- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
One of the very few pure delights left in the world for me on a competitive sporting paddock is a game of golf with my mates.
It seems as I get older, the ability and availability of competitive stimuli has eroded and now become a blanket of medical and insurance propaganda that takes me three weeks to read and understand.
By the time I have completed the paperwork, I have a swollen writing hand that prevents me from competing at any sort of effective level anyway.
The scrutiny and physical health compliance required to strut out in any arena these days has surely taken the fun and enjoyment out of the instinctive nature we all hold – to compete!
Life truly does come full circle. At a young age we are measured under a height bar prior to being permitted to ride the roller coaster at the carnival. It is stupid really, because if the carriage detaches from the rails at 100 kilometres an hour, it doesn’t matter if you’re three feet or six feet in height, it is going to leave a bruise.
Some rides used to measure your ability on weight alone. “Yes, little Stevie, you shouldn’t have forced that last donut in your mouth 10 minutes ago, now you can stand and watch.”
We then enter a phase in our life where everything is possible and plausible. I can jump off that cliff, I can tackle that opponent, I can swing on that vine – we truly are in love with ourselves and our life is exciting and adventurous with no limits.
Then it suddenly stops, we have a catheter filled with inhibition inserted, which injects doubt and fear into our once open umbrella of opportunity.
We get to an age where nobody trusts us anymore, “Anyone silly enough to jump out a plane at your age is not right in the head.”
Our once-loyal friends, who lived all the experiences of our youth side-by-side, are now married and live a very sociable lifestyle in the ‘burbs, with a routine of day-by-day heading toward the five-year-plan.
“Hey Mick, how about a game of golf this weekend? You, me and Barry?”
“Sorry Mate, can’t do this weekend, I have the in-laws here. Let’s hook up in July.”
Truth is, Mick’s father in-law loves golf and plays every opportunity he gets. I then start to doubt that Mick wants to be my friend anymore, because I don’t fit the mould of happily living his life!
So I head out to the course without them. I don’t mind being the only player in a group, it just makes me impatient, that’s all, because I am forever moving and catching the group in front, who are swinging their clubs like they are putting a grassfire out with tree branches.
The common courtesy used to be to let a single player play through, apparently not anymore. This is their last salvation or glimpse of mediocre control for the average weekend hacker, so they are not forfeiting 10 minutes for people playing through.
I love it, the polite apology they give me when I arrive at the tee while they are standing there, “Not much use hitting through, it’s the group in front slowing us down.”
I don’t care, I will play through them as well, why should I be subject to a five-hour game of golf, watching you waddle over the ball for 10 minutes and then chop it into the turf like you are using a mattock instead of a golf club?
Sadly, in my waiting room of available competitive choices, I think even golf is making for the exit sign, leaving me staring blank-faced at lawn bowls and chess in the park.
I am not totally against walking onto the lawn bowls arena clad in full white and club coloured tops. The tray of competitive juice served even mildly warm is enough to attract me.
My old man played bowls, I think that is what I am scared of – am I my old man’s age already? Where did that go? I don’t look like him, he had wrinkly elbows and grey hairs on his neck.
It’s a shame they cannot allow overarm fast bowling or a variation on the bowling mat that incorporates ten pin bowling and shuttle board. I don’t know, anything a little risky that creates excitement and enjoyment for the younger bowlers out there.
It would be fantastic and very funny to see a 70-year-old man push off the gutter and start his three metre run up to the bowling mat, then dispatch an overarm off-spinner down the green that plugs and skittles the opponent’s bowls in all directions.
“Sorry Dad, just want to connect with you on a mutual level of competitive satisfaction!”