WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of playing one of the best courses in Australia, the New South Wales Golf Club. Down in La Perouse, about half an hour south of Sydney, the New South Wales has long been considered one of the top three courses Down Under.

Seaside holes smack against the rushing ocean, and dunes as high as a six-storey building give this course a character that is altogether unfamiliar to a golfer in Singapore. It was the second time that I have had the privilege to tee it up here, the first one was so long ago, the concept of a composite driver would have seen as other worldly as a black US president. Just look at how far we've come.

But the thing about my recent round there was not one of awe, or of delight, but of complete disaster - as far as my golf swing was concerned. To put it simply, it was one of those days where I couldn't do a single thing right. 

Drives would be topped into the ravines that front many of the tee boxes, or be pushed or pulled into the long willowy grass on the sides of the hills. Each iron shot was either shanked, topped, or chunked into the pot bunkers. My hands had more twitchy action than a gigolo celibate for a fortnight, while my body possessed the energy of a rock embedded to the ground. This glaring dichotomy led to more than a dozen balls lost, and nearly all my ego washed away with the white caps that lapped the Australian coastline.

Strangely enough, this episode came right after two of the best rounds of golf I've had in a long time. Our short photo shoot with Lam Chih Bing and Andrew Welsford (see April 2009 issue) turned on a few lights in my head and I seemed to be hitting crisper shots and more consistent drives of late. 

What a difference a day makes.

The only predictable thing about golf, it seems, is its unpredictability. Hackneyed, but oh so true. One day you feel you can't miss a putt, another day, the holes shrink to the size of a pin. One round you feel you can chip it close, another you have the sense of distance as a snail thinking that he can traverse the Gobi desert for greenery to chew on. 

It brings to mind that professionals who can string four great rounds together deserve every ounce of silver in their trophies, and every cent in their (now shrinking, I'm sure) winner's cheque. To do so week in and week out surely demands the utmost respect from us.

Now that I've come back to Singapore, and down to earth, the game is slowly coming back to an acceptable standard. I am humbled, for sure, and the next time I tee it up (which is pretty soon, I hope) I will keep an open mind and invite whoever will be showing up into my space. Whether I'll "like him" or not, however, is another matter.

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