Of course the personalities vary as much as the swings. Everybody’s perspective, learning style and mood is as unique as the proverbial snowflake. When one client leaves and the next one enters I have no idea what the next hour has in store, which area of the game is in need of assistance, where the disobedient ball is heading or which club is on the verge of gross misconduct. There is no hint of boredom or the mundane in a golf coach’s life.
And for the record, what kind of world are we living in where it is possible to make a living from people hitting a ball around a field? Surrounded by all the hysteria with Brexit and Trump it is possible, over dinner with friends, for the conversational topics to jump from nuclear instability, the stock markets’ nerves surrounding a ‘Hard Brexit’ to the merits of a cack handed putting grip. Totally bananas but that’s how much this silly game has integrated itself into our lives.
Having this varied clientele does bring its moments of humour alongside touching tales when you can become so appreciative of the moments spent on the course in the Algarve sun. Some people save their pennies all year to enjoy what, we as residents, see every day.
I had a lovely client, about to turn eighty-three, come for a series of lessons last year. His wife was a bundle of fun too. The lessons were scheduled to culminate in a nine hole playing lesson for the two of them.
They booked a buggy because the gentleman was a little unsteady on his feet over prolonged periods of time. It was a glorious late Algarve summer afternoon, hardly a breath of wind, freshly mown grass - you get the picture. It was supposed to be a joint playing lesson, yet his wife played a very retiring role, very quickly picking up the ball if she wandered off the straight and narrow.
We got to the fifth and she said to me this was so wonderful, to see her husband so content, enjoying himself. I asked why and her answer was that the gentleman the other side of the fairway was so close to his final breath three years earlier. At the time she felt that he needed a target, a goal to fix on rather than the bleak alternative.
When she asked what he would most like to do, he had answered that the idea of never playing golf again saddened him; their joint goal from that moment was to play nine holes. Bear in mind here that anything was on the table, from helicopter rides to the Grand Canyon. You name it, it would have been granted but he wanted to play golf again. So that was what the family focused on and I was in the middle of it.
What was a very pleasant playing lesson immediately became my most memorable on course lesson. I was watching a man fulfil a three- year goal. Nothing was taken for granted as he was nearly confined to a wheelchair due to such poor blood circulation in his legs. No wonder he was showing little signs of frustration regardless of where the ball flew.
It helped me redefine how important playing golf is to me. Sounds strange really when you think my working hours are spent talking about nothing but golf.
Playing this game is something completely different. Already this year I have played as many rounds as I did in the total for 2016, with Thursday being my first social/competitive round since last June.
With the weather taking a turn for the better, it looks like a lovely day to go and re-engage with a game with which I was once very familiar. Adopting the same attitude of my client last year, delighted to be out, in the sun, with the clubs. Taking nothing for granted.
After all, as the saying goes, “A bad day on the course still beats a good day in the office.” Only just, for a golf coach though.