Your First Golf Memories ?

I guess I did come late to a full golf life Fix.

Coming from a working class childhood, golf was really a thing that was beyond my access and comprehension. My introduction was through pitch&putt as there were a couple of nice little courses in the Tallaght area within a relatively short walk. So really my earliest memories are being brought to Bohernabreena P&P with my dad, uncle and cousin and stopping off for them to have a pint on the way home and for me to have a Britvic Orange and a packet of pub crisps.

Getting hold of a Commando golf ball was a treat and really made you feel you were going to be able to "spin it"

A gang of me and my mates would also do out best to try sneak onto Glenville, a private members P&P club for rounds during the summer. You'd hope you weren't spotted and that they would think you were just junior members.

From there, my family (lots of uncles on both sides, big Ballyfermot families) set up a P&P society out of Elm Hall, over Celbridge direction. I have 4 memories from that time.

1. Playing with a cousin and on the 4th hole he had the first ever hole-in-one I'd ever seen. We were jumping around the place, as only a couple of kids can do. That same day I won the society singles comp for the first and only time. The only kids there and surrounded by smiling family.

2. They ran a 2 man scramble comp around Christmas, was a new format to me. Was paired with an uncle who was a decent player. I was terrible off the tee, but I had 3/4 chip ins and made multiple birdie putts. We won the comp and I remember him laughing afterwards saying how "He was sh1te off the tee, but couldn't miss around the greens)

3. I was hit by a golf ball for the first time ever there. Walking to the first tee and here a shout. Someone had hit a shot through the 18th green and it hit me straight in the hand. Left a nasty bruise.

4. This is more of a sad memory for me than a nostalgic one. Playing with my Grandad, who was a very hard man. Was cold, wet and miserable in the winter at the time and I was playing rubbish. He was really aggressive towards me and bordering on a bit abusive. I remember just spending the last few holes on the course trying not to cry. Was a tough day for me, and has always stuck with me.

I have 1 memory of a round of golf in my youth. My Godfather has a load of brothers, some of whom live away I'm Canada. They were all home together so organised a golfing get together. He invited me and my Dad, they were best friends growing up. So my dad begged, borrowed and stole his way to putting together 2 sets of mismatched clubs and off we went. Stepped up on the first tee with an old wooden Slavenger 1-wood, and hit it perfectly out the middle up the fairway. After which my Godfather announced "That's my Godson" to a little cheer from everyone around the tee box. Remember nothing else of the day, but it still makes me smile.

After that, it was really just heading to the local field, with that set of old clubs and some beaten up balls with mates and trying to hit balls as hard as possible. Swinging like a maniac and hoping you didn't slice a ball onto the road beside the Park or at one of the houses facing onto it.

I never went to a pro event as a kid, but still remember my dad talking about one. He got a ticket, through work to an old Benson and Hedges Irish Open. He followed John Daly around the course and I can still remember him saying "he hit the ball miles alright, but the most amazing things I saw him do were with a wedge in his hand around the greens. I didn't think it was possible to hit some of those shots"

Great idea for a post. I was introduced to the game by my uncle who was golf mad and used to bring me to Pitch and Putt out in cotters and Elm Hall in Celbridge. Cotters is now the Celbridge driving range after they got rid of the course and put in the football pitches. Lucan golf club around the corner, that we always passed on the way into town on the bus, was always my idea of what golf was and reminds me of my Uncle every time I'm there. His reputation as a golfer is only slightly tarnished, after discovering at his funeral, that he was a notorious sandbagger. You have to be bad for it to come up on that day of all of them.

My Dad eventually took up the mantle of bringing me on the regular and we both got pretty decent. Sadly he can't manage the full golf experience but they are great memories. Still remember the moment I was able to get it past the green on the last hole in Elm Hall thats hugging the trees on the left. Think it was 100 yrds and flying the green was almost better than getting it on the putting surface. The owner of the place was not a fan of mine and, playing into that, I might not have completed all my rounds in the final years of playing there.

Eventually dropped the game totally and only took it back up 10 yrs later when I took a notion to play the big boy game. Got a 'business card' from a guy who drank in the pub I worked in so I called and arrange to see some clubs. I was nervous walking into the inner city flats that ended up being the address, climbed 5 flights of stairs with nothing but a terse and grunting phone call to reassure me I wasn't gonna be jumped, and found the apartment. Think graffitied walls and an ominous blinking bulb as the tone of the setting. The door opened to reveal an apartment full of golf clubs. There was literally walking space for one person to get to the couch on the other side of the room and sit in front of the TV 2 feet away from it, everything else was golf clubs. He sold me a full set of irons, a bag, a putter, and a driver for 150 quid and I was happy out. Then he pointed at some other clubs in the place, including "the clubs Harrington plays with but they're a grand", and then tired of me and told me to f**k off in the nicest way possible.

Played a few rounds with that regular in the pub who played three times a week. He never hit anything bigger than 7 iron, played off 28 because that was the maximum, and when he took the club in his hand he looked like he was being crush by a giant invisible hand. To this day I have no idea how he enjoyed himself and how, playing 3 times a week, he wasn't any better but he was in his element paying 10 quid to hack around the R&R (rough and ready) outside maynooth. I didn't pick up those clubs for another few years until I joined a facebook group where everyone dressed like they had sponsorship deals and played like they had recent back surgery. At 21 handicap I was second best player. You think Boards rounds are long!! In saying that, they started the addiction and now I'll always play the game, except for the 2 weeks a year where I'm just gonna give up this stupid sport.

One of the earliest golfing. photos of me is at my Nana's lady captains day, on the first tee box in my buggy at six months old.

She was a massive part of my golfing early days, as a keen interclub player, I was brought everywhere with her from 7/8 up to walk the course. I was always allowed to bring the cut down wooden headed 6 wood she got for me, and a Spalding wedge that had been cut down for me as well. So many other lovely memories with her, out to deer park for par 3, holidays at our mobile wexford where we always played the local par 3 as a family in two or three groups and spent hours upon hours of every bank holiday weekend chipping to a flag that we cut into the "green" we mowed at the bottom of our field.

Still get out semi-regularly to play with her, even though at 87 she is only hitting it 100m at most, it's lovely to have time with her. Played a round a few weeks ago with her, my dad, myself and my kid. 4 generations all hooked on golf!

Lots of memories with my dad too, he took me with him and his mates to sillogue for a round when I was 6/7 and told I wouldn't be sent back to the car if I kept up and didn't slow them down. I wasn't allowed bring my 6 wood. On the walk down first fairway after teeing off, my dad had lit a cigarette. As he got to his ball to assess the next move, he threw the smoke down on the ground while he hit. Me, being very helpful, assumed he was finished and stamped on it to put it out, dragging my foot back to make sure :D his reaction used words I wouldn't use to my own 9 year old now :D

It's coming full circle as my son is now a member and playing 3-4 times a week between lessons and rounds with me, he's been firmly bitten by the bug.

I covered my early childhood in the first post but from age 12 was when I started to play a lot. Got a full set of Wilson irons but they turned out to be women's clubs - oh the shame.

At some point between about age 13 and 16 it became clear that there was a gulf opening up between my play and that of some other lads my age who were superb players, already single figures HCPs and some of the longest hitters in the club. Once they discovered drink and girls though, that was the end of their golf. I kept plodding along - was also one of the longest hitters but it was army golf and I never quite got to single figures. Still I did well enough and was "in demand" for mixed foursomes games with flirty married women...hmmm.

My father was well into single figure sin his prime, he was apparently a bit straighter than me but not much and played an early version of bomb and gouge.

As a stroppy teenager, I had numerous rows with my father about the golf swing. The Jack Nicklaus instruction books would be rolled out to put me in my place which just annoyed me more.

Still played links courses with him all over Ireland during summer holidays from school. Played a lot with other ould lads in their 60s at home. All dead now.

In terms of watching golf on TV I remember all the Opens and increasingly got into The Masters from 91 on, I particularly remember 91, 95, 96 and for obvious reasons 97. I was in my digs for college on the Sunday and was banished to the spare TV room to watch history being made while the family watched soap operas or some such banal nonsense.😁

89, 91 and 93 Ryder Cups too. The last ones live on terrestrial TV. Christy O'Connor Jnr 2 iron, Langer's putt, the War by the Shore and in 93, controversy about the US team picking "old" Ray Floyd and Lanny Wadkins who played great IIRC.

The mention of etiquette - a huge portion of our early golfing education was this. And by this I mean whatever you do don't hold anyone up. It was absolutely drilled into us. It was mentioned at the weekly lessons, every competition, every away day - pretty much any time playing with an adult. I got a rude awakening when I got my senior handicap and played in my first Sunday comp. Our junior comps started at 7, last tee time 8 and on a bad day the last group was in at 11:30. The adult comps were normal Sunday comp speed - a lot slower than the junior one!

Calling adults through was another painful one. It wasn't an instruction to call them through when they caught up with you - if you saw them behind you were to wait on the next tee box and let them play through. Again, fairly painful because if they were catching up with you it was because there was a group ahead of you slowing you down. So you were doubly held up. Some lads were decent and would say to keep going, but most would play through. And before timesheets for casual play, queuing on the first tee was tough going. You could be 40 minutes waiting to get out. I can't believe anyone didn't want a timesheet system for casual play.

The other parts of the etiquette - repair your divots, plug marks didn't get much attention because most of us didn't make them to begin with, keep trolleys off tee boxes, etc were also mentioned, but if there was one thing they wanted us to know, it was don't hold anyone up. I'm probably a bit paranoid now on the course about my group holding people up. Whereas if I'm behind someone I don't care unless they're taking the mick.

Need I say more!

The thing in my hand is white insulation pipe with a slice of skirting board - my first 'putter', made by my grandfather. The fashion sense is all mine.

I taught Rickie well