A Beginners guide to the Green

It has been six years now since I first touched a club

A day that made me wander into many a tree and many a shrub.

It was the damndest day I tell you and I cannot decide till now

Whether I call it sad or happy 'cos I really got hooked and how.

The Irons, the woods, the driver, the putter not to forget the wedges

Looked quite pretty in the bag but drove me to the hedges!

I practised and learnt for quite a while and then I hit the course

And mistakenly thought I'd perfected the swing with just the right force!

The small dimpled devilish cheeky thing looked up from near my feet

Seemed to say you may have the balls to swing but I refuse to meet.

You have the back swing wrong my friend, your hand has not to bend

And when I had straightened my hand just so, there was no ball at the end.

I looked up puzzled, scratched my head, I thought I had got it right

The know-all with me smirked and said you raised the arm too tight.

He knows the shots, he knows the distance he knows the club to use

He knows what went wrong with you and his looks will cook your goose.

So the arm was raised just right and the ball was smacked so good

Happy I looked straight ahead to see it vanishing in the wood.

I found I had violated another rule the golden one of all

Sure you may watch nature's best,with your eyes on the ball.

I sighed, frowned, stamped about  and I  worked myself into a lather

And I swore to keep my bloody head down till the ball lost its swagger.

I hadn't reckoned for another error in this unfolding comedy of errors

The follow-through had not been followed through and that was a terror.

The ball is lost, it had to be found or count an extra stroke

While others give you dirty looks as if I was a joke.

The putting hole I can clearly see and think the ball will sink

However it thinks differently and from the bunker gives a wink.

The club is wrong, the birds chirp too much, the sun is in my eye

I knew I could have got this one but for this twitch in my thigh.

I swore I would never set foot on this or any course again,

Never would I touch a club or look a ball or suffer so much pain.

But come morning and I knew I had to go back to the green

'Cos I knew just what I'd done wrong and what should have been.

And so there I was day after day swearing and muttering a threat

Thinking I would quit today and sell my rotten set!

Just then my second was on the green on a hole par five no less 

And I knew nothing was over yet and 'fore' was shouted with happiness!