I have played golf three times in my life. The first time I was fifteen and it was with a bunch of my friends in New Zealand. My clearest memory of the event is of all of us rolling around on the freshly cut grass in a fit of mass hysteria. The cause of our collective giggle fest was one of our number’s complete inability to hit the small white ball with the big stick thing. We were all stoned of course and this only made matters worse.
The second time was in Fremantle, Australia. I was living in a rundown student house that was so close to the public golf course that we would sometimes find golf balls in our garden. We used to take a shortcut through the course and marvel at the trippy alice-in-wonderland qualities of its immaculately kempt grounds. For about 10 dollars I played there with a friend once and we came very close to killing several punters with our wild and wayward slices and hooks.
Yesterday I played golf in Japan. This time with the members of Mitsuboshi Daiko - my Japanese drumming group. They came to pick me up in the morning and were genuinely shocked to discover that I didn’t have my own set of clubs (Does everybody in Japan own a set of golf clubs?). A set of rather antique looking clubs were hurriedly procured for my benefit and we were off for a day at The Club.
After a short drive into the hills near Mimasaka (my town) we reached our destination and were politely greeted by a swarm of bowing ladies wearing the largest sun bonnets I have ever seen. The bonnets and their strange uniforms reminded me of that scene in Star Wars where those little critters wearing monks habit scurry around collecting robots from the desert to take away in their big tank thing. I was soon to learn that these particular critters were caddies. They magically whisked away our clubs and stuff and politely ushered us into the closetered woody confines of The Club. Forms were filled out and we were each given a score card and locker key. I emerged from the changing room wearing Special Shoes and the special smile of a gaijin who knows something that the rest don’t know - I can’t play golf for shit.
We sat in the restaurant and ordered breakfast. To the delight of my compadres, I - in true Aussie fashion - ordered and consumed a very large glass of cold beer. I summoned the magical properties of the primal brew and the collective spirits of my dead Scottish ancestors to give me the courage and strength to face the coming ordeal. The uncertain, side-ways glances and nervous laughter of my friends indicated that they were slowly becoming aware of what would soon become all too obvious - I was a golf bunny.
We were paged and set off into the beautiful bright frosty morn. The bonneted caddies again swarmed about us and organised us into three waiting golf buggies. I got quite a fright when - as if by mistake - the buggies set off without anybody at their helms. For a brief moment I thought that something had gone horribly wrong and carnage was imminent. Relax. Automated driverless golf buggies. All was as it should be.
The first and second posse teed-off into the golden sunlight. Then it was the turn of our group. It was with a great deal of relief that I soon discovered that I was not alone in my bunnydom. There was another bunny amongst us. She was hopeless and so was i. It seemed that the two of us had been assigned a mentor - Norimoto san. He was patient and kind and understanding and full of helpful advice. Thank God.
Nine holes before lunch and nine after. Much wild swinging and missing. Muttering and cursing. Lost balls, embarrassment and disspair. On holes that should take four shots we were taking between eight and twelve. I guess that’s pretty bad. At lunch when I showed my score card around to the other two posse there was much sucking of air through the teeth and cocking of the head. And more nervous laughter and side-ways glances. The year of the rabbit cometh.
The course was beautiful and full of wonderments: ponds full of huge golden carp with open mouths gasping to inhale the food pellets tossed by passing punters; gaggles of quaking ducks (also chasing food pellets); a shot in which you tee-off from a small high plateaux overlooking a pond and when your shot passes over the pond a huge jet of water shoot straight up into the air about 20 metres; flawless greens and manicured pinetress; little halfway houses built for the purpose of consuming hot sake and sausage; breathtaking views of far-off mountains and villages nestled in smokey valleys.
At the end of the day we trundled back up the hill to the onsen at The Club and soaked in the hot, hot bath of luxury. But no hot bath could ease the pain in my hip pocket. All up nearly 25,000 yen. In Australia I could live for two weeks on this much cash. The Club had sucked it out of me in a matter of hours. Oh well. A good day was had by one and all. The suits and the hushed tones and the quite refinement and the wood paneling and such of The Club was in great contrast to the rowdy enkai (piss-up) that we had afterwards in a local izakaya. After all, our taiko group seems to be a front used to legitimise the weekly drinking binges that occur after each practise. They are really a great bunch of guys and I told them so in a slightly teary speech lastnight which was followed by a round of drunken tatami mat wrestling and karaoke. You can’t buy that with money.