Professional golfers tend to plan their year in advance. There are a number of criteria which govern their planning: they construct their schedule to play at courses they like or ones which suit their game; they favour bigger money events; if they are "big cheeses" they play wherever it is in their financial interest to play.
Greg Turner drove to South Wales last Tuesday hoping to start his preparation for the Wales Open on the virgin Tour stop at Celtic Manor. (In case you are wondering why it is called the "Wales Open", somebody other than the current sponsor owns the rights to the). "Welsh Open"). Turner had returned later than normal to Europe this year and didn't start his tardy season well, so he felt a certain amount of pressure to break his regular routine of not playing more than four tournaments in a row. The Wales Open was to be his sixth on the trot.
Golfers avoid playing every week for obvious reasons; exhaustion, more so mental than physical. For Turner, his nerve ends tend to be frayed by the Sunday of the fourth consecutive event. As the first in line to bear the brunt of a twitchy golfer, I support my boss's scheduling.
Whimps, the lot of them, you "Wimps, the lot of them," you may well be thinking. The intensity of golf at the top today does, however, seem to take its toll on the toughest and fittest of competitors. Turner was musing, while crossing the Severn bridge early on Tuesday afternoon, whether he was stretching his patience by embarking upon his sixth week of consecutive competition. Nobody could tell him what the course was like in advance. He, in his infinite experience of professional golfers realises that most form their opinions subjectively - Play well = good course. So you really have to go, see and make your own judgement. judgment.
Turner has strong preferences on courses, and never returns to one he personally didn't think much of. t hadn't got the benefit of hindsight for At Celtic Manor, which he had not seen before, he played two holes of a practice round on Tuesday and I could already see the signs of discontent.
A traditionalist, he believes in the flow of a course, the continuity is important. It is a par four distance, uphill, from the first green to the second tee at Celtic Manor; bad start. The second tee shot is blind if downwind and the second shot is totally blind no matter which way the wind blows. Oh no, he's shaking his head. Nice view though, he's shaking his head. "Nice view, though," I tried to enthuse.
Turner was mumbling to himself as he searched for the 13th tee. This was the beginning of the ascent to the clubhouse (or as I later discovered, the beginning of the journey back home to Surrey for my uninspired New Zealand golfer - he had seen enough rolling hills and valleys tramping back in Otago, he didn't need to try to earn a living on that terrain).
As he reached the 13th green, gasping and wheezing, he confessed that it would be a great challenge to do well on this course, probably the biggest of his career. Either that or no challenge at all. If he t didn't see at least one hole that was, in his opinion, "passable" between the 13th and the clubhouse, he was definitely going home.
Needless to say, there isn't a good hole in the last six. The land may be suited to sheep, goats and sherpas, but certainly not golfers. Turner went to see Mike Stewart, the Tournament Director, to inform him that he was going to withdraw. A player whose withdrawal is notified after 12 noon on the Saturday prior to the tournament may be fined £250 sterling.
Stewart informed him of this in response to s opening statement; I have Turner's opening statement: "I have played long enough to know that this is not my cup of tea." His retort to the TD was "Two hundred and fifty pounds and my caddie's wages will be a cheap way of getting out of the .week." With that he turned on his heels, jumped in his car and headed back to his summer residence for a break he was due in any case.
"There are eight decent holes on the course," I pleaded, trying to feign enthusiasm to the bitter end. That still leaves ten "That still leaves 10 holes unaccounted for, that's a 10 and 8 hiding in matchplay," he growled.
We pulled hastily out of the gravel car-park with me sucking dust, but happy that I would not have to draw on my mountaineering resources with only a bag on my back separating me from a disgruntled golfer gibbering in contempt of Robert Trent Jones Jnr on the side of a "Wales" mountain.
