The first swing is the hardest

Each week this summer, Citizen editor Neil Godbout will share his experience learning how to play golf at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club. Want to get in a free round with Neil? Just drop him a line at ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca

Part 1

There is a sound a well-struck golf ball makes as it comes off the face of a club.

Similar to the pop of a baseball off a bat swung by a good hitter, there’s a melodic sweetness to the sound, as if the golf ball is offering a quick thanks as it springs into the air, gleefully launching itself towards the hole ahead.

I have no idea how to do that. When I hit the ball, it sounds like a thud, a complaint from both the club and the ball, even when I manage to hit it cleanly enough that I don’t destroy the tee or dig a foxhole in the fairway.

But that’s why I’m here.

I didn’t pick up a golf club until I was 24, three decades ago. I didn’t buy a set of clubs until I was 40. I have never had a lesson and I have never played a regulation 18-hole course. I haven’t played at all in the last five years, the clubs blanketed in dust in the back of the garage.

Until now.

This is the time for this old mutt to learn a new trick.

This summer, I will work with Blair Scott, the club pro at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club with the goal to transform me into a reasonable facsimile of a golfer. Along with a weekly lesson, I have committed to practising twice a week at the driving range and to play a full 18-hole round each week.

But first, we had to find out just how bad I am.

So last Friday afternoon, I struck out with Blair, Citizen ad director Pierre Pelletier and Prince George Golf and Curling Club GM Don McDermid, hitting from the silver tees.

First thing I learned that no one had had the heart to tell me before – a swing and a miss still counts as a shot. How hard can it be to make contact with a ball not moving? I did it on the second hole and I did it again at least six or seven times over the next four hours walking the beautiful course.

I got off to a great start. On the first hole (we started on the back nine so it was the par 3 #10), I carded a 4, just like the other three superior golfers.

And then my troubles began.

Over the next eight holes, I shot a 77. There were a few good shots along the way. I cleared the water hazard on 14 but I went on to drown two golf balls later in the round.

At the turn, things got better. I relaxed. I stopped trying to play golf and just tried to make clean contact. I cut down on the number of whiffed balls and the errant hits, although I still managed to park one in the middle of an accompanying fairway. But I had far more straight shots that maybe didn’t always go more than 50 yards but weren’t complete disasters.

So after shooting an 81 on the first nine, I shot a 67 on the second nine.

I am, indeed, a project, carding a 148 at my first ever round at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.

Blair smiled and told me he can’t wait to get to work. I’m terrified.