Byron Kalies

“Applicants for membership will be interviewed by the Club Captain, Lady Captain or Junior Organiser, as appropriate, who may in their absolute discretion reject or provisionally approve the application. No reason shall be given to any applicant in the event of rejection.“

In most golf clubs there are rules, codes, laws, does and don’t. There are things you must do, things you shouldn’t do and things you had definitely better do. It’s all a little childish, don’t you think?

Let me state my reasons;

I am not a 6 year old child. I do not need to be told what I must do on and off the course. As a result of seeing a large notice telling me that I need to go to the toilet to pee my instinct (and I guess I’m not the only one that thinks this way) is to do the opposite. This is not good on any level;

It’s not far off bullying and people (including me) tend to react badly to bullies or to anyone telling them what to do; telling children to eat up their cabbage, telling people they are no longer allowed to take strike action, and telling female golfers they should only use the lounge after 7;30 p.m. All seem to provoke a reaction.

“The appropriate length of shorts is three inches or less above the knee. Shorts that fall below the knee are not permitted”

Psychologically it brings in a theory called reactance – investigated by Jack Brehm. Brehm discovered that when you limit the choice of individuals they tend to react against it. In a experiment with people who expressed no preference for either of 2 soft drinks he found that once you prevented people having a choice (you only supplied one type at a vending machine), people would walk a considerable distance to buy the alternate drink. If you restrict people’s freedom they will react to restore it.

You will know this if you have teenagers.

“Have a nice evening” you’ll call as they leave the house,

“Don’t tell me what to do.” They’ll reply as they slam the door.

Or

“I’d take a 5 iron and lay up if I were you.”

“Oh really”

“Junior Members are not permitted to play before 11.00am at weekends, except in designated competitions or matches and with the prior permission of Match & Handicap. “

So why do golf clubs insist on treating adults like children?

“Walk briskly between shots and if possible decide which club to use for your next shot before you reach the ball

Do not take an excessive number of practice swings”

Another psychological theory called Transactional Analysis looks at this. Some people, especially people with self-esteem issues, tend to over compensate in their interactions with people by becoming ‘critical parents’. They tend to adopt the ‘I know better than you’ point of view, which in their mind means ‘I want to prove I’m a better person than you.”. These people behave by blaming, shouting, finger-pointing, belittling, and assuming the air of authority. The natural reaction for people on the other side of this is to turn into children; sulking, door-slamming, disobeying. This is why there is a fair amount of resentment built up, a good deal of moaning, wingeing and whispering in corners and often some quiet heated disagreements.

For me the situation of being told what to do strikes a chord with some childhood experiences. It smacks (no pun intended) of being told off and having to be punished. I remember similar pronouncements from my schooldays – “Children found running in the corridor will be reported to the Headmaster”. “Pupils failing to wear the correct attire for gym will be reported to the Headmaster”.

“Guests taking dinner in the evening or late afternoon will be required to wear Jacket and Tie. “

My line of thought now tends to be; “How old am I? I’m not that keen on being treated like a five year old child at this time in my life.” Added to this annoyance there would be some reactance kicking in. I’d remember in school where a teacher told me to stop playing with your pen. Even though I had no intention of playing with my pen that’s all I could now think about. Psychologically I’m trying to get that freedom of choice back.

In the golfing situation it would instil the same reaction. I may well obey the instruction though as there will be other factors creeping in. I may well obey a great many instructions for quite a well.. In the short term the problem would be solved.

However there would come a time where there would be a critical mass of resentment built up and there would be problems. Presumably I wouldn’t be the only person on the receiving end of this and pretty soon the morale of the club may well have dropped another notch. There will be more grumblings in corners about ‘nanny states’, ‘those people in their ivory towers’, ‘******* Committee members”, murmur, murmur, mumble, mumble. People don’t forget. These ‘small injustices’ never go away. They stay and come out somewhere, at some time – often inappropriately and usually with a physical, mental or financial cost – e.g. another club opens nearby and you see a mass exodus.

“Our staff are empowered to judge whether an individual is acceptably dressed and to take appropriate action. “

Now, I’m not advocating anarchy, as such. There are things that I will do; I will not cheat at golf, I will shout ‘fore’ if my drive is heading toward anyone, I will rake the bunker. I will stay quiet while people tee off. I do not need an edict from the Committee to tell me this.

As a suggestion I would just like people to think about the effect of their communication.. In terms of treating people when communicating do you communicate as a Parent, Child or Adult? A more productive ‘adult’ communication would entail some background, an explanation of the problem, the potential implications if the issue isn’t resolved and a suggestion. It would be even better if there was an offer of some dialogue. It’s what you would like isn’t it? It’s treating people like adults. It’s not difficult.

“Rules for tipping: Professional staff - Do not tip cash to your country club manager. It’s not only in bad taste, it could be construed as a conflict of interest (because they manage your bills), and they may also be offended at being treated like a servant. It’s not fair because the country club manager is usually the person who works hardest for you each year, but Janet and I just tip with a token gift basket of goodies. (Tipping tip: If you want to tip your club manager with a gift basket, make sure to do it in their office. If the waiters see the git, the country club manager will feel compelled to share it with them).

Background labor- I don’t consider it expected nor required to tip the dishwashers, greens keeper or those creepy hippies who mow the fairways.”

Looking for ball just off green at 14th hole, Pyle and Kenfig

How come you walk straight past your golf ball whilst looking for it in the rough? Yet when your playing partners point it out a few seconds later, it’s sitting up in the rough, clearly visible from space but 20 yards behind where you thought it would be . Perhaps you just don’t want to see it. You want to see your ball 20 yards further on because that’s where you planned it to be. Similarly, I don’t believe in many things. I especially don’t believe in rangefinders. The ‘150 yards’ the SkyCaddie SG 2.5 declares to be the true reading should leave me a 6 iron into the 17th. However, I know it’s an 8 iron, because I’ve always hit an 8 iron from here. OK I’ve always been short but it really is just a flick with an 8 iron;

There is the story of Christopher Columbus and his voyage to the Caribbean islands. It was written that as Columbus’ ships, the Santa Maria, Nina, and Pinta, approached the islands on October 11 1492, the natives could not see them. One account describes how the shaman of the islanders noticed that the waves washing up on the shore produced an unusual pattern. From this observation the shaman realised that something unusual was happening and looked harder out to sea. Eventually he saw the ships at a fairly close range. He then had to persuade the people to also see the ships. The natives had no concept of large ships and they simply could not recognise them. In a similar vein it’s rare for a committee man to recognise slow play in his own group yet spot a shirt not tucked in 200 yards away.

If we don’t expect something to be there we don’t look. Well we look but we don’t see. There was an experiment carried out by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris that asked people to concentrate on a basketball game. Whilst the game was being played a gorilla wandered through the players (or rather a man in a gorilla suit) and hardly any of the participants noticed. They seemed to be so focused on the game, or it was so extraordinary, that it didn’t compute.

Looking beyond external physical objects how about taking a look at ourselves? Why can’t we see the poor alignment, the short backswing, the half-hearted follow through in our own game? We see this, and frequently volunteer the information, in our friends - although after a while we barely notice even this in regular playing partners.. We are so used to it, so conditioned that it becomes the ‘dead body in the study’ scenario. This is when people are so used to seeing something that they don’t really process it.

For instance, shut your eyes and think about the room you’re in. What exactly can you remember being on the walls? What’s in front of you that you see every single day? I would guess that when you actually open your eyes and look around there will be something there you will be surprised at. We see but we don’t process. In psychological terms this ‘dead body in the study’ scenario refers to a dead body you may have in the study. Every day you have to step over it to pass through the room. Initially you, of course, notice this but before long nobody seems to recognise this until you get a new person that suddenly starts screaming “You’ve got a dead body in the study!”. In golfing terms there is enormous benefit in having an outsider / coach / professional come in to look at your swing. They can actually see things that you can’t.

It’s estimated that the eyes see a billion pieces of information every second. However the brain can only process a fraction of this information - perhaps 4000 or so pieces of data. This means that there’s an awful lot of information going un-noticed. This would explain the Columbus Caribbean experience, the dead body in the study and a fair amount of golfers’ swings.

So, the moral of the story? Basically people tend to only see what they want, or expect, to see. Golfers, being a little like people, have a mental image of themselves. On the outside they may look like an excited octopus with a stick, but inside they feel they are swinging with the style and elegance of a Bradley Dredge.  Occasionally you will need someone, or a camcorder, to let you really look at your game. It’s only when you can see what’s going on that you can see what’s going wrong.

Change is Uncomfortable - ask Ted

To change anything, or to learn anything (which is essentially change anyway) is uncomfortable. There are a number of well-worn phrases that people trot out to remind you of this including the always memorable - “If you’re not churning, you’re not learning”, “you’ve got to get worse to get better” - “you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day,but if you give him a golf club he will learn to feed himself forever”, or something like that

A useful model I came across with this one is the Comfort Zone model. On the inside is the Comfort Zone. The doughnut next ring is the Discomfort Zone and the Learning Zone is around the outside. It does remind you that it’s uncomfortable to learn anything new. It means that to get to the Learning Zone you have to get through the Discomfort Zone. There are no short cuts or tunnels. However it does give you hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So, to the lesson. It was uncomfortable. I turned up alongside the fearless youngsters and brand new starters and felt very out of place. I’d been trapped in that comfort zone for too long. My grip was comfortable. My stance was comfortable yet they were so wrong. I knew if I held the club this way I could more or less guarantee it would be straight - well finish fairly straight as I tend to aim thirty yards left of the fairway and it would (fade / cut) back onto the fairway (occassionally) not very long but straightish. Now I’m being told to discard all those comfortable feelings and start again. It really did feel uncomfortable and tempting to go back to the old way.

I learnt that there are no short cuts or secret passages across the discomfort zone. We all know that. We know that all the teaching aids, special balls, magic golf clubs don’t work - or at least they don’t work on their own. We’ve all seen (or bought) that expensive set of aluminium, alloy, enhanced, cavity-backed, nickel platted, NASA designed 3 wood and stood next to a 12 year old girl with basically a long metal stick and seen them hit their tee shot thirty yards further than us.

What did help me though was some wise words I had picked up from a colleague a long time ago about this stress and anxiety.

“Anxiety isn’t pain” he assured me ” It’s the anticipation of pain.”

True enough. The most anxious and stressful times for me has been the waiting for something to start - the dentists, the job interview, waiting by the first tee. Once the action kicks off the stress diminishes a great deal.

“The trick”, he continued, “is to live in the here and now” (he was a bit of an old hippie), but very true. If you concentrate on what you’re doing before a stressful event; eating, preparing, practising, and try to concentrate fully on that you’ll save yourself a fair amount of stress.

So I’m taking the lessons. I’m staying in the ‘here and now’ and things are starting to improve. Not as quickly as I’d like, of course and I do feel that I’m living most of my life in the discomfort zone but… in a perverse way I’m starting to enjoy it (well almost).

Relaxing in the bar after a tough, but profitable, first round

I’m standing on the first tee at the Rolls of Monmouth. I’m preparing to hit the first shot of the annual equivalent of the ‘jolly boys’ outing’.
(This is the end of winter bash we use to reward ourselves for those dark, dingy,tough, early Saturday morning rounds. Keith saves our £2.50 a week for this reward. The Rolls of Monmouth is the hidden secret that everyone in South Wales knows about. It’s the end of year treat,the equivalent of Christmas, birthday and anniversary all rolled into one. The Rolls in fantastic. Most courses in South Wales, with the exception of Celtic Manor are claustrophobic. There is the valleys feeling of crampdness. Perhaps it’s to do with the shape of the valleys. Whatever the reason there is limited space and tees and greens are pushed back to the edges of the courses. With this comes the feeling of not being able to swing properly. The Rolls has space, lots of space, too much space. It’s nerve racking. It’s almost agoraphobic to a Welsh valley’s golfer like me – but in a nice way. I remember the same feeling as a small child going to Porthcawl for a week’s holiday (the caravan park, not the golf course) and was amazed at the size of the beaches and the fresh air.)

An aside:
“Learning to play golf is a steep learning curve”.
Not really. The concept of a learning curve to me implies a steady climb getting better each month until you reach some sort of peak. This, as any high handicapper will tell you, is absolute nonsense. Learning to play golf well is more like a cross section of Lance Armstrong’s route in the tour de France. There are a selection of highs (consistent shots, rounds without air shots, occasional pars) followed by horrendous lows (hacking along a fairway as if you’re tacking into the wind, 4 putting, playing 5 off the tee). It’s far from a smooth curve.

So,on the tee, as a high handicap it’s all abuse;
“Look at this swing.”
“21! he’s off 21. God his practice swing looks like it’s off scratch.”
“He’s wearing a hat. Shouldn’t it be a sombrero?”
“El bandito”
My bottom is twitching like a trout’s mouth as I try to smile, without looking too confident, or too put off. Unfortunately I then hit a great drive straight up the middle.
“Cut him.”
“I played with the handicap sec once and hit a shot like that and by the ninth I was cut 3 shots. Bandit.”
I sheepishly make my way back to my bag and begin my round amidst mumblings and grumblings.
High handicappers get far too much grief. It’s like Learner drivers – regular drivers forget they had  to learn once. The worse offenders are the middle handicappers. You may have to give them ½ a shot a hole, but for that privilege you get grief if you hit a tee shot straight, abuse for hitting an approach shot on the green and practical decapitation for holing any putt over 6 feet. The air shots, miscues and slices are conveniently ignored. Low handicappers seem to be less bothered.
Still, I have a fantastic morning – get cut too shots for scoring 37 points in the morning, play like a polar bear wearing boxing gloves that are too big for him in the afternoon and everyone goes away happy… roll on next year.

Bargoed G C Vets' Captain lining up match winning putt

You’ve hit your 3 iron to 8 feet. You march confidently to the green and mark your ball. It’s your turn to putt and within 60 seconds you’re a nervous wreck – you three putt and walk off the green shattered, disillusioned and grumpy.

You’ve done everything exactly as they do it on the tele. You’ve looked at the distance from ball to hole from the left side, from the right side, from the hole side and from behind the ball. You’ve crouched behind the ball. You’ve held your putter like a plumb bob and looked at the hole closing your left eye then your right eye (you’re not too sure why you’ve done this but you have). You’ve lined the mark on your ball with the hole and stroked the ball 3 feet past the hole, twice.

What I think you should have done is walk up and hit it. I firmly believe that when you look at a putt you get enough accurate information in those first few seconds. The rest of the time you spend confusing yourself. .
In the next minute or so you spend time looking for confirmation that you were right in the first place. However, you start doubting yourself, looking at the slope again, guessing, getting negative thoughts, second guessing, remembering all those times you left this putt short, or long. You worry about your feet, your putter, your head. It’s a wonder you get any putts anywhere near the hole.

There is evidence from a variety of places that indicate that I am not making this up;
In the eye there are roughly 126 million nerve cells in the retina. What happens is that light hits the neurons and convert the image on the retina into nerve impulses. These impulses are then transmitted to the brain. Each neuron is capable of firing once a millisecond, yet the average activity is only four times per second. So, although it is estimated that your eyes take in a billion pieces of information every second, the brain can only process a fraction of this information – perhaps 4000 or so pieces of data. So the brain has to ‘fill in the gaps’ and ‘guess’. These guesses tend to be based on previous experiences and a set of schemata. This will invariably lead to mistakes and assumptions. The more time you have to ‘fill in the gaps’ the more you are likely to compound the errors.

You have to rely on your instincts to a great degree – it is biologically impossible to take in all the information you see, as described above. For instance – shut your eyes now and describe your watch. You may have seen this thousands of times in the past few months yet how well can you describe it. What colour is it? What writing is on it? Describe the strap. You see it yet you don’t see it.

You may well not be able to describe it very well, but does it matter? If you look at it for 30 seconds you will retain a lot more information about the watch face, the hands but has that helped you tell the time more accurately?

People make accurate assesments very quickly. Exactly how quickly was assessed by Artemio Ramirez and Michael Sunnafrank of the University of Minnesota. They carried out an experiment with 164 college freshmen. The students were split into pairs and selected to spend either three, six or ten minutes talking to each other and then completed a questionnaire asking them to predict how positive or negative a relationship they would have. Nine weeks later they were asked to reassess the relationship.

There was a high correlation between that first impression and how they felt now. They also tended to sit closer to them in class and talk to them more. One important result was that it made no difference if it were three, six or ten minutes.

In a 1993 study Professor Nalini Ambady, a social psychologist at Tufts University videotaped graduate teaching fellows as they taught their classes. She selected three random ten-second clips from each tape and combined them into one thirty-second clip for each teacher. She then showed these silent clips to students who did not know the teachers. The students then rated the teachers on a number of variables including “active,” “competent” “confident.” They combined these individual scores into one overall score for each teacher. These scores were kept and compared with the teachers’ end of term evaluations from actual students who studied under them for a year.
“We were shocked at how high the correlation was,” Ambady said” It was 0.76. In social psychology anything above 0.6 is considered very strong.” Ambady cut the length of the silent clips to six seconds. “There was no significant difference between the results with thirty second clips and six-second clips,” Ambady says.

More and more recent research seems to be saying more and more that you are right instinctively a lot of the time.  If there is something you know about, and feel is right – like when to take a putter or a wedge from off the green, go with your gut feeling. People often analyse things to death. You know yourself and you know your game. You really, really are the best person to judge.

The useful of this approach is summed up by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink. The basic idea is to sort through those first impressions to “figure out which ones are important and which ones are screwing us up.” While most of us would like to think our decision making is the result of rational deliberation, Gladwell argues that most of it happens subconsciously in a split second. This process, “rapid cognition”, is where room for both error and insight appears. Many of the snap judgments we make are based on previously formed impressions and are competing with subconscious biases such as emotions and projections. Once we become aware of this we can learn to control rapid cognition by extracting meaning from a very small amount of information.

All very interesting but all boiling down to the same message;

Trust that instinct.

Sitting Tenant on path to 14th tee, West Mon

On the tee at the par 3 18th at Dewstow Golf Club I reached for a 7 iron. This was the first time I’d played the course but on meticulous investigation of the yardage (card), the wind (finger in air) and slope (downhill) I thought a 7 iron was perfect. I noticed my playing partner (a life long member at this club and a hitter of similar distance to me) reaching for an 8.

I put my 7 iron away and hit the 8. I was 10 yards short. My playing partner hit an 8 and was also 10 years short.

“I’m always short on this hole” he muttered as we walked after our balls.

Golfers are creatures of habit. We obey sets of regular, repeated behaviour often for no other reason than we’ve always done it - I leave a drop of tea in my cup even though I haven’t used tea leaves for 20 years, I read the newspaper from the back to the front even though the sports pages have long since moved to a special section of their own. I put 3 long tees and 3 short tees in my pocket at the start of each round. I always hit driver on the 8th - I think it’s the law.

“A golfer has more rituals than a catholic priest.” I’ve heard.

Consider this; the parable of the quiz show, the car and the 2 goats.

On a tv quiz show there are 3 prizes - 2 goats and a car. There are 3 doors in the studio and behind each door is either a goat or a car. The contestant chooses one of the doors. However this door does not get opened immediately. Instead the host of the show, who knows where all the prizes are, will give the contestant more information and allows them to change your mind, if they want to. The extra information you get is your host opens one of the doors not chosen to reveal a goat.

The intriguing question now is “Should the contestant stick with their original choice of door or change their mind?”

The initial thought may be that this seems ridiculous - surely your first choice should stay as you’ve a 1 in 3 chance of winning…. surely it can’t make any difference?

However it does and you should. You should change your mind and you’ll have a better chance of winning. Let me explain;

There are 3 doors - A B and C. Assume the car is behind Door A .
This means there are 3 possibilities;

1.You choose Door A. The host reveals the goat at Door B. If you now change your mind and choose Door C you only win a goat.

2.You choose Door B. The host reveals the goat at Door C. If you now change your mind and choose Door A you win the car.

3.You choose Door C. The host reveals the goat at Door B. If you now change your mind and choose Door A you win the car.

If you keep Door A you will only win a car 1/3 of the time.

The situation has changed. A few minutes ago at the beginning of the exercise you had a 1 in 3 chance of selecting the door with the car behind it. Now with the additional information there is a 2 in 3 chance.

OK - it’s a little contrived but the principle is the same - if you get more information don’t ignore it - reassess. Often I see players wandering off to chip with a wedge and find a bad lie. Instead of walking back to their back for a sand wedge they’ll try a ridiculous shot with the wedge then moan for the rest of the round. Or players will see their playing partners leave their putts short and will then hit their own putt short,and moan about it for the rest of the round. If things change - reassess and change with them.

There was heated discussion about the relaxation of the 'tailored shorts' rule

Look through the lists below (not drawn from a remote, Southern States Country club or an English Home Counties club, or a Colonial backwater from the Victorian era  from 1940) and if anyone can give me a satisfactory, sensible, non-sexist, non-offensive, non-elitist, answer to one question I’ll eat my large, indiscrete Nike-logoed, backward-worn baseball cap.

Ready….… the one word question is ‘Why?’

“ Dress Code:
Women (all ages)
Conservative, tailored slacks, golf skirts, shorts
Socks should be knee high or no more than two inches above the ankle

Men (all ages)
Tailored slacks or Bermuda shorts
Shirts with both a collar and sleeves and tucked in at all times
Socks should be knee high or no more than two inches above the ankle

Prohibited dress;
Denim apparel in all colours,
Racer backs, tank tops or halters,
Front of shirt must not descend below the collar bone,
Bare midriffs in standing position,
Large or indiscrete logos are not acceptable,
Cargo pants with buckles and ties,
Stirrup pants,
Warm-up suits,
Pull-on drawstring shorts/slacks,
Skirts / shorts that are more than five inches above the knee or less than 18 inches when measured from the bottom of the waistband,
Hats worn backwards.“

I love the sport of golf. However I hate the nonsense that goes on around it. I don’t think I’m on my own;

Ask potential golfers that can’t afford the extortionate rates to join a club. This is assuming their face fits and they are allowed to part with their money.
We should be grateful, I suppose, that this isn’t as bad as it used to be. There used to be a time when you needed a 5 year wait, a thousand pound joining fee and a Masonic handshake to get into a golf club. We’ve moved on from that.
This is true. However, I’d like to believe the reason we’ve moved on is due to an enlightened attitude in the Committee room. I suspect though that it’s more to do with the recession and the current economic climate.

Ask women or juniors who frequently get shoved to an odd afternoon in the middle of the week or a few unsociable hours on the weekend when the men have finished their rounds and are in the bar.
However, all is not doom and gloom. There are exceptions. Not too many, but there are exceptions. The Celtic Manor 2010 Club, as I understand it has no different times for men, women or juniors on the 2010 course. Membership is the same for all and there is no discrimination of any sort. Fantastic and a role model to other clubs. However you shouldn’t need to pay £6,000 to buy fair treatment. Why wouldn’t all golf clubs do this? Answer on a postcard to the usual address.

Let’s go back to the nonsense that is symbolic of the attitude of golf clubs; the dress code. Now I believe there are occasions where you need a dress code; deep sea diving for instance, working in a nuclear power plant or being a catalogue model. These professions will require a certain standard of clothing and rightly so. I get that.

What I can’t quite grasp is the fact that I pay thousands of pounds, well hundreds, to spend my sparse and valuable leisure time being told what to wear. I’m not sure I’m keen on that. I don’t have this down the pub, in my lounge or in my garden. So what is it all about?

The dress code is so, so nonsensical. It’s a trip to an older, happier time when men dressed properly, there was respect, good manners, child poverty, a life expectancy of 28 and women knew their place. For instance - Why can’t you wear a comfortable tee-shirt? Why can’t you wear jeans to play golf?

Let’s look at the argument;
Denim / tee-shirts / etc.. look scruffy.

On at least 2 levels this argument is nonsense;

1. to most people under the age of 80 they don’t look scruffy and
2. so what?

Let’s not even get into the argument of jeans being more expensive that trousers and whilst a £300 pair of True Religion jeans are deemed unacceptable, a 20 year old pair of scruffy, ripped trousers is somehow perfectly acceptable. Let’s go straight for the ‘so what?’

Why on earth does it matter is someone’s shirt isn’t tucked in, or the shorts aren’t tailored, or the jeans are scruffy. You aren’t going to have tea with the Queen (although I’ve a few thoughts on that one). You’re playing a game. A game involving grass, mud, water, rain, etc… It’s supposed to be fun. Which does not mean everyone must wear jeans. It’s supposed to be pleasure.

In my own, personal, golf club the dress code would say; ‘Be Comfortable. Keep Warm. Don’t wear anything that could upset anyone else.’  I would not be bothered if your shorts were 6 inches above the knee or your socks were 3 inches above your ankle (what is that one all about?). It’s a game - enjoy yourself.

I suspect the reason behind the dress code is a wealth of old twaddle concerning class, Victorian values and often just plain prejudice and elitism around golf clubs (or tradition as some would deem it). Why do we take our hats off and shake hands on the 18th? It’s tradition. Why do golf courses have 18 holes? It’s tradition. Why don’t we have any women or juniors on our committees to make decisions unless they’re in a ‘secretarial’ capacity or are there basically as observers with no real voting power? It’s tradition.

Now I’m not an anti-traditionalist myself. I quite like the ‘hats off and hand shaking’ thing but I can’t really say I’m a fan of any institution where a handful of like-minded, similarly educated, similarly dressed 60 – 70 year old middle-class, professional men make all the decisions on when I can play, who I can play with and what I’m allowed to wear based on an archaic set of values that are deemed ‘proper’.

Oh, and sometime soon the argument will crop us, “Well what would happen if everybody behaved like you and wore what they liked and didn’t take their hats off when they walked into the bar?” I have a well-thought out succinct argument for that too, “Nothing would happen. Let people keep their hats on in the club if they wanted to. Why on earth would it matter?”

It’s tradition. So on that basis let’s keep a gang of small children around the back of the clubhouse and wheel a few out to carry our golf clubs and tee up for us for a few pence each round. Or let’s keep women out of the bar or stop blacks and other minorities playing golf altogether. These have been some of the traditions of golf clubs in the (not too distant) past.

Most members are glad some of these traditions have disappeared but seem to have trouble fighting the more subtle nuances of discrimination and personal freedom………
Or is it that somewhere deep down many men still want to cling to those Victorian values where they were obeyed?

So perhaps the recession has been a good thing in this one respect. Golf clubs are becoming more open about membership. It’s often a matter of survival these days – hopefully this will survive even if there’s a financial upturn. Perhaps not. For the sake of fairness and equality let’s hope this recession is here to stay

Note – The dress code list comes from ‘The Ladies Golf Club of Toronto’ which describes itself as ‘A Classic Club for Contemporary Women’.

Bernard Hinault - lowest point of learning curve

1. The Learning Curve - Myth

Basic Learning Curve

Ask anyone about ‘the learning curve’ and they’ll describe a nice, elegant smooth curve. It looks as if all you need to get through that difficult first ten years of learning to play golf is; time, an endless supply of money, patience and some resilience.

2. The Learning Curve - Reality

Real Learning Curve

However, that hasn’t been my experience. Learning doesn’t happen in a nice smooth line. The way golfers learn is through a series of disasters interspersed with a few brief moments of pure delight. The delight is a tantalising glimpse of how the game can be played. A moment when you hit a shot as good as anyone on earth has ever played. It is as rare as a ghost orchid or a Youtan Poluo but it’s enough to make you endure the next 3 months of pain, false promise and shattered dreams.

Learning is not a curve – it’s a cross-section of the Alpine mountain stage of the Tour de France and you are Lance Armstrong. Each stage is more exhausting than the previous one. I lied when I said you were Lance Armstrong – you’re not Lance Armstrong – you’re Yauheni Hutarovich (2009 Tour de France Lanterne Rouge)

How it works;

1. You think you understand golf ….. then it bites you on the bum –

2. You hit a 210 yards three wood to 6 feet ….. then you 3 putt -

3. You think you understand golf ….then it bites you on the bum.

Incidentally the best sporting quote ever was from a cyclist – Bernard Hinault – “I attack when I’m tired. In that way no-one knows I’m tired.”. Translated into golfing terms this means – when you’re playing your 7^th out of the rough on a par 5 give it your full attention – make it your best shot (there’s a facile line that many a wizened golf writer would use here about counting the shots at the end of the round and that one shot you saved turning the 12 into an 11 will make all the difference. But we all know that that’s all tosh – if you’re shooting double figures on one hole the odds of getting in the top half of any competition are as likely as Tiger Woods three putting – oops hold that).

However I do feel that focusing on every shot, especially when you’re at your lowest, is fantastic for you as a person. I would recommend it unreservedly as one who has had a number of those moments when all you want to do is walk in. If anyone has played West Mon (the highest tee in Wales) you’ll know what I mean. It’s permanently cold, invariably blizzard conditions and there’s the 13th par 5 hole that starts uphill and keeps going uphill. It’s generally horrid – I’d like to see some of the spoilt US PGA pros leaving the South Coast of US to play a Cock of the North league match at Tredegar and Rhymney, West Mon or Mountain Ash. /RANT

Now focusing on your 6^th approach shot to the green when your clothes are as wet and cold as they used to be when you went out in the rain as a small child, your lips are blue, your seven extra gloves are all soaking wet, you can’t feel your hands, can be a bit of a challenge – but it’s excellent if you can do it. And you’ll laugh about it later… perhaps a long time later … but you will remember that and learn from it. You’ll learn far more about yourself from the hard times, than from the easy times – trite, undoubtedly, but also absolutely true.

Bernard on top of Learning Curve

The 3 faces of gloveless Freddie 'lucky' Couples

Attribution Theory by Fritz Heider basically says that there are 4 factors that affect your behaviour; ability, effort , luck and the difficulty of the task.

At the start of a round golfers usually tend to be fairly jolly, optimistic and sensible. They congregate next to the first tee swinging cheerfully and joking with the group in front; “Now don’t be embarrassed about calling us through”.

Golfers tend to think that ability and effort are factors they have a fair amount of control over, whilst the difficulty of the task and luck are outside the control of the golfer. For instance if golfers practice they expect they will get better. If they have played regularly they expect to get better. If they are playing consistently well there is a belief they will continue to play well. This is all fairly sensible. However this can often be heightened in times of even the smallest increase in stress or tension.

For instance a golfer will drive well with his glove off a couple of times then he’ll never wear a glove again – ask Fred Couples. Suddenly Fred feels he has power over a factor outside his control – luck. We shall be returning to the concept of attribution theory and luck…. But first ……

One of the most interesting factors about golf and attribution theory concerns handicaps. A 16 handicapper playing with a 24 handicapper will often be amazed if the 24 handicapper out drives them, or hits a really good shot, “bandit.”, “24 ********* handicappers” they may be heard to mutter. In truth however there is only a few shots difference and it’s inevitable a higher handicapper will hit some better shots than a lower handicapper. Attribution theory will kick in however and all the effort the lower handicapper has put in to get their handicap down will feel wasted when the 24 handicapper birdies the trickiest par 5 to get 5 stableford points. Over the course of a round the high handicapper will make more mistakes and end up, usually, with a number of holes with no score. However, the 16 24 handicapper will forget this. This will affect their game as they spend more time worrying about their playing partner than their own game and consequently put less effort into their own game and fail. From experience you know this to be true.

When this happens they tend to not attribute this to themselves but look at their luck, “Trust me to get drawn to play with a 24 handicap 12 year old female bandit.”

Luck, fortune, fate, destiny and providence are very interesting aspects for golfers. In times of stress they can really kick in. Even in times of non-stress it kicks in. For example we use the same coloured tees, the same hat, socks, jumper, underwear, etc. If things are going badly it’s rarely the fault of poor technique, lack of concentration or over-optimistic shot selection. It’s habitually down to luck.

“Just my luck I haven’t got a shot in.” – translation: I shanked one behind a tree

“How come I always get a bad lie.” – “Because you keep hitting it in the rough.”

The difficulty of the task is affected very much by the mood. The difficulty of the task never changes. It is the same golf course for you and all the competitors. It’s the same as it was last week. OK the weather may change but again it’s the same for everyone. You can change, adapt your game, but this never changes – really. So, don’t spend any time worrying about it.

Let’s make it very simply. Of the 4 elements that affect your game only ability and effort are under your control. So go practice.