I used to ROFL at the thought of golf, but now my Daddy is my caddy

As a wide-eyed space nut of a 10 year old boy, I watched the opening crawl of Star Wars (before it got re-tagged with Episode IV - A New Hope) with great expectation and trepidation. For my father, whilst not wearing the black cape and breathing apparatus of - as we would discover in Episode V - Luke's father, was just as fearsome. And he had taken great pains to leave me with no doubt, that if this space-opera I'd begged him to take me to in anyway sucked, we'd make point five past light speed right out of the cinema way before the Rebel Alliance could muster all their misters.

So I watched and waited. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope...

Not long in, when the intrepid R2 unit haplessly stumbles across some rag tag Jawas & faceplants after a bolt out of the blue, my father laughed uproariously. Loud & long. And at this point I knew I was safe. I relaxed and settled in to enjoy the movie. And for the rest of the movie, I didn't hear a restless peep or agitated bum shuffle from Daddy dearest.

It's still my favourite film and possibly movie-going experience, to this day.

And here's why... I recall my childhood with little in the way of shared experience with my father. Okay, so partially this is a selective memory. He did often take me motor racing and owing to this, I had the privilege of seeing Lauda, Senna, Piquet, Prost et al throw caution to the wind and some beasts of racing cars around a circuit. But I have no illusions that this was to entertain me. It was a passion of Dad's and I was just along for the ride. Like the many trips accompanying him target shooting - for many a young boy surely a dream come true, but one hearty recoil to the face from a Colt 45 and I wasn't so endeared to the sport.

When it came to my true passions - cinema for instance, it took my mother - having never attempted a driving test in her life, the logistal nightmare of negotiating a very lacklustre public transportation schedule to sate me. Star Wars with my father was a rarity and that's what made it special. That and the lightsabers and X-Wings and the Cantina and Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon...

Even without the black cape and breathing apparatus, fear was all around me growing up. Fear of my few local friends ringing the doorbell during dinner. Fear of asking a dumb question. Fear of whatever trifling blip it was today that was going to drive another tense mood or shit fit from my father. 

And so I vowed from an early age that when the time came and I had kids, I would not be like my father. And to a larger extent I believe this to be true. Okay, sadly much of it has been done remotely, the skills evolved child by child and possibly more by osmosis than design, they show all the signs of being very well rounded individuals. And I'm very proud to be their father.

And by whatever medium, there's barely a week passes where I don't tell my kids that I love them multiple times. More times in a week that my father has ever uttered in my lifetime.

Today I visited Dad, now in his seventies and finding himself alone again after a recent separation from his second wife. Even in adult life there have been times where polite acceptance has regressed back to - "let's play family feud!" - but at the end of the day, he's my Dad and I feel for him. So to get him out of the house - as misery needs company, I asked him to tutor me on golf. A sport he took up with his second wife, loved and became quite proficient at.

Until this point in my life, I've been with Mark Twain - that "golf is a good walk spoiled". However, recent changes in my job role has led to a certain peer assumptions. Assumptions that I have a University degree, a four bedroom house in Surrey with a Christmas card perfect wife beaming from our driveway, draped over a shiny new Audi. I have none of this. So I may as well learn golf and not be a total disappointment. I'm not a complete sell-out if I'm only a partial cliche, right?

And so I found myself today on a very agreeable sunny afternoon on Britain's South-East coast, with my father patiently bestowing knowledge on me in a way I only dreamed of in my youth. He willed me on. He gave me encouraging words. Gone was the dispiriting sarcasm and put-downs of my childhood. I was far from King of the swingers and a separate postcode away from being a natural, but throughout, Dad gave me the verbal and caddying support to succeed and improve.

And at the end of it, he congratulated me and firmly shook my hand. There are many achievements in my life that eclipse this shoddy performance like a Death Star primed for destruction, but it wasn't until this way below par outing that I finally saw a glimpse of the Dad I've pined for all my life.

As I say, by whatever medium, there's barely a week passes where I don't tell my kids that I love them multiple times. More times in a week that my father has ever uttered in my lifetime.

Earlier, I hugged Dad and vowed that we'll play again soon. You can guess what he said next.

So now I like golf. And that's why.


Stay positive! x