tour tales & true VIEWPOINT

Grant Dodd
‘A reminiscence of pens’

‘A
murder of crows.” “A gaggle of geese.”
Pens in golf tell more stories than
Schizophrenic, seemingly random, and yet just numbers on a scoreboard.
securely cemented into the lexicon, the
curious collective nouns that pepper our
language would be written off as the work of an acid-
tripping refugee from the 1970s if the phrases hadn’t been
around longer than anyone can remember.
Our sense of comfort with such anachronisms
should allow for additions to the vernacular when and
where required. The challenge, quite obviously, is to
come up with something that does justice to the legacy
of the institution.
While undertaking that most tedious of processes that
is the house move, I chanced upon a disused wooden wine
box that had been seconded as storage for what looked
like a lifetime supply of pens. With a directive from the
better half to dispense with the detritus of the past decade
being squarely at odds with my hoarding instinct, this
apparently useless discovery morphed into a symbolic
olive branch that could earn me temporary, but much
needed, breathing space.
With the vexing ‘obey’ part of the marital vows echoing cars and an ambulance, soon dissolved any illusion of innocence.
in my mind, I set out to sort the wheat from the chaff. Good The all-white, lidless pen from Leo Palace Resort in Guam
intentions notwithstanding, all that eventuated was a trip bought back memories of a less sinister nature. A jungle-strewn,
down memory lane. challenging course was front of mind, but no less notable than
Most of the pens were the disposable type used in hotels the instance of watching a future US PGA Tour star hit a golf
and airports, and branded accordingly. Many had been picked ball out of the window of his second-floor hotel room into the
up inadvertently during a decade-and-a-half of global travel, teeth of a rapidly arriving hurricane. The ball, hit as purely as
and the collection in its own unique way diarised a career in one could hope for, was rendered impotent in a mini-second,
professional golf, broken into disconnected weeks. dismissively thrown aside as nature made a statement about
A blue and white Hotel de Americanas pen took me straight its intentions that night for those domiciled on that isolated
to Rio de Janeiro, one street back from Copacabana Beach. Pacific outcrop.
Not much of a hotel, but half the price of the designated The gale force wind not only shredded significant parts of
tournament hotel right next door, and close to most of the the golf course but also reduced the event to 54 holes in the
action along the beachside strip. process. Before it got really nasty, however, the first round
Dinner at night meant dining at the cafés that lined the was completed with an appropriate level of carnage for the
adjacent boulevard. It was a happening area, perhaps more conditions. One of the more remarkable scores was that of a
so because it was the base of choice for large numbers of the player who shot 82, which included 16 pars and a birdie.
city’s working girls that catered to the resident tourist trade. Unfortunately, the discovery of a green and white pop-top pen
The favourite haunt of the week was packed with players from the Holiday Inn Dusseldorf drew a complete blank. This
and caddies one night when a series of loud bangs rang out. was momentarily troubling, until I remembered that nothing
SAM GREENWOOD/GETTY IMAGES

The working girls fled for cover. Unperturbed, and blithely
interpreting the interruption as a backfiring car, the majority
of the European Tour body naively stayed in their seats,
zealously guarding their beers and schnitzels.
But the unmoving figure on the road 30 metres away, and
the banshee wail of sirens that signalled the arrival of police
ever really happens in Germany, even allowing for the history-
altering propensities of a reminiscence of pens.
Grant Dodd played in the 1997 and 1998 British Opens and is
now a commentator for golf broadcasts on One and Ten. To ask
Grant a question, visit grantdodd.blogspot.com