THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOLFING JO
AND THE EUROPEAN TOUR PLAYERS

By JO MAES
So, what exactly is the difference between a tour player and me?
I play golf for fun. As I don't get paid to play golf, it is very much a social event for me. I thoroughly enjoy it and even though sometimes I get home and swear not to touch a golf club for the next three years. The next day I'm already thinking where I am going to play my next round.
After watching the players at the Portugal Masters last Friday I have come up with the following theory.
The difference between the tour player and the average to good golfer has four components.
1 The conditioning of the course.
Tour: Fairways 13 mm, My fairway: 23 mm. Tour: Semi rough 32 mm, My semi rough: 42 mm.
Tour: Rough 90 mm, My rough: 20 cm. Tour: Greens 3 mm, My greens: 5 mm.
Tour: Stimp 11 (all week), My stimp: 7 one day, 9 the next, 5 the following day.
2 The conditioning of the player.
Tour: drinks water and powerdrink, Me: Coke (and not diet) and Beer.
Tour: Eats nuts and bananas, Me: Egg Mayonnaise to start and Cheeseburger at the turn.
Tour: Works out before and after with some weightlifting, Me: Do some curls with ½ litre pints at the bar.
Tour: Treadmill, Me: Elevator to the room and ride a buggy when I can.
3 The conditioning of the equipment.
Tour: kickpoint, Me: at what point did I kick the ball?
Tour: Two layers of tape on the left and one layer on the right of the grip, Me: when was the last time I cleaned the grips?
Tour: swingweight D4 with a Graffaloy 65s shaft, Me: I got this set on e-bay, they even gave me a putter to go with it.
Tour: Launch angle of the driver between 12 and 14 degrees, Me: Is that left or right?
4 The Entourage
Tour: Physio, Me: The missus if I'm nice to her.
Tour: Mental Guru, Me: the bank manager phoned to say I'm overdrawn and to get it fixed today.
Tour: Swing coaches like Harmon, Leadbetter, Torrance, Me: I call him the pro but I'm not really sure what he is. He's good fun though and he can drink. Tour: Physical trainer, Me: I'll show you physical, see me gripping this driver.
Tour players have courtesy cars. We have cars that are ill equipped for the purpose of taking us to the course.
Tour players have caddies to carry their stuff and make sure they have everything in the bag. We run from the locker room to the pro-shop to the bar and back to make sure we have golf balls, drinks and have our shoes on the right way.
The bottom line is. Don't expect to much of this game. We obviously all want to play well but when you go on a golf trip, and basically that's what these tour players are on the whole year, don't expect to shoot the lights out when you end up at the bar till 2 in the morning, finishing off a night on the binge with the old Jamie on ice.
You wake up at 6.20 because the bus is taking you to the course at 6.30. You grab a sandwich running out the hotel lobby with your golf shoes untied. You spend 1 hour in a bouncy bus or van when the driver gets lost and finally arrives at the club, just 10 minutes before your teetime.
You have to check in and prepare for your game in only eight minutes because your clubs got chucked out of the bag on the way to the course. You finally make it on the first tee, you grab the first club that comes to mind - the big dog - you have one look at the fairway (if you can see it with the sun coming up straight in your face) and give it a mighty swoosh.
Only to see the ball topple of the tee and about 100 yards onwards. And then you say to yourself it can only get better. Yeah right.
So don't beat yourself up while playing. Just remember, there are always worse things you could be doing at the same time. Or are there?
I'm away to Scotland again so if you want to tell me something, talk to the hand - yours truly - jmaes@golfhub.ie