Tinkering

by John Clarke

  All personnel were issued with the standard kit consisting of 1 × raincoat, 1 × warm hat, 1 × pair of gumboots and 1 × pair of warm socks.

  The Federated Under Tens saw this as a calculated attempt to subject them to ridicule and further worsen their standing in the community. The Massed Fives were frankly insulted by the whole business. Stripped of its fancy language, they said, it meant that their members would be asked to accept sub-standard garments which had been discarded by members of the FUT. Such garments were quite obviously second-hand, very old, extremely unattractive and according to a highly placed source in the Massed Fives, this was ‘typical’. It was suggested that management was favouring the Federated Under Tens by attempting to co-opt them into a sweetheart deal with the promises of new clothing.

  Management denied this ludicrous charge and initiated discussions with the Massed Fives to see whether or not they could be attracted into a sweetheart deal of their own relating to some new socks. This rather messy and ill-advised approach backfired immediately. The Massed Fives made it clear that any settlement would have to include a new hat, a new coat (of a type specified by the delegates according to taste), a proper pair of boots and ideally a book about dinosaurs.

  Independent tests were conducted by the National Union of Grandparents, a charitable order made up of ex-management personnel who had a pretty easy ride while in office, but whose ability to deal with trouble-makers is sometimes uncanny. They monitored a senior delegate from the FUT for a trial period of a week.

  On the first day the delegate began the morning shift in the full kit as detailed in the regulations, although at close of play the raincoat was left at the worksite because in the estimation of the delegate, it wasn’t raining.

  The rest of the clothing was dried during the evening as reports continued to come in of state-wide flooding. Several towns had been washed away and many people had been tragically buried by hailstones. On the second morning, management provided another coat from a secret supply in the boardroom as driving rain was still falling and only the tops of the trees were visible. Although it touched the ground and was described by the delegate as ‘a hideous boring tent’, the coat looked well with the hat and it also matched the one boot that was found.

  By the beginning of day four, the boot position had been clarified to the point where each foot had a boot and one of the boots bore the name of the delegate. Another boot was found in the delegate’s bag but even the National Union of Grandparents couldn’t work out whose it was or how it had got there. An office-bearer in the Massed Fives suggested that the boot may have been put there by Martians, as apparently something very similar had just happened on television.

  A marked shortage of socks on the fifth morning occasioned a search of the dormitory zone. Those involved are still only learning to talk about it. Things were seen which beggar the imagination and reveal much about the so-called ‘dark side’ of the human soul.

  On the plus side, the second coat was found rolled up under a bookshelf and inside it were two pairs of socks, a yoghurt container full of deceased moths and an apple which has been carbon-dated to the early 1520s. The matter of the bicycle wheel and the object which may have been a sea anemone was dealt with separately and I’ll say no more about it here. It has not been an easy time for us and it is with high heart that we anticipate the prospect of spring.

  There will be more rain of course. Farmers need rain. And it affords the Massed Five Year Olds a wonderful opportunity to get out in their new hat, new coat and brand new gumboots; especially now they’ve finished the dinosaur book.

  AUSTRALIAFORM

  Answer ALL questions.

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  You may start writing NOW.

  Golf

  A series of golf lessons with the Great White Whale, one of the true legends of the game. As a player he thrilled a generation, playing shots of astonishing power and virtuosity, many of them unusual and some of them not previously thought possible.

  Hi there! I thought we’d begin with a few general things which might be of use to the weekend golfer because, when you think about it, most golfers are simply people who like to get out and hit a ball.

  It’s a great game, as we all know. Let’s see if we can improve our performances by remembering a few basic rules. I can’t offer a guarantee, of course, but these are the questions I’m most often asked about.

  Playing the Shot

  It is important to lift your head as you hit the ball. This ensures control and frequently improves distance. Also, if you keep your head down you won’t see where you have hit the ball. The result is that you will lose the ball and of course you can’t play the game without one.

  I played with a young fellow recently who kept his head down for every single shot. He literally never knew where his ball had gone. Fortunately I was able to find it for him quite often on the green or in the hole, but what he does when I’m not there I shudder to think.

  Stance

  Very important. The correct stance is obviously crucial. The exact position is up to you. Make sure you are comfortable.

  Although don’t make the mistake of sitting down.

  There are two main positions relative to the ball:

  (a) Too close, and

  (b) Too far away.

  Many experienced players combine them. They stand too far from the ball, hit it, and then find that they are standing too close to it.

  A Few Simple Tips

  Here are some little pointers which I have found to be very helpful over the years.

  If your ball is in trouble, shift it.

  If there is water to the left of the fairway and safety to the right, don’t take silly risks. Pull your front foot back about 18" and hit your ball into the water.

  When you fail to get your weight through the ball properly, get your confidence back by banging the club repeatedly on the ground.

  Putting

  Putting is a separate game and there are as many putting styles as there are individual players. My own putting action might not work for anyone else. It doesn’t work for me. Why the hell it should work for anyone else I can’t imagine.

  Scoring

  Don’t worry about how you are scoring. Why put pressure on yourself? Just concentrate on your shots. At the end of the round, look over the card and score yourself along the following lines.

  A drive which hit a tree, second shot never found, a couple of other shots and four putts: Score Par.

  A good drive, a second shot which would be on the green if the wind hadn’t hauled it on to the next fairway, two third shots and an approach to within forty feet of the flag: Score Par.

  A magnificent drive, long second shot into light rough, short third into heavy rough, a bit of tidying up, some approach shots and a few putts: Score Bogey (the penalty for a lapse in concentration).

  Twelve shots to the green and one putt: Score Bogey (good recovery).

  Hit the green in one, eight putts: Score Bogey.

  Hit the car park in one, took a drop, shanked ball into nearby lake, took a drop, drove beyond the green, missed it coming back, overhit gentle pitch-and-run, misread difficult lie down bank and lofted ball into sprinkler-housing on adjacent fairway, took a drop, missed ball altogether, moved it with foot, topped it into long grass, took a drop, troubled by low branches affecting swing, threw ball on to green, hit green with second throw, missed long putt by centimetres, missed next two attempts and tapped in with toe of shoe: Score Double Bogey. Make mental note to be careful on this hole next time.

  Enjoy Your Golf

  One of the great things about golf is the opportunity it affords to simply get outside and enjoy the world we live in. The best time to appreciate the world we live in is about halfway through your downswing. As you feel the club head beginning to accelerate towards the ball, pull your face up and have a good look at the surrounding countryside. Some regular players have trained themselves to study cloud formations as the ball is actual
ly being struck.

  The Grip

  Many players have a reasonable swing but they throw it away with a bad grip. A hook or a slice can often be traced to a grip problem.

  The correct grip is the Double-Lattice Multi-Stress Underlap grip in which the fingers of the left or leading hand are wound beneath the thumb of the right hand at the point where it crosses the apex of the shoulder at the top of the backswing, although obviously you do that the other way round if you’re left-handed, and of course you reverse that if you’re not.

  The grip should be firm. There’s nothing worse than playing an important shot and looking up to see your club disappearing over a big clump of conifers because you weren’t holding on to it properly.

  Your arms should feel nice and strong, there should be plenty of tension across the back of the shoulders, your hands and wrists should be rigid with that potential energy and strength and you should be able to see your knuckles going white with exertion and concentration. If your knuckles aren’t white, perhaps golf isn’t your game.

  Imagine the Shot

  Many famous golfers recommend ‘picturing’ each shot; imagining a ‘film’ of the shot being played. This is a useful technique and should be adopted whenever possible. Look at the shot. Imagine it being played. ‘See’ it in your ‘mind’.

  Then go home. Do not attempt to play the shot.

  Bunker Shots

  Don’t ‘psyche yourself out’. Assess the position carefully, with a positive outlook and a specific aim. Work out where you would like the ball to land. Then take a sand wedge, work your feet into the ground slightly to give yourself some traction, take a couple of practice swings and then pick the ball up and throw it on to the green.

  Club Selection

  It is important when selecting a club to be aware of the distance it is designed to hit. Let’s have a look in the bag. Let’s say you’re playing a relatively standard par 4; it’s about 450 yards from tee to green with bunkers left and right at about 260 yards, water down the left side and a forest to the right containing a number of tigers.

  From the tee you’ll need distance. A driver, a 1 wood or a 2 wood should get you over most of the trouble; ideally over the bunkers although personally I’d be just as happy to be over the water or over the tigers. As long as you get over something.

  Your next shot, not counting a bit of cleaning up here and there, your next shot of any real importance, is very often a remarkable recovery shot and frequently requires a good lusty whack of about 200 yards. There are two ways to approach this: you can try to get to the green with, say, a 3 iron, or you can pull out the fairway wood and lay up, leaving yourself a pitch of about 186 yards.

  Around the green the sand wedge comes into its own. This club is particularly useful for players who enjoy looking at flags. Get the flag lined up properly, try to guess how far away it is, and whether the fact that it’s fluttering has anything to do with the wind. Look up at it and shift your feet a few times, then look at it again in case it moved while you were shifting your feet, now shorten the backswing slightly and play a fairly simple little pitch, looking at the flag as you commence the downswing. Don’t worry about the ball, you can find that in a minute, it won’t have gone far.

  One further word about clubs: two of the most valuable clubs in the game, you have on your feet. You can very often solve quite difficult problems, which baffle less skilled golfers, by playing a judicious pitch with the foot iron. You will sometimes see a golfer standing under a low branch of a tree, bent double and with no room for a backswing, or obliged to chop a ball out of some grassy hollow with no view of the green. These golfers are only fooling themselves. Believe me, there are no shortcuts; if you want to play the game properly, you need the right equipment.

  Here are the distances you ought to be looking for with each club in your bag.

  Driver:—Anywhere from 1 to 500 yards in pretty well any direction. 3 wood:—14 yards.

  1 iron:—There is no such thing as a 1 iron.

  2 iron:—Difficult to tell. No one has ever found a shot hit with a 2 iron.

  3 iron:—180–200 yards in regions where there are no trees.

  4 iron:—Exactly the same as a 3 iron or a 5 iron.

  5 iron:—140–600 yards, mainly to the right.

  6 iron:—For playing a 5 iron shot with the wind behind you or a 7 iron shot which you wish to hook into oncoming traffic.

  7 iron:—150 yards. Annually.

  8 iron:—130–145 yards unless there is water within 20 ft.

  9 iron:—Just short of any distance.

  Pitching wedge:—See Driver.

  Sand wedge:—3–5 inches.

  Practice

  How often do I practise?

  I don’t, but of course I’m not typical. I’ve reached a kind of Zen plateau where I no longer need to practise. I have a couple of general swings on the first tee with one of the longer irons, just to get the feeling back in my joints, but otherwise I seem to be beyond the stage where mere practice is of any real use.

  I do sometimes practise an individual shot. For instance if I detect a slight swing-fault with my driver, the first ball I hit is frequently a practice shot and I don’t start scoring until I get my rhythm right and hit a decent one.

  In the case of chipping it is sometimes necessary to hit three or four practice balls before getting one to work. Obviously if the first ball runs up to the hole nicely there is no need to improve the shot and you should simply move on.

  Putting practice can improve your score by several strokes and I recommend it be incorporated in every golfer’s routine. The best time to practise your putting is immediately after you have putted, while the fault is still fresh in your mind. Put another ball down and have another try. Many golfers practise putting BEFORE THEY START PLAYING. I have never seen much mileage in this, since it is not clear until you are playing your round exactly what the fault might be, if any. Why sap your confidence by assuming that some of your putts won’t go in? I stand up to every shot on the course believing in my own mind it will go in the hole. I don’t play a shot until I am convinced in my own mind it will go in. I hate to think what my score would be if I faced reality prior to making contact with the ball. I may well go to pieces.

  The Tempo of the Swing

  The rhythm, or TEMPO, of your golf swing is crucial. If you are rushing your shots or trying to force the ball, the chances are control will be lost and your game will deteriorate. Each player has a different swing and no two TEMPOS are the same. In fact, I quite often use a different TEMPO for every shot. I have been asked about this many times and although I have never listed my various TEMPOS before, it may help some struggling golfers to know that I have at least five main ones:

  1. Very slow and deliberate takeaway, holding the club at the top of the backswing for a moment to steady the shot and then swinging through the ball at the speed of sound. Useful in all conditions and a TEMPO I personally favour.

  2. Beginning the downswing before the backswing is completed and stopping the club head as it hits the ball. This eliminates the need for transferral of weight and minimises the importance of club selection.

  3. Extremely long takeaway forcing the upper part of the body well back so you can almost see underneath the ball, and then, at some instinctive signal from the brain, jumping into the shot and driving the club head powerfully up the front of the ball and into a follow through of astonishing velocity.

  4. Lifting the club away more or less vertically and then slamming it down on to the very back of the ball and through the layers of rich loam which lie many hundreds of feet under the earth’s surface.

  5. Taking the club head away inside the line and starting the downswing with a forward thrust of the hips and a simultaneous lifting of the front shoulder which takes the club back outside the line from the top of the swing but inside the line again once the drive from back leg pushes the hands ahead of the ball with the un-cocking of the wrists, and the acceleration of the c
lub head itself pulls the hands, the back elbow and the ball into alignment for the moment of impact. This tempo is not easy to repeat at will and I personally have only ever achieved it once. I was attempting a number 1 but was surprised by a sprinkler system at an important point in the downswing.

  Now go out and shoot a sixty-three.

  What you do on the second hole is up to you.

  Australia and How to Repair It

  In case of fire break glass.

  Operation Manual

  Congratulations. You are a part-owner of ‘Australia’™, a fully serviced time-share resort and manufacturing centre set in the attractive environs of South East Asia. (Still Selling but Hurry.)

  We trust you will be satisfied with your ‘State’™ and that you have noted the names of participating dealers in your ‘City’™.

  Despite the best traditions and the highest standards of design and maintenance, management wishes to advise that owners may experience some minor problems. ‘Australia’™ is still in the early stages of development and many teething troubles require constant attention.

  During the past year for instance, head office has been inundated with calls from people complaining that they had been charged for a Bicentennial but had not received one. In fact only the ‘Sydney’™ Model was fitted with a Bicentennial money-tap and the function has now been discontinued for obvious reasons.