Walk the talk on the golf course

I love the taste of cod liver oil. And no, I have not received any money to endorse the fishy oil.

I have loved the feeling of the oil going down my throat from when, as a tot, I was given my first spoonful by my mother.

To this day, my kids and I enjoy the stuff every other day. My wife on the other hand, is not a big fan of cod liver oil. She buys a bottle for us when it runs out but she will always be busy with one thing or another when it is time for us to take it. She knows that it is good for us but would rather not join “team cod liver oil”.

This unfortunately is the view of many golfers on the Rules of Golf. They would like to see more people learning the Rules of Golf but they will not take any lessons themselves.

Some of the golfers that I meet, especially those that have played for long, lament the dearth of the knowledge of the Rules of Golf among the newer golfers.

Some of the new golfers have also told me of their discontentment at meeting fellows who seemed to have no clue.

“How can a captain give a handicap to a fellow who does not know how to award Stableford points?” a fairly new golfer asked me recently.

“Whose responsibility is it to award the Stableford points?” I responded. “The marker off course!” retorted the golfer rather smugly. I had a very hard time convincing this golfer that it was the committee’s responsibility to work out the Stableford points. The marker only needs to put in the number of strokes that the player will have made on each hole.

The marker and the player also need not add their scores either. All these are the responsibilities of the competition committee. I am sure that most golfers would like to do the additions but that is not necessary.

This past Saturday I conducted a Rules training session for a great “virtual golf club” called Detour Golf. Most of the members of this club are young and majority of them seem to be golfers who have few years of experience on the golf course.

What they lack in experience, they make up for in passion to improve their game. They plan for golf lessons for their members and they have played on several golf courses across the country as a group.

The ladies and gentlemen that attended the Rules training session all agreed that it was a very useful experience and that they learnt a few things that they did not know before. I hope they were not just humouring me when they said that they enjoyed themselves.

Detour Golf had the same shortcoming as all other golf clubs where I have conducted Rules training sessions. The number of students who eventually turn up for the Rules school is always less than had been enrolled. This seems to be getting worse with every Rules school. I don’t know if it is a good thing that I am now accepting this as normal.

We usually ask golf captains to ensure that they have at least 20 people for a Level 1 Rules School. That may sound like very few people considering that participants are drawn from not just the host club, but from all the nearby clubs.

It was unfortunate that we had to cancel the second Level 1 Rules school in Rift Valley that was planned for next week. For the second time in two years, we could not raise 20 participants from 10 or so clubs in the Rift Valley.

The next Level 1 Rules School in the calendar of the Kenya Golf Union, will be in Nyahururu Golf Club 9th of September this year.

I will request Fr Nicholas Kamau of Nyahururu to pray that the spirit of desertion does not afflict this particular school. That there will be more students ready to learn the Rules of Golf than those that wish that everybody else should attend.

While at it, we could request the good Father to pray for the good people at the Kenya Golf Union, Kenya Ladies Golf Union, and all the other bodies that run golf in this country, to stop preaching water and drinking wine.

They send out notices and recommend the Rules Schools to all golfers but very few among their ranks have attended the schools. It is time that they all stopped looking that the Rules of Golf in the same way that my wife looks at cod liver oil.