Mike Stopforth

Four lads. A pitch black, freezing evening. Benoni Lake Club golf course. Flashing balls.

Now that’s golf. Merv Hartley, a good mate and ex-fourball partner of mine sponsored four of us to play in a charity golf day (or is that golf night) last Friday evening.

What a party.

I love golf, but have never been a great golfer. A few years back I joined a fourball with a 4-handicapper and two 10-handicappers. These guys shot in the high seventies and low eighties week in and week out. I was playing of a 24 and just trying to break 100.

It was all at once very good and very bad for my self-esteem. Playing alongside such quality players, I never really got to be the ‘player of the round’. However, at one point I had whittled my handicap down to a 17 and was playing fairly good golf. I shot an 84 once, and that was a monumental achievement. So although I was never the best, I got a whole lot better pretty quickly. At least today I can (sort of) hold my own on a course.

Back to night golf…

The thing that surprised me most about playing golf in the cover of darkness, with only a few scattered luminous beacons to guide your tee and approach shots, was how well we were all striking the ball.

I concluded the following (and this is my new strategy for playing golf):

a. Worry only about the connecting the little ball in front of you - forget the landscape, you may as well not know it’s there.

b. Golf is more about feeling a shot than knowing a shot.

c. Trust your swing and you’ll do fine 90% of the time.

Blind golf lessons with Mike Stopforth at R 500 and hour