Acting Up: golf-monthly.co.uk

A man walks up to his club professional. ?I?ve developed a terrible slice,? he says. ?I think it must be a problem with my clubs.?

?Loft sir,? says the pro.

?What?? says the golfer. ?You think I should change the angle of my clubs??

?Loft sir. Store your clubs in the loft.?

Well this week I?ve stored my clubs in the metaphorical loft in protest at my poor play. Neither course nor range have I visited in hopes that my ills will desert me and when I next tee it up I?ll play like Seve.

Is this logical? Can one become better by doing nothing? The way I see it I?ve become so bogged down in spine angles, weight shift, club-head rotation, position of both my chins etcetera, etcetera, etcetera?that I?ve forgotten that the main word in ?golf swing? is "swing". Golf is a simple game made difficult by the idiots who play it. Well this idiot is trying to dumb down.

However, although I?m not playing, I cannot leave the game alone entirely, and this week my golfing fix has taken the form of the most excellent Golf Monthly web site.

The forum lounge is one of my favourite browsing stop-offs and this week there have been some cracking posts. There?s the bizarre ?Are Seniors Leeches?? also the topical ?Christmas presents for Golfers? (Please God not another sleeve of Paula Creamer Pink golf balls? I know I?m an actor, but really.) But it was Furyk-or-Unique's post ?Golfing names in Star Wars? inviting Star Wars-golfing puns, that caught my eye. Madandra (Forum Legend) ventured Darth Fader, John-Findlay, another forum regular, mentioned that if you?re buying your clubs in the Far East beware ?The Attack of the Clones?. I chipped in with a couple of weak efforts, Pro V 1 Kinobe and Jabba the Putt, but top of the pops by far was Brendy?s ?Princess Lay-Up? a term I?ll certainly be using on the next par 5.

But it was, as it always seems to be, Fergus Bisset (golfing God and blogging genius) who proved most instructional. In one of his recent blogs about winter golf ?Rejoice as the nights draw in? talking about summer?s slow play due to over-crowding, he wrote:-

?In winter you?ll have no such trouble as there?ll be no-one else on the course, only your brave group fighting the bitter north wind and testing their Calvin Kleins to the limit.?

Now I know they breed them tough in Scotland, but playing golf in sub-zero temperatures, wearing nothing but your under-crackers, surely contravenes some law of sanity if not stupidity. On reading it again, of course, I realised that it was their "Galvin Greens" they were testing and not their designer keks. And that?s when the light bulb appeared above my head.

My eye-test is now booked in for two weeks' time and hopefully as a result I?ll be better able to read both blogs and putts. Thanks Fergus.