The Biggest Golf Regrets You Can Have

Regrets? I’ve had a few! We all have things in our lives that we would want to change, things that we regret. 

I am no exception. And I have a few regrets revolving around my golf. And I am willing to bet that I am not alone.

Here are my top 10, several of which I am not especially proud of.

Temper Tantrums

If you are a regular reader of my missives then you will know that I am constantly preaching the importance of having fun when you play golf. I most certainly do. But it wasn’t always that way. 

As a teenager, and even into my twenties, I threw some spectacular temper tantrums. I remember playing the first hole at Kirkhill Golf Club on the outskirts of Glasgow along with my father. I pulled my drive into the left rough but had a decent lie and reached for my three wood - a club I had only recently acquired. I topped the ball and, without a second’s hesitation, proceeded to smash my club into the trunk of a nearby tree. The shaft snapped in two. My father marched over and ordered me from the course. I would have been about 14 years old at the time. It should have taught me a valuable lesson. It didn’t. 

A few months later I was playing with my 72-year-old grandfather. I was hitting the ball 100 yards past him from the tee. But he chipped in at the first, holed a 25-footer at the second, chipped stone dead at the third. On and on it went. He had always preached the importance of working on the short game. He thrashed me 6&5 and I didn’t speak to him all the way home. He later took me to one side and told me to grow up. 

Not Working Hard Enough

I was a decent golfer as a teenager. My grandfather had played the game to a very high standard and had started me on the course when I was about four or five. To say I was a natural would be overstating the case but golf came pretty easy to me. I had lessons from a fabulous club pro called John Semple and was even lucky enough to travel to Largs and have lessons with Bob Torrance, the father of Sam and a man who coached a number of world-class golfers, including Padraig Harrington. If I had put the work in, who knows what would have happened? But I never did. I would have a lesson, hit a couple of dozen balls and then head out onto the course. In other words, I never gave the lessons I received from these two gifted teachers a proper chance. So I never got any better

Work Getting in The Way

And then work got in the way. As a trainee journalist I was ambitious. I wanted to be the best that I could be. This was a time when being a journalist meant going out and finding stories - it involved talking to people face to face, following your nose, chasing up leads, all in pursuit of the best story and seeing your byline in print. I rose through the ranks pretty quickly and focused all my attention on my work. I barely played golf at all and when my clubs were stolen from the boot of my car it barely registered. I hardly used them anyway. 

So from the age of 18 until I was about 25 I did not play a single round of golf. I somehow managed to land a job as editor of a weekly newspaper in Leicestershire at the age of 25 and took on a trainee reporter who told me that he was a five-handicapper. He persuaded me to go out and buy a set of clubs and before long I had been bitten by the bug once more. Soon I was playing off seven, was a member of a club and had introduced an older colleague to the game. 

Injury Layoffs

You will probably know that I have recently returned to golf after finally recovering from a debilitating shoulder issue. It wasn’t my first injury lay-off. 

When I was about 35 I started to have neck and back issues. Initially, it was an irritation. But one day I hit a drive and my neck locked. I couldn’t move it. After a few hours it eased. Then it happened again. This time it took longer to ease. And so it went on until eventually it reached the point where I was in constant pain with both my neck and pain. 

My doctor couldn’t find the cause. Various specialists couldn’t tell me what was causing it. And then one day my fingers were so badly swollen that I had to go to a nearby fire station and ask them to cut the rings from my fingers. Eventually I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Finally given the right medication, the swelling vanished and the pain disappeared and I was able to get back on the course again but it cost me the thick end of five years.

Giving Up 

We all stand on the first tee full of optimism, hoping that we are going to shoot the lights out. It rarely works out. One of my biggest regrets, and I am embarrassed to admit this, is effectively giving up after a couple of bad holes. The truth is that because I had reached a relatively good standard as a teenager I always set myself some pretty high standards. I can now admit that those expectations were unrealistic. 

I was working hard as my career progressed and was only playing once a week. Golf is an unforgiving game - if you want to improve then you need to play more than once a week or accept the standard at which you are playing. I have lost count of the number of times I have started filling out a card and then given up after a poor hole or two. Now, if I start marking my score I will continue to do so to the bitter end - no matter what the final total comes to.

Outstaying My Welcome

I was once a member of a golf club in Suffolk that shall remain nameless. It is a fine heathland course but the club only owns five of the 18 holes. And that means that the public can wander around the other 13 holes and essentially do whatever they want. It was common to look up as you addressed the ball to see a young mum pushing a pram across the fairway. Dog walkers routinely took their dogs on the course - and did not clean up after them. 

I kept telling myself that it was time to move on but put if off. The final straw came one Saturday when we were playing a medal and came to a par three - and there in the bunker were two young children with their buckets and spades. I kid you not! And we a) couldn’t tell them to clear off, or b) hit our tee shots for fear of hitting them. So I walked off right there and then and vowed never to return.

Course Closure

Waldringfield Golf Club was a wonderful little club and course located near Woodbridge in Suffolk. From the back tees it measured a little over 6,000 yards but there was a LOT of gorse, which meant you had to be straight from the tee. There were several quirky holes. 

I loved this club. And I was in heaven when I joined the senior section after my 55th birthday. It was an active and friendly section and I wasted little time in becoming actively involved. The course also suited my game and I got my handicap back down to seven. I won a lot of competitions at Waldringfield and elsewhere. 

I can put my hand on my heart and tell you that until joining my current club my days at Waldringfield were the happiest of my golfing life. And when I was asked if I wanted to be seniors captain I jumped at the chance. I spent 12 months as vice-captain and the day I became captain was one of the proudest of my life. 

So what was there to regret? I had no sooner been appointed than the club’s new owners announced plans to turn it into a nine-hole course and build luxury homes on the rest. I was devastated - all the more so when it became clear that the club was actually destined for closure and we all had to find somewhere else to go. And do you know what is the worst thing of all? The development never happened and the course is now overgrown and abandoned.

Missing My Chance to Break Par

As I said above, I played a lot of very good golf during my time at Waldringfield. I routinely broke 80 and on several occasions signed for scores of two, three and four over par. But there was one magical day when everything clicked. I drove the ball quite beautifully and it seemed that I was putting for birdies on just about every hole. Anyway, I came to the 18th and I was one under par. The final hole was a tough par three with a huge hedge on the left of the green, water front right and thick rough over the back. Looking back, my first regret was that I knew exactly what my score was. My second regret was my choice of shot. I should have hit an eight or nine iron short of the green and left myself with a good chance of getting up and down for my par. Instead I opted to go for the green. And of course I hit the ball into the water. Chance gone, never to be repeated. For the record, I signed for a score of one over par.

Poor Timing

This regret also involved Waldringfield. I was playing with my father in an Ipswich Town open day. We came to the third hole, a tricky par three measuring around 170 yards. I struck a perfect six iron and watched as it flew through the air, bounced twice and disappeared into the hole. Why would this amount to a regret? When we got into the clubhouse my father announced to all and sundry that I had recorded a hole in one. It cost me that small matter of £150 in drinks!

Latecomer to Custom Fitting

And finally, perhaps my biggest golfing regret of all is that it took me so long to discover the benefits of custom fitting. I spent most of my golfing life playing with off-the-shelf clubs that I now realise were not right for me, whether it be shafts, swing weights or lie angles. Even at my advanced age, I would never again just walk into a golf shop and buy any club without first going through the fitting process.

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