This blog post, and the 2 or 3 that follow it, are set out slightly differently from most of the other posts in “Phil’s Affiliate Club”. They tell four summarized “stories” selected from the thousands of memories I have from those four amazing years living in Port Moresby, excluding working hours. Working hours were the subject of the previous post, Developing My Computer Skills In A Developing Country. Each of the “stories” will start with a heading and end with appropriate lessons so that Affiliate Marketers can learn from my experiences,
Robbed By A Skinny Coconut Palm At The 37th Hole
As I stated in the last blog post of part 2 of this series of posts, “From A Mini Computer To The Other Side Of the World” one of the deciding factors, though far from the most important, in my decision to go to Papua New Guinea, was the fact that Port Moresby had a golf club, with a full-sized 18-hole course.
Every year, the club had an extended Match Play competition. The membership was divided into 3 groups based on handicaps: “A” Grade, “B” Grade, and “C” Grade. There was a qualifying Stroke Play round, and the best 8 gross scores in each grade qualified to enter the knock-out stage.
During my third year living in Port Moresby, I qualified, just, as the seventh best gross score in “C” grade. That performance meant that I had qualified to play whoever had the second-best gross score in “C” grade. In Scotland, the land of my birth, as covered in the blog posts in part 1 of this series, Match play is played much more frequently than it is in other parts of the world. This experience from my youth gave me a little bit of an advantage.
I can’t remember anything about my first match, but I obviously won it, how easily I can’t recall. I do remember hitting a great three-wood to the edge of the raised green of the par 5 17th in my second game, the equivalent of the semi-final. I got down in 2 more shots for a par, which beat my opponent’s bogey. That meant I had won “2 and 1”, meaning I was in the final. For non-golfers, “2 and 1” means that I was 2 up with 1 hole to play, so I couldn’t be beaten.
Unlike the quarter-final and the semi-final, the Grand-Final was played over 36 holes rather than 18. My opponent was a German fellow, called Fritz, who had won the original Stroke play round. Since then, his handicap had fallen from 18 to 16, while mine had risen from 18 to 20. Therefore, on the day of the Grand-Final, as we were playing off scratch, I was effectively giving him 8 strokes over the two rounds. During the week before the Grand-Final I had gone to the trouble of buying a new outfit, consisting of a new wide-brimmed hat, a collared T-shirt, shorts, and long socks. I showered and changed into my new clothes after the first 18 holes which we had finished all square.
I was one hole up when we played the 4th hole, our 22nd. It was a par 5 leading back towards the clubhouse. Both the “A” grade and the “B” grade finals had finished early, with big wins for one of the competitors in each, and there was a crowd of about 30 people watching as we approached the 4th green, most drinking beer. I managed to put my third shot onto the green about 15 feet past the hole, while my opponent missed the green, landing in a rough hollow to the right of the green. From there, Fritz managed to chip up to about 4 feet from the hole. I studied my 15-foot putt from every angle for a good five minutes in front of the crowd. There was a severe break from right to left over its 15 feet length. Finally, I stroked the ball and made probably the best putt of my long golfing life. The ball stopped right on the high side of the hole and sat there long enough for the crowd to gasp. However, during my 15-foot walk towards the ball, it slowly toppled into the hole. The crowd cheered, and I was now two up, after what, for me, was a rare birdie.
My birdie seemed to affect my opponent, and I was able to win the next hole after leaving the crowd behind us with a bogey 5. The following three holes were halved, and I was still three up on the 9th tee, our 27th. It was a par 3 over water. The green was back near the clubhouse next to the 4th green. An even larger crowd had assembled after renewing their beers. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to again show off my putting prowess as the size of the crowd, which had inspired me on the 4th green, freaked me out, and I mis-hit my drive into the water. My opponent’s ball landed safely on the green, so I didn’t try to hit a second ball, and we retired to the clubhouse for our final break, with me only two holes up.
Over the next three holes I managed to keep my two-hole lead, halving the 28th, 29th, and 30th. The 12th hole, our 30th was a par 3, which I over-shot badly to the right into a hollow with deep grass. There were no bunkers on the course. I managed to recover with a magnificent shot from the deep rough to three feet, and we halved the hole with pars. This drew a long round of applause from the 40 or so people who had left the clubhouse to follow us around the final 9 holes. That was unheard of for a lowly “C” grade final. However, the 36 degree (97 F) heat was beginning to get to me and my little legs were feeling very tired as I stood on the 31st tee.
My tiredness began to affect my game, and instead of pars and bogeys, I began to shoot bogeys and double-bogeys. By the time we reached the 16th tee our 34th, my two-hole lead had evaporated. We were all square. The drive at the 16th was over water, which normally did not bother me, but on that occasion, I failed to carry the water twice, and for the first time that day I went behind by one hole, with 2 to play. However, on the 17th, a par 5, my opponent badly sliced his second shot. A “slice” is when the ball veers badly to the right of its intended flight path. He took 2 shots to hack out of really deep rough, and I managed to regain the deficit. We stood on the 36th tee, another par 3, all square with one to play.
“Come on Masta”, my trusty caddy, more properly known as a “bag carrier”, whispered as he gave me my 5-wood. “Yu puttim long green, morning”, he said.
“Tank yu tru”, maski worri, me do gud pastime”, I replied in my mediocre pidgin. How wrong I was. For the first time that day, I completely duffed my drive. The ball scampered along the ground for barely 20 yards. The crowd, all of whom were on my side, groaned.
Ignoring the groans, Fritz confidently teed up his ball, with, presumably, the club he normally used on this hole in his hand. The adrenaline must have been flowing through his body as he hit the ball. It flew 30 yards over the green into thick rough. For my second shot, I managed to scramble my ball onto the front edge of the green a long way short of the hole. I would have preferred it if my ball had stopped short of the green so I could have chipped the next shot instead of putting it.
My opponent again took two shots to get clear of the rough, but then he played a great pitch shot to within two feet of the hole. A gimme 5. All I needed to do was to avoid three putting to win the match, but my ball was barely on the green, about twenty yards from the hole. As chipping and pitching was the strongest parts of my game, I rarely faced long putts, and I was not confident as I stood over this twenty-yarder. The presence of the hushed crowd did not help. I finally hit my approach, and it stopped 5 feet short of the hole. It was right on line, but “it didnae hae the legs”, as they would say in Scotland.
I conceded my opponent’s two footer and started to study my 5 foot potentially match-winning putt with as much, if not more care, than I had studied my birdie putt on the 4th, 2 hours previously. Despite my wide-brimmed hat, I could feel the tropical heat on my tired body, and I couldn’t concentrate as I had done so successfully for the first 30 holes of that day’s marathon. I over-read the slight left-to-right borrow, and left the ball on the right lip. This time, the ball wasn’t going to topple into the hole. I had three-putted for the first time in 36 holes, at the most inopportune time. My opponent and I had halved the final hole with double-bogey fives.
Fritz and I had barely spoken a word to each other for the whole day, but as we climbed up the stairs to the first tee for the long par 5 first hole, our 37th of the day, we were out of sight of the crowd for a few moments. The crowd had stayed down on the fairway. Before we reached the tee where we would be visible again, we shook hands and rested our exhausted heads on each other’s shoulders for a moment before separating to continue our epic struggle against each other.
By the time we hit our next shots from the lofty tee, at least 5 minutes had passed since I missed my putt on the 36th green. This short break from the game had somehow refreshed us a little. We both hit good, straight drives and good fairway-wood second shots. I rarely made the first green in three shots, but that day, when it was the 37th green, I put the golf ball on the green with my third shot, a three-iron. My German friend was fifty yards nearer the green than I had been after two shots, and he would have probably used a seven or eight-iron for his third shot. As he had done on the 35th hole, he sliced it badly. Although I am writing this, forty odd years later I can distinctly remember thinking, as I watched his ball head directly for a thick copse of coconut palms to the right of the green, That’s it, I’ve won I’m safely on the green, and there’s no way he’ll get out of there in one shot. He’ll be lucky if they even find his ball.
Fate can be cruel at times. Although I was lucky to be alive, lucky to be in P.N.G., and lucky to have scraped into the top 8 to be eligible to play in the Match Play finals of that competition, my luck finally ran out when my opponent’s sliced ball hit a coconut tree and bounced onto the green where it came to rest ten feet below the hole leaving a relatively easy, straight uphill putt. My ball was ten yards away, but I had to putt across the slope. As I tried to concentrate on my putt, I couldn’t help thinking how different the situation would have been if his ball had missed the trunk of whatever tree it had bounced off.
My approach putt finished 5 feet short, leaving a tricky downhill shot with a lot of left-to-right borrow. My opponent left his uphill putt 9 inches short, and I tapped his ball back to him as I lined up my par putt. I managed to resist the strong temptation I had to knock it into the trees, where it belonged. It was my turn to suffer from a surge of adrenaline, and, although I read the borrow correctly, I hit the ball too firmly. It hit the back of the hole, jumped in the air, and sat defiantly on the back lip. The rules would have allowed me to wait for five minutes to see if it would fall in, but after thirty seconds, it was clear that it was staying put. I tapped the ball into the hole for my second three-putt in two holes, thus conceding the match. The crowd groaned, and I shook my opponent’s hand before going over to the coconut palms.
“Which one did it hit?” I asked a friend who had joined me.
“This skinny one, here”, he replied, pointing to the skinniest palm tree I had ever seen. I shook the tree, and the one small coconut it had produced fell at our feet. “I’m going to have this”, I announced. “Where’s my buggy”?
“Here, masta”, my bag carrier, who was right behind us, said. There were tear stains on his brown face, but he managed to say “Kissm e cum”, pointing to the coconut. He laid it on the ground, just off the green, took out my sand wedge, a club I rarely used as there were no bunkers on the course, though I had used it once that day, for my great recovery shot at the 30th, my second-best shot of the day. Holding the club six inches from its sharp head, my caddy expertly, with one blow to a weak spot known to him, but not to my friend nor me, cracked open the coconut’s green husk, leaving just the brown coconut. There was no damage to the club.
“Tank yu tru”, I said as he replaced the club and put the coconut in the bag’s biggest pouch. “Me likim kai kai pastime,” he continued.
“What did he say”? My friend asked.
“He’s hungry”, I replied before I fished a twenty Kina note from my back pocket. A large smile appeared on my caddy’s tear-stained face. The normal fee was two Kina for 18 holes. I knew he lived near the far end of the course, away from the clubhouse. “Yu go long haus belong yu, pastime”, I said. “Me can pullim buggy belong me long clubhaus belong mepela”, I continued.
He turned and trotted for a few steps towards the second hole. He stopped and turned to face us. “Tank yu tru masta’, he said. “Me sorri yu no numba one. Long onepela more Christmas mepela win, no worri. Lukim yu next week.” With that, he turned and trotted away into the dusk as the sun slipped below the horizon, as it did so quickly in that part of the world.
It was completely dark when my friend and I arrived in the bar area. The assembled crowd broke into a long burst of applause. “Thank you”, I shouted above the clamor. ‘But where’s Fritz? He’s the one you should be clapping.”
“He quickly realized that his lucky win hadn’t improved his popularity, and he quickly excused himself”, I was told. I didn’t have to buy myself any drinks that evening, but after only an hour or so, I realized how tired I was. “Sorry”, I announced. “I’m exhausted and I really must go home. I look forward to seeing you all soon. Next weekend, if not before. Thank you all for your support, and I’m sorry I let you all down. The horrors of the 36th and 37th holes will stay with me forever”, I stated, fighting back tears.
I drove carefully home, before having a simple sandwich, washed down with a whisky. Being a beer drinker, I rarely touched spirits, but I needed something special that night, before I sobbed myself to sleep around nine o’clock.
Appropriate Affiliate Marketing Lessons
As in life outside Internet Marketing, there will be successes, like my putt at the 22nd, and my recovery shot at the 30th. Unfortunately, there WILL BE massive disappointments as well. These inevitable disappointments may be caused by a variety of factors. For example, errors, inexperience, or, like my disappointment at the 37th, sheer bad luck. There could be many other causes. However they are caused, your disappointments must not discourage you. They must not cause you to get dispirited or tempt you to give up. Instead, you must learn from all disappointments.
In all probability, you will have to seek your mentor’s help to identify the exact cause of the disappointment, but after you are clear what the cause is, you must endeavor not to repeat it.
- If it was caused by an error, for example, publishing a link that does not take a prospective customer to the correct sales page, ensure that you double-check all links you publish from then on.
- If your disappointment was caused by inexperience, you must learn more about the area you are dealing with. For example, if you are unsatisfied with the number of lead-ads you are generating, then practice with alternative ads, changing one thing at a time until you are happy with the result.
- Sometimes disappointments are caused by the lack of a necessary tool, for example, an auto-responder. in these cases, there may be no alternative but to fork out the necessary cash to rectify the situation.
- If a disappointment can be put down to sheer bad luck, then just try again and again.
Cheers
Phil