Golf Books #153 (Fluffed Chips Shouldn’t Count)

There are many books that detail the lone golfer’s ever-failing battles with the golf course. While Fluffed Chips Shouldn’t Count again shows how the courses, despite their different natures and settings, continue to triumph, it also shows there is much solace in the companionship of good friends who frequently suffer similar fates.

Fluffed Chips Shouldn’t Count traces the developing friendship of four aspiring golfers over a period of forty years when they met while working in Nassau in those idyllic Bahamian islands. Between the years of 1972 to 1980, they somehow scraped through (sometimes literally) a long initiation at the hands of the brutal Coral Harbour Golf Course (RIP) and became firm friends. In the late 1970s, they returned to their native lands and became involved in the chores of domesticity and fatherhood.

But the friendships were strong and survived distance and time, and in 1994, with the obligations of family waning slightly, they met again to play golf in Scotland. Such was their enjoyment and renewed camaraderie that they made a commitment to meet and play every two years in different parts of the world. In that period, from 1994 to the present, they have played in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, America, and the Bahamas.

They have aged and become more realistic about their golfing abilities, but they remain unbowed, and Chris still harbours hopes of turning pro.

Publication date: May 20, 2014 (source)

About the Author

Mr Hynes has worked as a teacher for over forty years since graduating from Cardiff University, first as an English teacher for ten years in Nassau, Bahamas, before returning to England. After a further ten years, he changed to teaching information technology, and in 2000, he found himself teaching this subject in Saudi Arabia for a further ten years. After a short retirement, he was tempted back to teaching, this time in Xi’an, China. He has always been a practicing sportsman, firstly football and cricket, and later squash, encouraging his two sons who also took up the game and played professionally for a short period.

He has been an addictive runner for many years, and while in Riyadh, joined the running club there. He also tried his hand at triathlon. However, golf came to play a major part in his life after one fateful but awful round in 1972 at the now overgrown Coral Harbour Golf and Country Club in Nassau, Bahamas. Mr Hynes has been happily married for over forty bloody years and has two married sons and five adorable grandchildren. His teaching has provided more success than his golf, but after playing in many places around the world for forty-one years, he is still hopeful. He now lives and works with his wife in Xi’an, China.