From the Bunker: Christmas Special

Apparently its nearly Christmas…

From a golfing point of view, Christmas is a right inconvenience. There’s next to no golf on the TV, and what golf they do show are repeats and highlight shows they’ve thrown together of which a very small amount of the golfing population will actually watch. Chances of actually playing golf are slimmed down by the weather and limited daylight. What would normally be people’s tee time is now family time. Worst thing of all – the presents you get as a golfer!

I think at some point during our golfing careers, we’ve all received Christmas gifts that have never left the packaging. From the generic gift set box containing boring socks and a logo’d golf ball harder than a Pinnacle Distance to a putt return machine that only keeps it return capabilities for the first three uses, a non-golfer will think these are fantastic presents that will be used all year. In reality, it’ll be the fifth time in as many years that a golfer has received these, and they’re now collecting dust in various parts of the house/garage/golf club locker/office/golf bag/attic/car boot. Personally, the best golf related present I’ve received has been a gift voucher for a high street golf shop. I was able to then put that towards something I actually wanted and would make use of (handily enough it was for a top brand putter which after 15 years is still my pride and joy and will never leave). Why can’t more people do that so that at least people have something constructive to show from Christmas?

Speaking of golf and Christmas, is it acceptable to play golf on Christmas Day? As a family we will quite often go for a walk which happens to take us across our local club, and without fail there will always be two people on the course. One will be a young person, with a shiny new bag and brand new clubs made by Santa himself, on their first proper outing on a golf course. With them will be a parent or grandparent, looking solemn and more than likely hungover. But this is all you ever see. Why don’t more people play? Surely it’s a perfect opportunity. It’s a chance of fresh air, its going to be quiet so there’ll be no slow play, and also you can get away from any family drama that might have already occurred (there’s no guarantee however that there won’t be even bigger family drama when you get back). Then when you do get home, and eat way more than any human should be able to eat, you can sit back relax and watch a golf related Christmas film.

Oh wait. No you can’t. There aren’t any. Even in Home Alone (only the first two, the third doesn’t count as a Home Alone film, and no one has ever heard or seen the fourth and fifth), Kevin has a house full of potential weapons to keep the burglars at bay (sorry for the spoiler!).  But at no point does he use anything golf related to defend himself. A pile of golf tees is more effective than some little toy figurines, and way more relevant that some baubles under a window. Throwing golf balls and clubs off a roof would be much more taste and satisfying. I feel like they’ve really missed a trick. Another film that could have been adapted to suit us Grinch-like golfers would be Happy Gilmore, which of course is the best golf related film of all time. It’s even easy to adapt the title, so fingers crossed in the near future we’ll see a Happy ‘Christmas’ Gilmore on our screens. You could just imagine Adam Sandler dressed up as Santa and dominating the PGA Tour as they play through the snow and wind, whilst spreading the Christmas joy. It’d probably encourage a lot more people to play winter golf as well, and just imagine how far Happy could hit it now with all the advances in technology since his breakthrough year on Tour.

Finally, from all of us here at Bunker Mentality, we hope that you have a very Merry Christmas. Fingers crossed that you’ve made the nice list this year and Santa is bringing you some lovely new Bunker Mentality gear. We’ve sent a lot of items in the last couple of weeks to the North Pole, so it’d be great to see some pictures of you out there on the course over the festive period. Use the hashtag #teambunker across all social media platforms, and we’ll get to as many as we can in-between our glasses of sherry and plates of turkey sandwiches.

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