VALE JIM McCORMACK
A wake service will be held at the golf club this Friday the 16th of August at 3pm in the function centre, the family has asked that we invite all members to the event.
I used to write a column called In the Rough. These were written in 2015 and then 2016.
Merv Peel calls Richie Thomas, Jim McCormack and Ray Cropley the three amigos. Of course, he is a bit of an amigo himself and often plays with them. However, you can hardly have four amigos.
Playing with them is a lot of fun. There is no standing on ceremony. There is none of this business of first visualising and then practising the shot. If you are ready, simply step up to the ball and hit it. It makes for a quick round although it helps that they generally keep the ball on the fairway.
If they hit a bad shot then it is usually accompanied by a laugh although they do have a surprisingly robust vocabulary. There is certainly no endless self-analysis. If they hit a good shot then that is what they intended so why the fuss? The approach works too because their names often appear in the winners’ column.
They play in all sorts of weather although not always wisely so. A few years ago one of them suffered heat stroke on a particularly hot day. The time I caught up with them the rain bucketed down. Most of the field retired to the club house. The amigos kept going to the finish. Why? They weren’t going to get any wetter and they didn’t want to let anyone down who wanted to continue. There was no discussion about this which probably meant that it was they who wanted to continue.
On this occasion, the rain got into Richie’s hearing aid and he couldn’t hear. Of course it didn’t stop him talking anyway. Or any of them for that matter. The conversation is always light hearted and free flowing.
Soon after this they allowed Glenn Flowers to play with them. Glenn was quietly pleased to get a ball with 37. He was completely outclassed though: Jim with 40, Richie with 41 and Ray with 42 showed how to play the game. He also didn’t quite know what to make of Richie’s effort on the 14th .Can you lose a ball after you have putted? When Richie missed three putts he smashed the ball away in disgust. Of course it was lost but as he had already lost the hole there was no two shot penalty.
They illustrate what is best about our game: it brings together lots of different people with an equal chance of winning but winning is never the sole reason to play. Enjoying yourself is.
The above captures the delight these characters brought to our game. Some time, after this I had this to say this more specifically about Jim.
His swing reminds me of a farmer wielding a scythe. It’s surprisingly effective because although the ball might travel a long way for not much distance off the tee it does land on the fairway. The next shot may skim the fairways sometimes but always advances the cause. The next stage is a problem: it is probably better to turn away when he is chipping.
So, he can’t play golf? Anything but. Check the monthly medal winners’ list. Who walked away with all of the money when we had the Fedex style competition?
How does he do it? Playing with him recently gave me an insight. Coming off two successive wipes, he approached the fourth. His drive split the fairway at the 150 metre mark. His delightful approach shot left with him with a metre and a half putt for a five pointer. Unfortunately he had to settle for a four.
He wasn’t going to squander the opportunity again. On the eighth his drive was short but his off the green putt wasn’t. Just your basic five-pointer really.
That’s our Jim.
Filed under: Members, Membership Level, Members Slider