Why you breathe deeply to get back to golf after a break

CHENNAI: The life of an amateur golfer is such that there is always a break, necessitated by various events, some planned and some thrust on them. Long visits abroad, baby sitting and old age care duties run along with injuries and illnesses in disrupting one’s association with the sport. The demographics of the sport is such that almost everyone has to go through this phase of being away from the game and then trying to get back to where they were.

The psyche of such golfers is such that they cannot wait to get back to the game. “When can I start playing golf again?” is almost the final question the surgeon receives from a golfing patient at the time of discharge. This keenness has a therapeutic role to play in the recovery process, especially from injuries and surgeries where physiotherapy and golf routines can go hand in hand. However, it is not always a short, swift road where one can return to the tee box and pick up one’s game where one let go of.

Even a break of two weeks is enough to prove the point. Of course, often, golf is a tease, and often one has such a good round that one could be seduced into thinking that one’s game is intact. ‘Break? What break?’ one can be laughing within oneself.

“The first few holes after a break, will be good,” observed a friend to encourage a fellow golfer get over the initial trepidation of a player returning to the sport. Indeed, it has been the experience of many that they start off well but the horrors set in soon – almost as soon as they begin to think that they are playing well. Golf is a beguiling game! As someone who has had to take quite a few breaks in the few years that I have been playing the sport, I can empathise with the struggle to get back to one’s game where one let go of.

Tournaments galore

February is a particularly hard month to take a break from golf. This is the peak tournament season. Apart from the weekend tournaments, there are the match plays, which kick off in January, but folks get down to them in right earnest from February.

This year, it was raining tournaments in both the Cosmo TNGF and Madras Gymkhana Golf annexe. Prodapt, Tablets India, Earth Sense Trophy along with the TCS tournament are some of the most eagerly awaited events at the TNGF while the MGC held the Gardner Medal and the 125th Year Doubles during the same period.

Adding to the excitement were the sponsored tournaments – Nissan, BMW and Mercedes – and the ones conducted by various Rotary Clubs in Chennai. Some golfers also had to oblige their peers by participating in some outstation events. A couple of tournaments were so close to each other that one hardly had time to get the golf clubs cleaned.

There were many innovations in the scoring method introduced in several of the tournaments. One such was to fix the handicap for the event at 75% of one’s handicap. This tilts the competition in favour of low handicappers. The Eclectic events, which take the better score on each hole played over two rounds, have another interesting variation where one has to sync with oneself to do well.

The SILGA tournament for all at the TNGF, which was organised by the ladies, had teams of four consisting of one lady player and three gentlemen. The lady player’s score received higher weightage making the contest very open.

A number of low handicappers were hitting the practice range, enjoying their rounds with their regular fourball on weekdays and playing tournaments on weekends. High handicappers, always a good bet in tournaments, especially in the stableford format, were not lagging either. Caddies too were honing their skills, specially Arul, who got the card to compete in further PGTI tournaments. Although March will likely have fewer tournaments, it is the time when everyone wants to play.