Old Friends #2 - "Old Love", by Michael Estorick
My perfidious love…
It felt like one of those medicals one finds any excuse to avoid, and when the results appear, they mean nothing to anyone but the men in white coats. All the same, the numbers were evidently unequivocal: I was coming over the top, the angle of attack was too shallow, the swing speed feeble. Like most golfers my age, I was playing from memory with incipient Alzheimer’s. My only hope was to try something new.
After treatment, I probably should have felt guilty, but for some reason I didn’t. Having an extra club in the bag was only a minor infraction, as I’d no intention of choosing between them and, unlike Woosie at the Open, had no chance of taking home the silverware. For all her promises, I already knew my new girl would never meet my expectations; no one could. Sooner or later, one of us was bound to feel let down, and I would return to my older, more dependable love. People who claim to understand love will say you know it when it happens, and only the day before, after twenty years together, we had finally shared that mystical mutual transcendence romantic poets and pornographers write about, something unique and unequivocal, after which one invariably deludes oneself into thinking such feelings are permanent, such powerful emotions readily transferable.
The club-fitting had been a thank-you present from a friend, a generous offer I should have declined, to fill a gap I wasn’t aware of. For over a century, club makers have been promising a magic wand which will instantly eliminate a faulty swing, cure a slice or hook; finally, eternally, normalise that fragile bond between man and tool. No longer would they act independently, but instead behave as one, as if earlier claims had been mere chat-up lines, one more ponzi scheme designed to seduce the innocent, in which extravagant, ridiculous promises must inevitably turn to dust. This, at last, was solid gold, and with it, for good measure, came a lifetime, cast-iron guarantee. It must be true. It said so on the packet.
I’d swallowed such propaganda before. Which would-be golfer hasn’t, poor suckers that we are, ready to cling to any piece of persiflage to keep us afloat: a square-headed driver guaranteeing straightness, which sent the very first ball at 45 degrees into a bush, immediately cast out, like a one-night stand; putters heavy and light, wedges thin and fat. And what of those balls, whose ridiculous names once promised the world? Trees and ponds are full of those, good as new and still unmarked.
Some parents insist they have no favourite child, when like golfers everywhere, they change their fickle minds from day to day, just to keep them on their toes. One day one club, seeking attention, decides to behave; the next it sulks, refusing to listen. And even that brief ecstasy, when club and ball briefly share a unique symbiosis, even that will quickly fade, become a distant misremembered dream, a chimera which, like so many other memories, may or may not have ever happened, like that one perfect swing which, once complete, is instantly forgotten.
So today, old and new sit proudly side by side in my golf bag, like two silent biddies in the pub, Ena and Minnie, arms protectively folded, squeezed together while avoiding each other’s gaze. Whatever my real preference, being a good parent, I refuse to choose between them, and go instead for the trusty 5 wood. However much I might pretend otherwise, at my age I know she is the only one I can truly trust.