Playing with the boys

Carelessly, I mentioned to Paul I would like to meet some lady golfers to play with. He undertook to ask the Lady Captain of his club whether I could join in their competition games.

Golf, being rather a snooty game at private clubs, means that only those whose credentials have been checked and agreed upon by other members may be allowed to play on their hallowed greens.

So it was that my request was escalated to the Board of Directors of the Club for consideration. Finally, I received a note that the Directors had voted that I could pay a pro rata membership fee and join the ladies in their Tuesday competition.

Booking a game has to be done in person. As Gilmore was unable to play on Friday, Paul invited me as his guest to join him and his regular Friday playing partners – Dave and Alice – so that afterwards I could put my name on the Tuesday booking sheet.

Dave and Alice, I discovered, had single figure handicaps which rather rattled me, but Paul assured me they ‘just played for laughs’, a claim I thought unlikely, reminding me of those wise words: ‘every shot in golf pleases someone’. All of my shots, I felt, would delight Dave and Alice.

I was slightly nonplussed when I met Alice to discover she, or rather he, was actually Alistair, a somewhat taciturn Scot who looked alarmed at the prospect of a woman joining their foursome. He was even more dour when the toss for partners yielded him yours truly.  If the losers were expected to shout drinks in the bar afterwards, he was going to be out of pocket by several pounds.

Nerves took over for the first few holes and I dismally failed to contribute to our score. Alistair remained silent, still smarting from the indignity of having a female partner foisted upon him in a game he obviously viewed as one of the last bastions of male stronghold. My presence obviously negatively affected his game. Despite his teeny weeny handicap, he struggled to keep his score apace with Dave and Paul.

So far, I wasn’t aware of too many laughs during this game.

Then – a miracle. My club connected with my ball and I scored a birdie (that’s 2 shots) on a par 3 (that means you are allowed 3 shots to gain a par. Or rather, I am allowed 4 shots because of my handicap so I scored one-under par).

Alice grunted something at me in broad dialect. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so I smiled brightly and nodded. Paul told me he was from Forfar, as if this must explain everything.

“Forfar has a very hilly course,” he said, enigmatically.

As I began to contribute some decent scores to our team effort, Alice lightened up considerably, and his grunts and mumbles increased. I just kept smiling and nodding.

The boys were laughing at Alice now - and his reliance on a woman to score for his team. He rose above their sarcasm and began to show us how this game of golf should be played with a series of devilishly long and accurate shots.

That wiped the smiles from Dave and Paul’s faces. Instead, they began cracking jokes about my handicap of 30.

“Thirty!” they hooted scornfully. “Eighteen more like!’ and accused me of being a burglar.

The round over, hands shaken, we repaired to the bar. Paul added up the scores – a draw - thus leaving male pride on all sides reasonably intact.

“Close game!” he said, and started muttering again about my handicap being far too high.

I popped to the Ladies locker room and made a booking for Tuesday.  Mysteriously, the noticeboard said I must also let the Pro Shop know my tee time so I duly went and explained that I had permission to play with the ladies.

“Who am I playing with?” I asked Tom, the pro.

He checked the booking sheet.

“Marlene and Click Clack.”

‘Click Clack?” I asked.

“Aye,” said Tom. “All the ladies call her Click Clack because she has one of those counter thingies which you press after each shot to add up your score.

“The only problem is, she often forgets to press it.”

“Ahh,” I said. “She can’t count?”

Tom just grinned, not wishing to commit defamation of character.

Back in the bar, Paul’s soup, Alice’s pie, my mussels and Dave’s chip butty had arrived.

 “How many more weeks are you here for?” Dave asked me.

“Three,” I said.

“Well, that’s three weeks Gilmore won’t be playing with us!” he said.

Alice just grunted incomprehensively in his Forfar way, while I tried to work out if that’s the biggest compliment anyone ever paid me, or whether when Gilmore plays with Alice they always win by a very easy margin.