Joining The Tee Party

Lucy Etherington gets into the swing of things down at the golf club

- Lucy Etherington

I so did not picture this when I moved from London to the countryside. Hens, yes. Baking, yes. Even jam making (did it once). But golf? It doesn’t quite fit my image of ‘country idyll’. It’s anathema of rural hipster. I’m not retired, no one I know plays, I never watch it on the TV, and, to be honest, I’m a bit golfist. Everything I think about golfers is summed up in one man: Donald Trump.

But one day my friend, head of the Suffolk Women’s Equality Party, told me our local club was offering free golf lessons for ladies. It’s strange what passes for amusement these days.

To be fair, I’ve often driven past golf courses thinking, that must be a nice thing to do, wander about hitting a ball with your chums. But golf clubs have the same kind of rep as dark alleys. The free lessons for ladies are part of an initiative to change this. Thus, for the past few Saturday mornings, nine other women and I try to hit some balls (lessons one, two and three) straight (lessons four and five) on a long stretch of grass. I don’t know what it’s called, but yesterday I noticed it had flags on it and managed to hit one.