Back pain

My physiotherapist has given up on me and my ailing back but doesn’t have the courage to admit it. Instead she piles up the goose chases, the latest of which is the suggestion of cognitive therapy, my back pain might be in my head she says, messages my brain sends to my lower back, or vice versa, can’t remember which, apparently magnify any perceived pain. I’ve trained my mind to expect pain, it looks out for it and when it appears my brain catastrophises it, telling me it’s more intense than is the actuality, says she. It’s all very interesting and a video presentation by an Australian professor by the name of Lorimer describes in detail the relationship between brain signals and nerve endings, apparently we choose to select a voracity of pain depending on the situation we’re in. Stubbing your toe, for example, as you enter the house after a rotten day at work is more painful than stubbing it on the steps as you embark on a flight to your jollies in Torremolinos. You dwell on the pain caused by the former but brush off the inconvenience brought on by the latter.

Fair point, so I decided to take this concept onto the golf course. It didn’t work, although I’m not sure I was fully committed. I had a word with myself as I addressed my golf ball. Usually my lower back pain goes through phases as I swing the club, it starts with a dull ache, graduates to a sharp twinge in the backswing and reaches a crescendo of minor agonies upon impact, the follow through being equally traumatic . Today though I silently repeated a mantra to convince myself that this would not hurt, this would not hurt, this would not hurt. I’m not sure my heart was in it to be frank but repeating the phrase was at least some sort of concession to my physio and Professor Lorimer, after all, I’d tried everything else without any consequent signs of improvement. I was imploring my brain not to sense any pain and my lower back not to send any signals to that effect either although I was still confused as to which part of my body was sending signals and which part was deciphering them but this was immaterial quite frankly. With hope rather than expectation I took the club back, brought it down and before finishing my swing, cramped up in a convulsion of bloody agony. Believe me, mantra chanting is not all it’s cracked up to be, I couldn’t even look up to see where the ball went it was so blinking painful. I tried a couple of times more but there was no improvement, Lorimer could do one, back to the drawing board.

Or should I say back to the physio. I returned to see her the following week to share my experience. I’d not given it long she claimed, fair enough I suppose, but another element now needed to be brought in from a psychological perspective according to her, in an effort to distract my mind from a) the pain and b) the overemphasis I’d been placing on golf in my life. Her attitude was that I’d set myself up for a fall in that I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t cope without golf in my life, it’s exclusion would decimate my week, I had nothing else to focus on, I’d built it up as some sort of idol in my life. I needed to reduce the importance I put on golf and turn my attention to other endeavours she suggested, cooking or jigsaws for example. If I told my brain golf wasn’t critical, it would take attention off my back pain because my back pain was telling me I couldn’t play golf. Or something like that.  So, always one to embrace new initiatives, I made the family a beef cobbler the following day and started a thousand piece puzzle of a Mediterranean bay. That night I still went to bed with a sore back, at 2am after a marathon jigsaw session, and the following morning the family took a dose of the squits because I’d not cooked the meat through. Back once again to the drawing board.

She’s probably right about golf being too high a priority in my life but that’s the way it is I’m afraid. I’m too old for football, too out of shape for running and not interested in much else. It’s a good walk in the fresh air at the very least, even if you’re playing like a camel, and when you’re playing acceptably it’s tremendously rewarding. No, golf would remain in itself rightful place at the summit of my extra curricular activity list and nothing was gonna stop me. My physio and doctor would just have to persevere, do what they were paid to do and find a remedy. Stretches and exercises hadn’t worked, nor had manipulation, acupuncture, painkillers or an anal investigation to establish whether I was carrying something more sinister. Cognotive therapy, cooking and jigsaw puzzles had accomplished diddly so I fixed yet another appointment with the quack and he booked me in for an MRI scan to see if there was anything wrong with me structurally. It’s set for three weeks hence, enough time to complete my jigsaw and recover from beef cobbler induced trots.

Club Championship challenge starts here

With the Winter League triumph duly accomplished (following McGilvary & Dempster’s disqualification) it’s time now for a fresh challenge. Too many people revel in former glories and pass up the opportunity to create new adventures, achieve further success. Not I. While autograph hunters congratulate me on my latest accomplishment, my mind turns to the next challenge, I now set my sights on the Stonehaven Club Championship, it would be a fitting accolade on the thirtieth anniversary of my Junior Championship victory in 1986. Back then I brushed the field aside before defeating Frank McCarron in an eighteen hole playoff, this time I will not prolong the agony, I’ll have the tournament done and dusted within four rounds, no messing.

Regrettably the committee have been putting me under undue duress to ‘fix’ a playoff scenario whereby I tie the lead after 72 holes and return for an 18 hole playoff, their argument being that the inevitable crowds of spectators would generate significant income in clubhouse bar sales. It was a rather grubby arrangement but I kinda understood where they were coming from, however I declined their tawdry initiative once they bolted on a clause waiving my right to an appearance fee. I’m a proud member of Stonehaven Golf Club and don’t want it’s good name dragged down by shady deals such as this, perhaps instead they can pressurise fellow members to up their game sufficiently to provide me with a bit of competition instead.

You have to earn the club championship, no-one gifts it to you, and to this end I have already commenced my preparations for the 2016 Championship. By the way, I’m not mucking around with the handicap division either, I’m talking the Scratch Championship, no handicaps, no excuses, just full on barefoot golf. I welcome all-comers; former champions, the current champion, young bucks who think they’re Billy Bigtime, anyone brave enough to have a go if they think they’re hard enough. And those of you buckling at the knees with this announcement can thank Craig McKechnie. I was quite content nominating the RBS Pairs title as my next target but our entry to the competition wasn’t accepted, McKechnie turned up to put our names on the board but got piss#d in the bar instead and forgot. By the time I'd clocked on to his oversight we’d missed the deadline.

So I now have the club championship in my sights instead. My approach will be to cultivate my game upon various courses in the region rather than prepare with the mindless pounding of balls on a driving range. Preparation is key, my agent has arranged tee-times at Forfar, Meldrum House, Muirfield and Auchenblae, and that’s just for starters. I’ll also be participating in minor Stonehaven GC competitions to stir my competitive juices ahead of July’s main event (eg. Texas Scramble, 2 Clubs & A Putter, ‘Lads On The Lash’ outing to Camperdown) but I shan’t overdo it.

Round 1 of my preparatory regime was undertaken yesterday at Forfar Golf Club alongside a couple of business associates (one of whom signed me in for twelve quid, pretty good deal that). I provide a copy of my scorecard above. You’ll notice a slightly shaky start as I open up with the number of the beast, double bogeying each of the first three holes to card 6,6,6. (I’d had a large lunch in Aberdeen and got stuck in traffic so sprinted onto the first tee which was not ideal preparation. A quick handshake, how do you do and wallop, away we went, my mind was still on the A90). Leaving aside the front nine, and okay the tenth hole too, I ripped the last eight holes apart to end with a creditable 84 including a glorious birdie on 11. Agreed, there’s room for improvement, but my 84 on a still, dry day off the yellows at a benign Forfar Golf Club can only strike fear into the hearts of pretenders to this year’s Stoney crown. Next stop Auchenblae on Tuesday night where I will of course, ahem, pay my dues in the honesty box by the unmanned starter’s hut. 

Speith I isn't

Watching the Masters on telly is a dangerous business for the amateur golfer, you sit in the comfort of your armchair and start to get ideas above your station. Next day you pitch up at the club thinking you can replicate what you have witnessed and worse, you reckon that because you're playing Stonehaven not Augusta, a course two thousand yards shorter and with flat greens not upturned saucers, that you'll make mincemeat of it. But there's an elephant in the room; you'll be using the same swing that took eighty five blows last week and not the purring machine which is Jordan Speith's action.

This weekend I fell foul of this very folly, convincing myself I was rather better than I am. Speith's majestic 66 still fresh in my mind, I turned up at Stoney with plans to marmalize the course record, instead I slapped and duffed my way to a sorrowful 79 in nigh on perfect conditions. What an anticlimax. I opened with a double bogey, closed with another and threw in a triple on the 7th for good measure. I'll spare you a blow by blow account, suffice to say Speith can sleep easy.

My playing partners, Bruce and Craig, performed well, particularly Bruce. His effortless 69 oozed confidence and Craig's improvement from last week was marked. It was squelchy underfoot and pitchmarks were deep, not though as deep as my displeasure at signing for a birdieless 79, the only saving grace being the avoidance of a snowman on my scorecard. I'll now take a fortnight's break to gather myself. Or take up snooker.

Innes Medal

Saturday's Innes Medal was our first comp of the season, I choked as if I had a chicken bone stuck in my throat, four putting the 17th. From twelve feet. There I was trying to protect a good score and instead I shat myself, my first putt charging a yard past the hole, the next muffed (didn't know you could hook putts) then I yipped my tap in to walk off with a triple bogey. I finished up two shots behind the winner when I should have been preparing the winner's speech. What a tosser. Hey ho, we go again next Saturday.

The law is an ASS

The law is an ass. I’ll say that again, the law is an ASS. How in heaven’s name I lost my court case against Keith Douglas today I will never ever know. I now face financial ruin. I rue the day I agreed to partner that pillock in the winter league, if I had my time again I’d tell him to sling his bleedin’ hook, instead I’ve to pay him £76,000 in damages for deformation of character and loss of reputation in the community. Loss of reputation? What bloody reputation? Everyone within a hundred miles knows the bloke’s a tosser, the judge must be on crack. 

Who’s idea was it to let a non-golfing judge preside over the case anyway?  He hadn’t a clue. I’m being charged for grossly defaming Douglas’s golf yet my video evidence of Douglas failing to reach the humps, twice, didn’t register with him at all. My brief then played footage of my own golf swing to show how it’s meant to be done and the judge laughed out loud. What would he know? Take a look at the video yourself (below), does that look like the swing of a duffer? The answer is no and to prove it you’ll notice an autograph hunter approaching me at the end of the clip. He got five grand for that autograph on EBay recently.

Seventy six thousand pounds. I haven’t got that kind of money. Worse, I’ve to pay the cretin’s legal fees too, that’s another forty grand. I’ll have to go bankrupt, I’ve got no choice, this means homelessness not just for me, but my wife and three kids too. She’ll leave me now, she’ll move in with her mother down south and take the kids with her. 

I hope you can look yourself in the mirror Douglas. There was no need for legal action, if you were a real man you’d have sorted it out away from the courts, we'd have had a scrap, but you knew you’d get a good hiding didn’t you? You bottled it you weakling. I’d have knocked your teeth so far down your throat you’d be flossing through your arsehole. I won’t forget this sunshine, you’ll get yours don’t worry. I can be patient, I don’t mind waiting, meantime make sure you look over your shoulder every corner you turn, you never know who might be behind you.  You will pay for this Douglas and that is a promise.