No swing and miss stuff in golf on a fog heavy morning at Hindan

By Rahul Banerji

There is something about golfing in fog. The enveloping mist sharpens the mind, for one. It dampens the weekend warrior’s ardent enthusiasm of throwing lock, stock and barrel at the ball, for another.

Certainly, the fog heightens alertness. Things whizzing about in the murk is a sobering thought, especially of a finely designed projectile like a golf ball that can knock the daylights out of a victim upon unfortunate contact.

The swirling whiteout also ensures keener focus on the job at hand, hitting the golf ball in as straight a line as possible. The club moves in an unusually smooth and steady arc, the head stays down fractionally longer, and contact is a lot healthier than normal.

Consequently, “let’s swing and see” golfers like this writer generally tend to look better on a scorecard than they actually are. And so it turned out on Sunday, in the Holi 2020 Invitational at the Hindan Air Force base golf course.

Fifty-six intrepid golfers gathered in the fog for the event divided into the Blue and Red (Pink? Certainly appropriate considering it was also International Women’s Day) teams, and all to play for.

Unyielding conditions

Despite a 90-minute wait, the fog held on obstinately, forcing organisers Sanjay, Sarjeev and Abhimanyu to opt for a blind start, so off we went trudging into the swirling mist, some wondering if they would emerged unscathed.

Consequently, ears were switched on to high alert mode for shouts of “ball” or “fore”, arm and leg muscles ready to cover and duck if needed. None of which was of course, needed.

For close to two hours, we took it nice and easy, the card looking unusually healthy as enforced caution kept a check on natural enthusiasm to throw the kitchen sink at the ball. Sadly and inevitably though, the fog lifted.

Sadly, because from that point onwards, the numbers – and mis-hits – started to climb rapidly. Still and all, my partner Ashu soldiered on and we held on well enough to make something of a fight of it against two very solid players in Sekhar and Sumit.

And at days end, it was an 8-6 victory for the Blues, a couple of the matches even needing extra holes to decide matters. Sweet for the winners and tough for the Reds, but they did not lack for effort or perseverance.

All of this makes me wonder if I should now start wearing extremely dark glasses while playing. You never know, it might just help increase concentration, And help keep my head down fractionally longer.

Scotland and St Andrews, here I come. Hopefully the R&A is listening.

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