The Club

Chapter 11 - Poetry

I was good at school. Really good! Most people assume when you end up in a retail service industry (like me) that you may not have been college material. I was always in the top of my class, and as high school came to an end my grades in Mathematics and English caught the attention of a couple of my teachers who thought I should think seriously about attending university. But at the age of 18, academics didn’t interest me and the only place I felt semi-normal was on the golf course. In my last year of high school I somehow snuck onto the Queensland school boys’ golf team and was able to visit Perth as part of the Australian National Championships. Turning professional seemed to be the next logical step and so I took the opportunity when it presented itself. Joining the tour also meant that I could live away from home. The discomfort under my roof had become palpable, so off I went. Professional golf seems so glamorous. One conjures visions of Phil Mickleson staying in $1000 a night villas, choosing amongst a bevy of beautiful women for companionship in the evening and never handling a stick of luggage. In the two years I played on the Australian tour I made a grand total of $27,000. I slept on spare beds in billeted accommodations and ate whatever I could scrounge. The goal was to make enough money to get to the next tour stop, and it was always tight.  Two years later, I was glad to be offered a spot in Coolum to learn the trade of a club professional.

My father possessed a keen mathematical and analytical mind though his educational career did not last past high school either. Lorna was the exception in our household. She matriculated at the University of Southern California, completing a degree in Nursing. Lorna never stopped learning. Her first love was poetry. I would often see her reading collections by Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She seemed to find solace in the passages. Perhaps it brought an eloquence to her otherwise utilitarian existence which consisted of stitching up cuts and cleaning up after a couple of men who were sad sack excuses for housekeepers. I was an only child and Lorna and I were always good friends. We both enjoyed playing scrabble and watching late night television, especially mysteries and occult dramas such as the American import, “The Night Stalker”. It seems odd to me now that my father was rarely at home, but for some reason it didn’t seem strange at the time.

I excelled at mathematics. I seemed one step ahead of the math lessons every day and enjoyed thinking up novel solutions to the problems the teacher would propose in class. For the most part I kept my proficiency at Mathematics hidden but occasionally it was on display, like the time in Year 11 when I won first place in my school’s mathematics contest and finished in the top 5% of the school county. Despite my mathematical ability, it was mother’s love of poetry that I inherited and which was the scholarly pursuit that I enjoyed the most. Alas, as my mathematical ability became common knowledge I could live with the shame, but the fact that my knapsack often contained volumes on 19th century poets needed to be kept secret at all costs.

When I decided not to pursue education but rather share the glamorous lifestyle of a struggling tournament golfer, my mother never tried to dissuade me. I think she knew that it was something I needed to try and left me to get it out of my system. My last tournament took place at the age of 21, in Adelaide. I had shot 71 and 72 on the first two days to easily make the cut. I entered the final round in a tie for 20th position. In the third round I was paired with a 15-year-old amateur from New Zealand who proceeded to shoot 64 and move up 15 places in the standings while I shot 76 and dropped 15 spots. The young man did it by taking reckless chances and it just so happened on this particular day they all worked. I never took one chance in the entire round and as a consequence slid farther and farther down the field. With nothing to lose I decided to go for broke in the last round and throw caution to the wind but I couldn’t; I continued to find the safest spots on the course and the paths of least resistance. I shot 75 and made just enough money from the tournament for cab fare back to the hotel. I called up the course at Coolum, accepted their offer and never looked back.