Entry for 3rd December, 2008 - Golf - a religious experience!

I mentioned a couple of blogs back that I went for a game of golf recently. Without exaggeration, that is my first game of golf for four years. It is probably the most expensive game of golf in human history, given that I have maintained my club membership throughout that period without making a single appearance on the course. I suspect that the club secretary thinks that I am dead but my executors have forgotten to cancel the direct debit.
In spite of the fact that I mostly hate golf (on account of the fact that I am terrible at it and a very bad loser) there is something incredibly comforting for me in playing it. You see, I grew up around golf. My Old Man is mad keen on it, and througout my life I have gron up around the game's rituals. I can see him standing at the sink, cleaning the face of the irons with a nail brush, the clubs standing leaning agaisnt the kitchen work surface in a neat little row. I can see him slotting the clubs into the bag in the correct order. I can hear the sound of the clubs as they are dropped gently into the boot of the car.
I suppose this must be a bit of what it is like to be religous. Of course, I don't mean to belittle religion here. I don't equate a round of golf to beief in a supreme being. What I mean is that I think religion offers a lot of little rituals which, if you grew up with them, you must find familiar and comforting. The smell of the incense; the lighting of candles; the repeated phrases.
I get an odd sense of that as I put my bag of clubs together.