwell were threefold. Firstly, it was only half an hour's drive from my parents' house, meaning convenient, free accommodation. Secondly, it was possibly my favourite golf course of all time: a heather-speckled paradise bowl ringed by Forestry Commission land, from whose heavily guarded fairways one could easily convince oneself that one was entirely removed from twenty-first-century life. Finally, and most crucially, it and I had a little bit of unfinished business to settle. When I was sixteen, I'd had an unsuccessful trial for membership there. I'd never found out what I'd done wrong, but since I'd beaten my handicap in my test round, I suspected the reasons for my fruitless application were not golfing ones. To qualify for The Open at the same course, fifteen years later, in my first visit back, would constitute a fairytale bit of score-settling.

The Hollinwell debacle had been a fork in the road of my adolescence, coming at a time when my deferred rebel years were catching up with me and I needed to decide whether I was going to get serious about my golf, or loaf away my days in the back of the pro shop, drinking too much Coke and serving an apprenticeship in low-grade pyromania. Moving from my soft, slack south Nottinghamshire base to a club in north Nottinghamshire, where the fairways and the juniors were made of flintier
stuff
, had seemed an obvious way to take my game to the next level. I'd often wondered what might have happened if I'd handled myself differently that day in 1991. What if the man from the committee hadn't seen my dad's ancient car with its CND sticker and moss growing up the wheel arches? What if I'd had headcovers without rips in them, had cleaned that big mud stain off my bag, and not stolen the honour from my playing partner on the thirteenth? Would I now be Lee Westwood?