The Hacker: Waitrose can wait as I finally find the solution: go and check it out

The pathetic desire to improve that lurks in the breast of every useless golfer is surely linked to a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Despite regular lessons I have been playing off the same allowance for a year now, and picking up a card from the pro shop on competition days is becoming something of a frustration for all concerned.

The routine is as follows. "Handicap?", briskly. "Twenty two," sotto voce. "Still?" is unspoken, but it hovers in the air for all in the waiting queue to see, pushed there by a little resigned sigh.

Honestly, Mark (the pro), I really do want to get better. I really do listen to what you say. I want to please you by being able to report progress. It's not your fault, it's mine. I'll even buy a tank top with diamonds on it if it would help.

Then on Thursday – hallelujah – the first fairway turned into the road to Damascus. The occasion was thoroughly low key; my infinitely more competent chum Viv pulls on the club colours tomorrow in the first round of an inter-Suffolk team matchplay contest and we decided that a spin round the front nine together would help both player and caddy alike.

The point of the half-round was a run-through for Viv and from her point of view it all went well enough. From mine? Well, I played the nine holes in 40 shots. Yes, 40. That's only three over actual par. The equivalent of playing off six.

I had never done such a thing before, or even come close, nor do I expect to do so again, not in this universe anyway.

At about the same time, the young professional Ross Fisher was putting together the best round of his life, a 63 in the European Open in Kent, a feat which he later attributed to his new driver.

Perhaps there's something in that; I have not long acquired a 12-degree Ping Rapture (credit where it's due), which has produced more length.

But that day there was more to it than equipment. We talked ourselves round, but not the usual "I've-got-to-go-to-Waitrose-after, isn't-it-a-lovely-day, look-there's-a-baby-bunny" stream of consciousness.

We talked through our shots, how we visualised them, what the ball was going to do. We talked about the importance of concentrating on set-up and routines.

We weighed up the percentage play. We talked of turns and follow-throughs. We looked at the putts from all angles. We slowed it all down.

All of which the long-suffering Mark tells us we should do. And it appears that if you do what you're told, it works. Goodness me, fancy that.

After the ninth (40! 26 points!) we opted to play up the 18th. My third shot was a wedge to the green. Pah! Easy!

As I addressed it, Mark appeared, walking back down from the range with four more adoring pupils. Politely, they stopped and waited.

Here was the opportunity for glory in front of the master. I told him of my wonder score. And then thinned the ball sideways into a bunker.

He gave that familiar sigh, and moved on. If only he could have seen the ones I played earlier.

p.corrigan@independent.co.uk