The Club

Chapter 12 - Lorna's story

There is comfort in continuity. I arrived at the Club on Monday morning and all was in order. It was 8 a.m. and I was strolling in a little late. I brought in a coffee for Jason who I knew would be halfway through our inventory by this time of the morning. It was the first week of school holidays so the Junior Development Squad were to meet at 9 a.m. but all four of them were already gathered on the chipping green playing one of the short game contests I had made up for them. On the driving range was Big Al Greene who was banging long drives to the back of the range. He was short on technique but I have to admit his hand-eye co-ordination was superior and he could strike the ball powerfully with a fluid repeatable motion. Ena Greene was behind the 16th green, feeding the ducks. She was racing around trying to catch up to them so they would eat one of the bread crumbs she had brought from home in a paper bag. Ena was confused about the relationship between the animals and the golf course; the ground staff saw the kangaroos, cockatoos, and magpies as major nuisances but Ena had come to name each of them as her personal pets. She had a name for each of 200 kangaroos that frequented the Club. Oodles, Zoodles and Doodles were some of her favourite monikers.

I passed Harry the Hair on the way into the pro shop but he looked the other way; he still hadn’t forgiven me for stealing his van for the first junior match. The man had not figured out how to use a bar of soap but, man, could he hold a grudge. I headed through the door of the pro shop and the incessant “brrring, brrring, brrring, brrring” of the entrance bell chimed in my skull, making its first appearance of the day before it would burn into my semi-consciousness one thousand times again over the course of the morning.

“How’s the inventory going, Jason?” I asked as I passed over his flat white with two sugars.

“Finished,” he replied. “I stayed last night and got a start on it.”

Jason was truly amazing. He loved being at the golf course and running the shop the way it was meant to be run. He was a true student of the game, and even the most mundane task in the pro shop was worthy of his absolute full attention. He was excellent with suppliers and customers. He seemed to put more thought into the golf equipment we sold in the shop than anyone should. He stocked the right items and could envision a customer for every order. It would be easy to dismiss Jason as an overly organized “do-gooder” obsessed with the minute mind- numbing details of the job, but for my money it was inspiring to see someone in his element. The only trouble was that Jason was so organized he made Cloudy look good. Cloudy was truly a genius at sponging off other people’s proficiency and taking the credit for himself. He was equally good at deflecting blame from himself when something went wrong, which is where I seemed to come in handy.

The course had really started to take shape over the past 4 months and most of it was due to Jason’s efficiency and Harry’s incredible work ethic on the greens. My contribution seemed to be most valued when it came to the development program. People had begun to notice that the juniors were starting to improve in leaps and bounds, and more youngsters were joining the Club. Not only were Tom, Dick, Harry, and Lorna carrying the torch but I also created a sub-junior program for the 5 or 6 serious golfers that were interested in the game but not quite ready for competition. People started to sense a buzz around the course with respect to the talent level of the young players, and they were very impressed with the early returns.

My coaching style was a little different than most. Once the players had the basic fundamentals of grip, ball position, alignment, and posture I did not insist that they spend hour upon hour on the range reinforcing the basics. Instead I had them find spots on the course and test their creativity and ingenuity. The result was that they were constantly challenged and enjoying their practice. I would often give them 3 daily missions such as hitting a particular shot out of trouble on a particular hole. So I would say that today they had to get up and down from the bunker on the second hole, fade a shot around the gum tree on the 5th hole to the back right portion of the green, and two putt from one end of the 8th green to the other. The development squad would play rounds together with extra balls in their pockets and try to master their daily missions and then come in at the turn and tell me all about their front 9’s. I insisted that they play the 9th and 18th holes straight up so that none of the members would see them playing with extra balls and hitting various shots. To the members, my guys drove off one and came up 18 with nothing but a straightforward approach to their games; they did not need to know that in between they were hitting dozens of shots from all over the course and trying to scramble their way from the most sinful of locations.