Had a lovely first round of the season at The Castle Course on Saturday. I had the bag of Gary who was a very laid back and genial South African who was accompanied by two fellow countrymen and a nice English chap.
It was almost perfect in fact: the weather, the company, the tip, the chat. Everything, bar a rather unsettling incident on the 5th green.
I was holding the flag for Chris who was a rather large and imposing 40 year oldish chap from Cape Town. He lagged up his monster putt to about 3 feet which I offered to give him in jest. However he marked it and said to Gary ‘your caddie is a nice old man’.
Now this kind of floored me. I know that I hadn’t slept well and was unshaven and that my hair is now white. But ‘old man’? I started having immediate drastic and solemn thoughts like ‘is that it then?’ and ‘it’s a different playing field now’ and ‘oh shit!’.
I then tried to rationalize the situation and thought that perhaps the guy was in the habit of talking Africana’s back home and that maybe his thoughts just turned out very unfortunately on the translation front. But this argument is wearing thin.
Chris I’m 54 and 3/4. I swear. ‘Old man’ Please not quite just yet.
As a wee postscript to this I just read in the papers that they reckon they will have developed an anti-ageing drug within three years. Well I am sorry but that’s a bit too bloody late.