Growing up in a small town in England.

The Beginning

If you have found yourself here at my blog you already know  I am a professional golfer, mother and now Golf Channel analyst.  So how did I get to be so lucky, to have my two dream jobs and a healthy happy son. 

 My blog is my journey from how I started playing to where I am now, talking about the game I love on The Golf Channel.  My writing will not be perfect and no doubt have grammatical and spelling errors.  I just hope I can tell an interesting story of my past  and present life.

So here goes.......

I grew up in a small town in England called Deal.  I'm not lying when I say its a beautiful town,  full of old houses, castles and pubs. Its set on the coast and if you stand on the beach in fine weather you can see France.  It does happen... sometimes.....

I grew up in a hard working family, and at the time my golf journey was about to begin, my father was a foreman at the Port Of Dover, and my mother worked in a factory pressing blouses and dresses.  Watching them work hard to provide for my younger sister and I set a good example for us both.
  
As soon as I was old enough to realize I wanted to buy things I asked my father for pocket money, I was eleven. His reply has stuck with me and I believe it has made me what I am today. He said "you don't get anywhere in life with out working for it" then he gave me a choice of how to earn my pocket money. " you can either help your mother with the washing up every night (no dishwasher) or you can caddy for me on a Saturday morning".  The choice was simple and obvious. I would pull my dads trolley round a course called Princes Golf Club on a Saturday morning and as a reward for my work I would get  five pounds. I have to say I felt pretty rich. 

It didn't take long for dad to notice that I was always swishing around with his clubs so he posed the question. Would I like to try to play golf?  Again it was an easy answer. I had already fallen in love with the game,  I loved being out doors, I loved the obvious struggle and most of all I loved spending time with my father. 

My father being well versed in the university of life and book of common sense (one of his favorite sayings) knew how important it was for me to get off to the right start.  So he signed me up for the group junior lesson. This took place on a Saturday afternoon. Dad had time to play in his game in the morning. I caddied then I went off to the junior lesson. 

The junior lessons at Princes were a lot of fun. One of the assistant Pro's would be in charge of anywhere from five to ten kids mostly under the age of thirteen. We would all line up with a small stack of balls in front of us and hit away. The assistant pro would make his way down the line helping us with our basics and swing. To be honest it had to be pretty hard on him as getting the ball air born with as hard a swing as possible was the only thing on any of our minds.  Inevitably the balls would run out and we would have to pick them up. There was no fancy driving range and the balls we hit were the pro"s own practice balls. As an incentive to get the balls picked up quickly the Pro would offer a can of coke and a twix to the kid who could pick up the most balls.  It was quite the thing to me to win the coke and twix.  

After my first lesson dad came over and told me that if I wanted to improve I needed to practice. I agreed and I stayed on the practice ground hitting balls trying to get the ball up in the air.  I didn't care if I missed it, I was was working on it.  

There wasn't much spare cash in the Stupples house so buying clubs wasn't simple. I asked for clubs from all my relatives for Christmas and my birthday. Some game me money which I spent on clubs. Eventually I had a half set. They were Mizuno silver cups and my first wood.... was a wood...a three wood to be precise.  

 I hadn't been able to play the course straight away as I was accumulating the clubs and trying to hit the ball far enough to make the carry over the knee high rough from the tee to the fairway.  But eventually I did. I would play a few holes here and there with dad, then one day he said its about time you got a handicap. 

I had to play a full 18 holes. I remember clearly at the end of the first hole dad asking me how shots I had taken. I said five, he replied that I should count again. Apparently I hadn't counted the air shots, Ah the injustice of it all how can they count as a shot if you didn't actually hit it. That was my first experience of golf isn't fair.  But it didn't put me off. and I continued and finished my first ever round of golf in 144 shots.  PHEW!!!!
I know one thing my did had to really love me to go through that for me....

And that is how I started playing this amazingly wonderful yet frustrating game. 

I will continue my journey in my next blog. I have enjoyed reliving this and I am actually looking forward to writing some more.

Stups out x