Hablemos de golf

Let's talk golf

Searching within this great sports community, I observe not without surprise that there are very few publications on golf, a sport practiced by millions of people around the world and that has great health benefits, absolutely proven and recommended by doctors everywhere, especially cardiologists.

There is a certain resentment for golf in the sports world and in the general public, several non-sports issues are foisted on it, the main one being that it is only for the elite, it is an expensive and exclusive sport for people with money and a lot of time available.

I think that many other sports can be included within those characteristics, some of which are very popular and practiced everywhere, and this is like any of them. It can and in fact happens that children play baseball with a single handmade bat that they pass around one by one when it is their turn to bat, a team with a T-shirt, cap, pants, socks, and special boots, forget it. You don't need that to put together an excellent matchup.

There are many world-famous baseball players, billionaires, and celebrities today who started playing that way in some vacant lot in the poor neighborhoods of Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and every other country in central Latin America.

Here in my country, baseball is not a widely practiced sport, far from the centers of influence it has never become massive and I think it never will be, nor is golf, but I can assure you that here there are many fans who practice it.

We have had great champions, De Vicenzo, winner of the British Open, and Cabrera who won at Augusta National and at the US Open, also came second on another occasion at Augusta, losing in a tiebreaker with Australian Adam Scott. Not to mention the "master" Roberto De Vicenzo, the great promoter of this sport in the country, the first to win a Major and nothing less than in the world capital of golf in his most important tournament, the British Open. De Vicenzo won more than 250 professional titles in his career, here in the United States and in Europe, he couldn't win Augusta National because of his last-day partner, then Tommy Aaron scored 4 hole 17 instead of 3 which was what master De Vicenzo had achieved. I don't know how much you know about the rules, but in golf, the one who scores on the official card is not the player himself but one of his opponents in the group. When De Vicenzo was asked on television he said: "how stupid I am", although the rival is the one who scores, the player has to review the card before signing it and handing it over for control. He never made a single allusion to his rival's mistake, that's how big it was. That anecdote made him more famous than if he had won the tournament. He earned respect forever.

Both Cabrera and De Vicenzo started out as caddies, taking clubs to amateur players.

I have been playing golf for not so many years, although I had practiced and taken classes in my youth, then the paths of life took me in other directions and I gave it up, I could use the phrase of the teacher De Vicenzo, how stupid I was! I took it up again in 2006 when I bought a lot in a country club that had a beautiful par 3 course, that is, all the holes were parred 3 and it was also small, it only had 9 greens, although with two tees in different positions. that made it possible to play the usual 18 holes in any tournament.

I took it up again with passion, I got my license and I began to practice hard, I took classes and practiced several days a week, at that time I worked independently and could afford those luxuries, not so much money since you can go to practice fields little expensive except for the time he spent on it.

When I resumed practicing I had a set of 12 clubs, half from one brand, and the rest from different manufacturers, very old clubs that I had bought cheaply in my youth. Then, when I saw that my dedication and love for this sport were growing strongly within me, I decided to invest in better clubs, I'm not going to say that they cost me little, but I wanted to continue improving and nowadays technology makes a good set of clubs helps the fans a lot.

In a short time, I lowered my handicap from the initial 25 that they grant when you get the registration to 17, which was my maximum achievement, I had too many years on me to claim something lower. In those years I participated in many tournaments, I have all kinds of trophies at home, although some were spent for a good cause.

I remember, for example, having won the prize for the best approach on a par 3 on a very difficult course, with my initial shot I left it 30 centimeters from the hole and I took a bottle of wine with me, I must confess that I drank that wine.

I remember, for example, having won the prize for the best approach on a par 3, with my initial shot I left it 30 cm. and I took a bottle of wine, I must confess that I drank that wine.

Together with a group of players from that country club, in 2008 we obtained the par 3 inter-country tournaments where almost 20 teams from the Federal Capital and Greater Buenos Aires participated and were supervised by the AAG, the highest golf body in the country. The following year we almost achieved the feat of defending the title, coming second to a narrow margin of the winners.

I continued to play regularly on large 18-hole courses for several years and there I also reaped some victories, I played on a tour organized by Unicef, and in addition to practicing the sport I collaborated with a good cause, I have a couple of t-shirts, glasses and other trophies that delivered to the three best scores in each category.

Now I'm teaching my dear son-in-law how to play, he's almost like another son and he's a little frustrated because he still can't hold his hand, of course, it's my fault since I'm not a teacher and I can't tell him everything he has to do. When his work allows him, he is going to take some classes and finally make his debut on a court. He also knows that he and anyone who wants to learn seriously, this sport captivates him, as it did me.

I also watch the big tournaments on TV and I'm as passionate as playing, the season of the majors begins next April and I will surely make some comments about it.

With Tiger Woods almost at the limit of his physical capacity, it is very difficult for him to win again so my preferences are leaning towards new talents, among them Scottie Scheffer stands out for my taste, in just a few months more than a year he went from not having no PGA title to having 6, including the Augusta Masters of the previous edition. I'm going for him although the Spaniard Jon Rahm is a formidable opponent.

Speaking of Spaniards, the greatest Spanish idol of all time in terms of golf, Severiano Ballesteros, began playing with a single club, a 3-iron that he found caddying at a club near the poor place where he lived. Having trained to exhaustion with that only club led him to cultivate great technique and imagination for shots around the green that over the years he was able to exploit enormously to have a career full of triumphs both in Europe and in the United States. Joined. Five majors and 93 other tournaments confirm that talent.