Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
GulfWeekly Editor Stan Szecowka and his wife Kathryn have signed up for a six-week beginners' course because they want to play together ... Lesson Two (put your whackability to the test)
I think I'm finally getting the swing of this game. On Week One we concentrated on getting to grips with the club and the follow-up lesson settled down to perfecting the right technique of our swing.
Despite nursing a heavy cold our patient tutor Chris Kelby, the Royal Golf Club's head teaching PGA professional, was in no mood to let our golf balls take it easy saying we'd be amazed at the number of players who treat the little white things with too much kindness.
The balls were there to be walloped and we were up for giving them a good whacking.
I always thought that the professionals I had watched on TV were playing to the cameras by the way they held their clubs aloft behind their heads after hitting a particularly fine shot on to the green.
But no, it's all about following through to get maximum whackability (If soccer boss Dowie can invent a sporting term called bouncebackability, I don't see why I can't make a move for the next Oxford English Dictionary sporting entry).
Whackability is all about getting power and distance with a shot and it's all in the delivery of the swing and not having to worry about hurting the golf ball.
That was my problem last week - I wasn't giving it enough wellie - or simply not raising my club high enough and following through.
In one week of concentrated whackability I had increased the distance the balls covered from a pathetic 50 yards to well over 100.
Just to keep us on our toes, or at least grooving the right foot, our beloved coach decided to remove the crutch of the little rubber three-inch high ball-holder and make us deliver our drives from ground zero.
Magic, I felt like a real golfer, I'm swinging, I'm moving and I'm hitting the little white ball high off the ground ... I have true whackability. And Kathryn's not too far behind either.
But next week's it's going to be a 'hole' new adventure when things start to get serious on the green (or its sand equivalent). For, as Chris remarked, 'drives are for show, putts are for dough' ... and we are not talking the cooking variety.
