Part 1

I make no pretence at having any skills in sports . Often enough , when young , I used to know what should be done when participating in some team sport or other , and I always did my best . The major drawback was always that I was simply too slow to accomplish what needed to be done . If a ball came near me on a tennis court for instance when I was playing at the net in a doubles match, I could hit it well enough because my reaction times are not all that bad, but if I had to cover the court to get it , the opponent might just as well claimed the point then and there.

Much the same applied when I was once dragooned into playing goalie for a hockey team , Most of the time I had good halves and full backs in front of me , but if they went into wildly speculative mode as they sometimes did , and five hefty opposition forwards came pounding down at me , the only thing I could do was to put the body on the line .

I have a couple of extra dents near my navel to prove that I stopped some of their drives.

Golf , on the other hand , being an individual 's sport , was more to my liking . Thus over the years I was able to hack my way around various fairly easy courses , playing with a regular group of friends , and often thoroughly enjoying the delight of being the first player on a dew-laden green ; a delight greatly compounded when one could leave behind tracks on the green for a following group to see how well one had putted . Arthritis of the shoulder has put paid to that now .

We played on the Lake Albert course in Wagga Wagga . I watched some funny things happen on that course . For instance , the fairway for the last hole at that time ran parallel to the edge of the lake , and if a shot was hooked it was simply goodbye ball . One bloke ahead of us one day put four balls into the lake , and then hurled his club in after them and stamped off to the clubhouse . An hour or so later we watched as he waded out into the lake , attempting to retrieve a good club . Unsuccessfully , while we were watching anyway.

Golf jokes abound , and many a tale was told as we trudged around the course . One Kiwi friend in the group introduced me to the old question : Is that my friend in the bunker , or is the bugger on the green ? . But that same Kiwi was almost rapturous when I hit a seven iron from the tee to what was then the 13th hole ( changed now ) and he gleefully informed me that I had made a hole in one . I didn't believe him , but it was true , and he solemnly insisted on highly polishing the ball , decorating the scorecard and making me a grand presentation of it .

I laughed so much that I absolutely ruined the rest of the round .

On one occasion , while I was playing a round with my son , he saw a leveret squatting behind a tree . He sneaked up on it like a true hunter , gave it a rap with his club , picked it up and put it in his bag , where it recovered quite well , and peed on his collection of balls and tees in what was probably a satisfying revenge for the poor animal . It was taken home , proudly shown to his two impressed sisters , then released in a paddock near our house .

Wagga Wagga is the plural of an Aboriginal name and means place of many crows . A very apt name ! Those highly intelligent birds inhabited a reserve next to the third fairway , and had a bad habit of swooping down on an unsuspecting player's finest shot and stealing the ball . Their nests were full of well-pecked golf balls . One player lost a number of balls , and was so incensed he decided to carry a shot gun with him . Crows are far too clever to stay around if someone has a gun , so , as a concealment , the gent placed it muzzle down in his bag on his buggy . When the crow swooped , he gave a roar and heaved out the gun . Unfortunately , he had cocked it earlier and accidentally pulled the trigger. The discharge blew the bottom out of his bag , and stripped the grips from all his clubs . An expensive scaring of crows !

Knowing my own limitations , I never expected to win anything , but it was de rigeur to put one's scorecard in to the professional's shop , so that he could keep an eye out for burglars , those dishonest characters who deliberately kept their handicap high so that they could win competitions now and then by sheer good luck . The closest I came at Lake Albert was when I lost on a countback because in the split round I had started at the ninth and not the first hole . Never quite understood that , but then even things like Stablefords were and still are beyond my comprehension.

But the course at Henty is another story for later .