I DON'T know about you, but I've never been keen on internet banking, no matter how much those fresh-faced tellers in the local branch gleefully gush and gurgle on about its convenience and its instant access and its ability to make their jobs easier by stopping old fashioned goons like me shuffling up to the counter with a sock full of wizened tenners and a bunnet load of fusty coins and asking them to count it into tidy piles.
"Online banking really is brilliant Mr Rodger," they coo but then someone once told me the same thing about online dating, until I tried it and attracted such a spectacularly low rate of interest I got a visit from a concerned Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, doesn't need to worry about such humdrum monetary matters. The new face of modern golf is now the new face of EA Sports's PGA Tour video game, taking over the multi-million dollar commercial throne that Tiger Woods perched himself on for the best part of 15 years. It's hardly surprising this symbolic shift has happened. McIlroy, all youthful vigour and of the now, is the equivalent of your all singing, all dancing X-Box gaming console. An ailing, hirpling Woods, meanwhile, is like a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in comparison (and for baffled Herald readers who are not up on their computer gadgets, the Spectrum is as cutting edge as the horse-drawn plough).
Of course, blasting away on a computer game is bit different to playing the game itself. Put an X-Box controller in a young person's hands and they'll quickly bring the TPC at Scottsdale course to its knees. Stick a real club in their hands and they might struggle to get a ball above their knees. No-one ever said this great game was easy. Getting this Generation X-Box into it is not so easy, either.
Like a huge number of clubs across the land, Cowglen is an all-embracing, come-all-ye type of place. Kenny Moar, the captain, has watched it transform itself down the years and if you pay a visit you'll find a modern, welcoming, progressive thinking club where opportunity abounds for all ages.
"When I joined here 35 years ago it was pretty intimidating," said Moar of a culture and an image that golf, in some quarters, still struggles to shake off. "The senior membership were all smoking cigars, in blazers and ties. That's gone. Kids are made to feel welcome, the accessibility for them is there, the playing hours are more than ever and the fees are less than ever. Reaching out to them is still a challenge though. We had a meeting with the junior membership recently and Simon Payne, our professional, asked the question 'is it cool to be a member of a golf club and do your friends know you are a member?' Some were pretty guarded about it and some said 'not really'."
Changing this perception of a Royal & Ancient game is an ongoing crusade but it's not for the want of trying. Watching those hard working volunteers and clubs picking up gongs of recognition at the Scottish Golf Awards while listening to those involved speak with enthusiasm and passion for what they do is always heartening, particularly in these times when it's all too easy to focus on the negatives and trot out trite, doom-laden observations about participation. In many ways, golf has never been more accessible and the work that is being done throughout the land to encourage growth at the grassroots has to be applauded. But we live in this technological age where speed, convenience and efficiency are demanded and rapid fire gratification and an instant, fast-tracking to success is almost viewed as a basic human right. It's not golf's fault that society has become so clamorous, of course.
The very nature of the game means it's never going to be done and dusted in the blink of an increasingly distracted eye. And it's hellishly frustrating, too. There you go again, furiously swiping and thrashing away like Richard III in a frenzied last stand at the Battle of Bosworth, during a fevered attempt to get that little ball skittering along in the right direction and into a tiny hole. Taking 14 shots to negotiate a 325-yarder is hardly what you'd call 'fun' but then, by some miracle, negotiating a similar distance in three a few minutes later makes it all worthwhile. It demands patience, dedication and self-discipline, good honest values that are not necessarily defining words of this modern world.
In a lot of senses, the youngsters that will be the future of the game have never had it so good, whether it's through opportunities offered by Clubgolf, the sterling efforts of Paul Lawrie and Stephen Gallacher with their own Foundations, the Golf Girls programme or all the other local initiatives going on.
"Golf is a great game and if you practise hard and have fun while playing, who knows where it could take you," wrote Lawrie in a simple note of encouragement to the juniors at Uphall Golf Club recently.
There are a lot of people doing their bit for the game here and it has to be embraced and appreciated.
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