GOLF IN STERKSPRUIT

You have probably already read about Crawley's "spider" - well, here are some more stories from the same "Golf" course

COLIN CLONKED

In the year that I played or rather, attempted to play golf, I often spent Wednesday afternoons chasing the little white ball with Colin Pankhurst. On this particular Wednesday afternoon, Colin drove off with his usual immaculate swing and sent his ball well up to the green – what was a single shot for him would have been at least five for me. Undaunted and feeling quite optimistic for once, I let fly at my ball but my early optimistic hopes were dashed. I went over the top of the ball, touching it lighter than a feather would have and it strolled casually off the tee, into the grass before the fairway – a whole 10 feet away. Immediately furious with myself, I elected to rather go off for 3 and sort of hit it so that it actually made the fairway this time.

Colin started striding off ahead of me, while I looked for my first ball. Catching sight of the miserable blooming thing, my temper flared up again and I took I took a one-handed swipe at it in anger. Dear reader, believe me that was easily the most perfect golf stroke I ever played in my golfing career. It rose up out of the grass, perfectly straight and moving like an arrow and hadn’t even started rising when it hit poor Colin on the back of his head with an appalling crack. Colin lurched forward, staggered a few steps and then resumed walking as if nothing had happened.

I was aghast and ran and caught up with him. “Are you OK” I gasped and he replied, “Yeah sure, but I just had a funny sort of blackout a moment ago but I’m fine again”. When I asked about the ball, he had no idea that he had been clonked on the head – he had not felt a thing! He then felt the back of his head and discovered a rather painful-to-the-touch knob growing enthusiastically there. It was the darndest thing to watch that thing pushing up through his hair, right before my eyes. Colin sported a fashionable Beatles hairstyle at the time and I can only surmise that his thick hair cushioned him from at least a cracked skull and being knocked silly. Possibly he just had an abnormally think skull but there has to be a reason why he came off so lightly from a blow which would have felled a bull.

And something else I now wonder – would I not have played better golf if I had used only one hand? Don’t snigger please – in its existence, that golf course only had a single hole-in-one and guess who scored it? A short nine-iron hole, Lyle gets on with his trusty 5 iron, hits the flippin’ ball soundly in the ribs and watches his “rat raper” shot zig-zag through the rough, up to and onto the green and down the hole. The caddies went wild and Colin turned his eyes heavenwards and silently mouthed that it just wasn’t fair. Somebody “Up There” felt sorry for me and gave me the ultimate consolation prize. It was the perfect fluke which nobody will EVER equal as that course long ago returned to Nature.

COLIN’S HAZARD

Colin’s drives were usually straight down the middle but very occasionally he would produce a hook. One Wednesday afternoon started uncharacteristically with a hook, which drifted into some really fearsome rough. He trudged off to find his ball but all of a sudden he took off running and waving his club like a madman. Out in the rough, a stately secretary bird had been quietly watching us and had decided that the “egg” which had landed near him, would make a tasty treat. Stalking hurriedly on his spindly legs, the bird made for the ball, trying to get there before the gesticulating and shouting Pankhurst got there. The bird got there first and without waiting a second, gobbled down the ball and flew off. Colin had to go back and tee off again and I insisted he go off for three, which he bitterly resented. For some weeks after, we heard of a couple of further cases of players losing balls to the bird. I have no idea what the effect of a gizzard full of golf balls would be. I know secretary birds happily kill and consume snakes but golf balls are considerably tougher than mere snakes, so who knows what happened to it. I should imagine that standing behind it for a while might have been perilous.

“FRED” AND THE PITH HELMET

When I first arrived in Sterkspruit, there was an Assistant Magistrate helping to administer the district. I’ll just call him Fred to protect the innocent. Fred was a non conformist, a bit strange perhaps and fond of Gilbeys gin. Proof of his eccentric behavior might be gauged from him on occasion lying on his bed, well oiled, using his .22 rifle to shoot flies on his ceiling. And needless to say he tried his hand at golf but insisted on wearing a Dr Livingstone style pith helmet when playing.

Fred was also not very good at golf and his game waxed and waned pretty much according to the level of blood in his Gilbey’s stream. One Sunday morning he stepped up to the 1st tee resplendent in his helmet, addressed his ball and let fly. There was a sound of club striking ball and all of a sudden, Fred’s helmet flew off and he fell off the tee. Everyone looked to see where the ball had gone but there was no sign of it down the fairway. Then someone spotted it – in the helmet which rocked gently o its side on the tee. Fred had somehow come straight down on the ball and caused it to spring back up, striking him a glancing blow on the head and disappearing into his helmet, knocking it off his head. It was an unheard of, impossible shot which even a trick golfer would struggle to pull off but Fred had managed it.

He sprang up from where he had fallen and hatlessly and furiously glared around wanting to know who had thrown a ball at his head. Everybody laughing uproariously didn’t improve his temper either.

PIET DE GILBEYS

A relieving postmaster, Piet de Beer, with a mighty thirst for Gilbeys, (Yet another!) turned up in Sterkspruit and professed to be a golfer so come his first Sunday there, we invited him along to make up a fourball. We were due to tee off at 8 but come 8, no sign of Piet. I drove back to the hotel to fetch him and found him, all dressed and ready to go, practicing swings in his room. The half empty Gilbeys bottle on his table testified to the fact that Piet had “fortified” himself for the game ahead. Still, he was apologetic for having lost track of time and happily joined us on the course.

Piet played a superbly erratic game – zigzagging from rough to rough on his way to the greens but his crowning stroke came on the very last hole – the short hole over water, a wedge shot beyond which lay the little metal rondawel which served as our clubhouse. I have an idea Piet might have had a bit of his liquid fortification in his golf bag because by the last hole, he was distinctly merry and unsteady. He climbed on the tee, placed his ball and addressed it with a 3 wood. We were amused as well as a little alarmed but Piet must have gone deaf because he did not change to a wedge even when we pointed out his mistake.

Believe me, Piet hit then his best shot of the day – straight and true and when it crossed the green, it had not even reached full speed yet. Leaving the green well behind, it charged through the “clubhouse” door and starting clattering and banging away inside. Luckily no-one was inside and miraculously, no windows or anything else, were broken. We gave him the hole, but only in case he decided to put up another ball for another go at the clubhouse!

DOEP AND THE MYOPIC CADDY

The cattle herders from the nearby village soon found more lucrative work on our golf course at Sterkspruit, as caddies. Most of the little guys quickly cottoned on to what was expected of them and soon became seasoned bag carriers. Most of them that is but not all.

A fellow, whose surname escapes me but who we called Doep back then, came to relieve at Sterkspruit and he soon fell in with our Wednesday afternoon routine, because he had a set of clubs with him. Now, Doep was still a high handicapper but streets ahead of me, whose handicap was golf. Teller, Colin Pankhurst’s handicap was nearing single figures so we had quite a selection of expertise in our threeball.

Doep had a huge, booming drive but while it had admirable distance, it often lacked direction. His drives were as likely to go 300 yards into either rough as down the middle of the fairway. Consequently, he really needed a wide awake caddy to keep track of his ball. On our first outing, Doep found himself with a tiny little fellow who could just manage the bag but wasn’t much good at spotting the ball. If Doep went miles into the left hand rough, little Sipho would hare off into the opposite rough and start searching there – and vice versa. Our rough really was ROUGH and at times, one could hardly see the little guy in the long grass. After losing a ball or two and battling to find others, Doep was getting a bit fed up with Sipho.

It was round about the 4th hole when Doep hit a massively long drive, neither hooked nor sliced, just straight out into the right hand rough. Off went Sipho at great speed, to the other side. Doep found his own ball and by now very fed-up, waved to Sipho to bring the bag. I’d walked on and suddenly I heard Doep yelling, “Kan jy NOU die bal sien”. He had Sipho upside down by the ankles and was thumping his head none too gently on the ball. You might think his action a bit drastic but believe me, it had the desired effect because after that, Sipho seemed to develop true binocular vision and incredible speed and was usually already on the spot, when the ball came to rest.

I think Doep felt a bit guilty about his treatment of Sipho because the little chap went home smiling, with more cash in his pocket than any of the other caddies.

GARTH LOSES HIS COOL

Garth was a bank customer who only played intermittently but I say “played” advisedly, because like so many of us in that club, he really didn’t play well. He was a trader and fairly well off – his bag of clubs wasn’t cheap and nasty. Garth was also red-headed and in common with most people with that hair shading, of somewhat uncertain temperament and subject to sudden bursts of rage. He had not fared too well on his way round and was a little red in the face when he got onto the 8th tee. I suppose he thought to make up for his previous failures on the round and really put some effort into that drive.

One thing I was sure about was that he had connected the ball with his massive wood, but despite my best efforts, I could not say the same about where the ball had gone. As we all stared down the fairway, hoping that the ball might suddenly reappear from wherever it was hiding, there was a shout from a caddy behind the tee. He was in the process of climbing over the boundary fence, on the way to go and collect Garth’s ball, which was happily bouncing away, right out of bounds. Garth’s ball had obviously struck a rock or something in the grass in front of the tee and bounced back over his head. The gales of laughter that erupted did not please that man at all. He actually got a wild look in his eyes and turned bright crimson, before hurling his expensive club away from himself as if it had turned into a snake, nearly killing his caddy and simply stalked back to the clubhouse, without saying a word.

Golf is supposed to be good for one and I have no doubt that some people benefit from the fresh air and mild exercise playing good golf provides but I refuse to believe poor players benefit even slightly from the game. In fact, that more dodgy golfers don’t die of apoplexy or myocardial infarction, brought on by the extreme frustrations and embarrassments of the game, is just a mystery. Garth was a good example and actually, so was I. We must have placed incredible stresses on our bodies on that damn course.