Darkness

Yesterday descended into a deep darkness for me.

I found myself sitting on my office chair bent double and , not so much crying, but bawling. Stomach knotted in bits, desperately trying to catch a breath in between tears.

Just over 3 years ago I tripped over a temporary sign in the Royal Bank of Scotland in Peterhead. The result of this trip was that I ripped my left knee to shreds, internally.
Some 7 months after the accident I had the knee operated on.
This resulted in an entire golf free year, which was absolute torture for me.

The journey back to playing has been long and tedious.

At the start of this season I finally bit the bullet and switched to graphite shafts in my irons and after a somewhat embarrassing 2 rounds at my beloved Archerfield, knuckled down to some proper practice and took some lessons.

Now let me make it quite clear I have never been convinced the knee surgery was a success, at least once a day I get a twinge of one kind of another from it.

One of the reasons for the switch to graphite was I had lost about 20 m.p.h. on my swing speed. Basically as soon as I started my down swing my brain automatically switched weight on to my right side, the brain was simply trying to protect the left knee. With the lighter graphite shafts my speed picked up and I was actually, finally, following through again!

After a lesson last Wednesday I ventured off round the 9 hole at Cruden Bay and was actually striking the ball better than I have in years, with a draw! Now direction wise I knew there was more work to do but was feeling happy, confident even.

So Saturdays stableford  seemed like a great way for me to get my season underway.

Well I thought so at least.

Coming straight from work I had to go straight to the tee, not hitting any warm up balls, yes I know.

The 1st 3 holes where straight into a reasonably stiff breeze, not normally a problem but my driver is sort of deadish, a wee crack in the face means if you don’t catch it out of the screws you just get a thud from it.

Yes I know a new driver is the answer but after buying new irons it simply is not financially viable.

No matter how much I told myself just swing through it I simply could not help but try to hit the driver harder, trying to make up for the lack of MOI.

If I am being honest I felt the knee on the very 1st tee shot.

But you simply soldier on, after all what’s a wee bit of pain?
Holes 2 & 3 where both 3 off the tee due to pulled drives, the grr factor was starting to bite in, then the par 3 4th resulted in a par so grr started to calm down.
5th passed on to par 5 6th.

I took both my 3 wood & driver to the tee, that should have told me something!

Hit the driver and lost it left into deep rough, grr, hit 3 wood provisional & split the fairway! Major grr.

Now if I had a single brain cell I would have just declared the 1st ball lost but off I went looking for it and found it buried! A hack to move it 2 yards into the lighter rough followed by a 7 iron from the light rough up the middle, by now I was really really feeling the knee.

The green was in reach, but only with my Sunday best, aye right!

I threw the kitchen sink at it and the pain was huge. Needless to say I put the darn thing in the burn, zero points, not a happy camper.

7th tee, driver now totally disowned, nailed the 3 wood, 165 to pin from the fairway.

I got to the ball, sore but happy, pulled out an iron, hit the shot, then found myself flat on my back!

The knee simply buckled. As my playing partners came to see if I was ok  one of them noticed how swollen the knee was, through my trousers! It was up like a balloon!

I have never not finished a round of golf in my life, until then!

The walk, rather the hobble, back to the club house was the longest, loneliest walk of my life.

If I am out with the dog from the 7th to clubhouse is a 6 or 7 minute walk tops, it took me 37 minutes to get back, thirty seven minutes!

When I got back in the house that’s when it hit me and I simply crumbled.

I want to blame the driver, I want to blame not warming up, but the reality is the knee is just gone.

A trip to hospital last night and I have been referred back to the surgeon.

Today I have posted jokes and funny videos, doing my best to mask both the mental and physical pain.

Until I see the surgeon I really have no idea what comes next.

My biggest fear is that yesterday may have been my last ever medal, and that scares me.