The futility of trying to get better at golf?

I can’t remember exactly when I first picked up a golf club. I was probably around 12 years old and my Dad had an old set in the garage (he didn’t really play the game but must have acquired them at some point).

From there, a couple of friends and I progressed from hitting old golf balls on the school playing fields during a holiday to the local muni pitch ‘n’ putt just outside Derby.

Around the age of 13 or 14 we started playing ‘proper’ golf at another local municipal course, Allestree (sadly no more, but there’s a lovely review of it here). One of our parents would drop three or four of us off at the club in the mornings, we’d pay our £5 and head out for 18. That’s where my personal golf addiction really began, I think.

A couple of years later, I joined the golf club in my village (Chevin Golf Club – a short but tricky and hilly course with incredible views, just on the edge of the Peak District). It cost around £70 in those days for a junior membership (including my very own locker) and I made *good* use of that, cycling up to the course with my friend, Ben, and often playing 36 or even 45 holes during the seemingly endless summer holidays.

Going off to university and the following years of work, living in London and then getting married and having three children put the brakes on my golfing career a little, but I still played at least a few times each year.

In 2020, having moved out of London and with the kids getting slightly more self-sufficient, I bit the bullet and joined Saffron Walden Golf Club (another fairly short, but very tight and tricky course).

All this is just to give some context on how long I’ve been playing this game. I’m almost 50 now, so I’ve been playing proper golf now for around 35 years.

I was fairly decent as a youngster and pretty quickly progressed from a 28 handicap down to 12 (without any lessons and playing with some pretty ropey old clubs). So in the intervening three and a half decades, having played something like 1,000 rounds of golf, had a few lessons, put in a fair few hours of practice and invested in some decent kit, surely I’ve got significantly better? That’s how things should work, right?

Well, no. Right now my index sits at 10.5, which would give me a course handicap back at the Chevin of…12. So, after all that effort, I’m no better now than when I was 16! I guess you could say that’s not bad for a 49 year old, but it feels somehow wrong, and I’d argue it’s a unique aspect of this stupid game that we all love.

In what other activity would anyone devote a decent chunk of their life to doing, without getting any better? If I’d spent that time learning the piano or Mandarin or something sensible, I’d expect to be one of the world’s leading experts at this point, not just slightly better than average.

Anyone sane would surely look at this and just give up. Go and find something more productive to do with your time. But we can’t can we? Everyone who gets sucked in to golf seems to find it impossible to leave it alone.

Obviously, we all play for reasons other than just getting better and posting a good score, but there’s something about golf that seems to constantly dangle a carrot (forever just out of reach) that says “next time, maybe next time it’ll all come together”.

I guess it’s because we’re all capable of hitting shots that a scratch player (or even, every so often, a pro) would be proud of. And our brains think “OK, let’s just do that more often”. But this game doesn’t work like that – it’s just too difficult.

Every time I tee it up, I genuinely think this might be the round where I find that magical consistency and don’t duff any chips, snap-hook any drives or three-putt from 20 feet.

Of course, this never happens, but maybe my 1,001st attempt will be the one where it all comes together. I reckon it might actually.