Pitchmarks #88 - "Penwings"

A few weeks ago, I was attempting to record an audio version of one of these missives - finally trying that medium out, though it isn’t my comfort zone. It’s more like an uneven drop zone with a lake in front. I loathe the sound of my own voice recorded - to me I sound drugged, not to mention deluded, and more than once I struggled to complete a sentence when the ridiculousness of all this writing nonsense caught up with me.

I’ve felt self-conscious before, and on this particular morning that feeling was magnified, reminding me of standing above my ball on the first tee at Deal all those years ago, being played in. Even my duck-hook deserted me on that occasion, the ball sailing right into the car park in which my playing partner - the membership interview panel for the morning - had parked. That might be the longest, most ignominious walk in golf, the one where - at the end of it - you might discover you have failed the play-in after only one desperate lunge. Luckily, his windscreen was intact, and I was pleased to never see the ball again, for it was a vicious traitor.

Another vicious traitor is the word ignominy. Ignominious I can cope with, and just about spell and say, but cut it short by a few letters and it turns nasty, just like that wild, high cut. I fail to pronounce it correctly the first time, and have to start all over again with a provisional. And then I slice that one, and shank the next two, and before long ignominy and I are locked in mortal combat, and I feel naked and afraid. Which seems appropriate, as the word itself means “public shame or disgrace”.

I try google, and listen to and repeat the virtual version, and start to get nearer, but when the tape is running, it’s hopeless. I must have mentioned this miserable episode to my wife, for she finds and shows me a clip of the Hollywood actor Benedict Cumberbatch, being interviewed on Graham Norton’s show, or rather ridiculed. Apparently, the yips can affect even the greats, for Norton is ruthlessly running through some blockage Cumberbatch had suffered with the word penguin. “Apparently I got it wrong repeatedly in [a] documentary”, the modern Sherlock explains, “now I’m completely terrified of the word”.

Norton cruelly runs through an edited video, during which his guest offers us three “penwings” and a “penling”, and the host notes that at some point his mortified guest loses “all sense of what the word is”. It’s tough viewing, and - still not fully recovered from the battle with ignominy - I side with the victim even more strongly than usual.

But there it is - some things ought to be easy, ought to be manageable, and just aren’t. We ought to be able to make a decent contact with that little ball sitting there, given all the time and effort and money and pain we’ve put into golf by this stage. I can say “penguin” with ease, and I bet Benedict could say - and definitely understand - “ignominy” at least as easily, and almost certainly avoid the members’ car park, as well.

Our brains are mysterious instruments, though, and so - when the tape is running, or the play-in is underway - we’ve no real idea what might happen next. So I try and learn the lesson, and deploy damage limitation tactics. I only ever hit a hooky 1 iron off Deal’s first now, and will leave the ignominy of “ignominy” to its own devices from this point on. This wretched game…

A short post this morning. And listening to it back, the final sentence should perhaps be “This ignominious game…”, but I can’t bear to read it all over again, and face my equivalent of Cumberbatch’s penwing all over again. So instead I shall let it go, and head off to pack the hickories, for another mission awaits: Kilspindie. See you next Sunday.