IT’S not every day that a terrible golfer such as myself is accused of being a bandit by a professional.

To most people, being charged with cheating by using a higher handicap than you should do would be taken as an affront. I wear such accusations as a badge of honour, proof that I am indeed capable of playing good shots once in a while.

Before I tell the story of how this miracle occurred, I should let you know that the incident in question happened several months ago.

I have actually been playing some good stuff of late, getting my handicap down a couple of strokes. This is good for my golf but not so good when it comes to writing this column, as good rounds tend to make for boring articles.

So, rather than boasting about my current rich vein of form, which has equally astounded both me and my golfing buddies, let me take you back to the day I played Weybrook Park for a Club of the Month feature.

The plan was for me to play the front nine on my own before joining up with professional Steve Cox for the back nine. This sounded great to me as it gave me the chance to warm up before subjecting Steve to watching me flounder around.

It’s a good job Steve wasn’t with me on the front nine as I played some truly atrocious stuff, taking 58 blows to get around. I began with successive triple bogeys and while a par at the third lifted my spirits, I was soon brought back to earth as I took eight at the par-four fourth.

Even worse was to follow at the sixth, another par-four. I sliced my drive into a bush and after deciding that the lie was unplayable, I duly thinned my next shot into exactly the same spot.

The result was a score of nine and I seriously considered making up some excuse not to play with Steve.

Against my better judgement, I decided to stick around, a decision that looked a good one when I hit a slightly thin seven iron to about 10 feet on the par-three 10th. A par won me the hole and had Steve playfully accuse me of banditry.

As a result, I set about proving him wrong, failing to trouble par for the rest of the round and taking 10 at the par-five 15th after a shank into the trees.

The word bandit was not mentioned again – unsurprising considering I carded a 39-over-par round of 111!

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