Golf is a ridiculous game. That’s a given. A game where an infinite combination of micro-movements and neural synapses combine to determine whether your opening tee shot flies 260 yards down the fairway, or 35 yards along the floor. Is it going to be a good day? Or a four-hour exercise in humiliation?
The margins are finer than dust. Maybe your left thumb was a fraction out. It could be your shoulder turn. It could be you’re still pissed off that guy in the pro shop didn’t leave the door open for you. You’ll never know. And it’s why I walk on to every first tee on an emotional knife-edge. Having played on and off for 30 years, it’s a surprise I’m not in a secure facility.
I may still find myself there after today. I’m playing in the Omega European Masters Pro-Am alongside the reigning champion Matthew Fitzpatrick, a prodigiously talented 24-year-old with a Ryder Cup appearance and multiple tournament wins on his CV (he would go on to lift the trophy again four days later).
On a clear alpine morning at the Golf Club Crans-sur-Sierre in Switzerland, I am facing my golfing demons on the biggest stage yet. To quell the nerves, I’d decided I could at least prepare like a pro. I would “control the controllables”. If “chaos” and “emotion” had been the watchwords of my golfing career so far, I would replace them with “calm” and “calm”.
I wouldn’t think of the lows — when I lost three balls on one hole at St Andrew’s, the time my hybrid snapped mid-shot in Spain, or the day I arrived so late I had to sprint straight to third tee to find I’d left my putter in the kitchen.
Today my outfit was neatly folded on the hotel bed. My tees in one pocket, my glove in the other. Sun cream already applied. I hit the range with time to spare, then do some putting drills. When I arrive at the first tee, I feel good. Sure, there are some people in the stand. Quite a few people come to mention it. And is that John Daly, golf’s favourite anti-hero, teeing off ahead of us to a lot of whooping and cheering? Golf is nerve-wracking enough when you’re playing on your own. Even the birds seem to stop singing when you address the ball.
Matt arrives to hearty applause and offers a smile and a handshake. His flowing swing sends the ball away with such speed I immediately lose track of it. My two team-mates follow. “Will Hersey” reads out the announcer, finishing on an inflection as if expecting a response, but my name is greeted with total silence. Not even a courtesy clap. Tough crowd.
I place the tee into the tightly cropped grass and step back to assess. In the excitement of the pre-round photos I hadn’t asked my caddie, a kind septuagenarian, where I should be aiming.
As I address the ball, ready to pull back the club, I start to feel liquid swelling in my right eye. A dislodged contact lens? A fly? Or a sadistic intervention from the golfing puppet-masters? The timing is so ridiculous that I feel compelled to laugh; an internal, panicky laugh that is now distracting me further. How long had I been stood over this ball now anyway?
“Just hit it,” I say. And I do. A tentative flap that sends the ball with dead aim into the trees. In days gone by I might have descended into self-pity here, my game crumbling around me. But I can’t get angry about a globule of water. Not now. The enormity of the landscape is putting my tiny golfing drama into perspective.
On the second hole, a solid drive helps settle the nerves. Watching Matt up close is revealing. The fizz his ball makes on impact, the result of years of crisp contact. How he can switch from casually chatting to intense focus in seconds.
By the start of the back nine I’m fully warmed up. There are even a few claps when I roll in a birdie on the par three 13th. I can’t resist holding my hand up to the gallery. This might be the only chance I ever get.
Such is our scoring form over the next few holes that winning the tournament looks possible. Could I be the same player as that loser back on the first? What a douche he was. Two putts from 20ft on the 17th and we’d be in with a chance. Would I need to make a speech?
Golf doesn’t respond well to cockiness. I hammer my putt past the hole, down the hill, off the green and into the rough. I card a double bogey six. We finish fourth.
As golfers of all standards are cursed to do, I rue the might-have-beens. But when the dust settles, I can leave these mountains with marginally less self-doubt than when I arrived.
This must be the only sport where hackers can play alongside the best in the world and it still feels normal. “Well played, Will,” says Fitzpatrick at the end, as if we do this every day. Golf is a ridiculous game.
Omega are the Official Timekeepers of the Omega European Masters. omegawatches.com.
