Consider a typical conversation when members meet at the bar...

“How’d you go?”

“Shit-house. How’d you go?”

“Shit-house.”

There will follow group discourse around who’s buying a jug, who’s got a tip for Flemington race six, whose football team beat the other person’s football team.

It’s like one of those ‘Men’s Sheds’ except less manufactured, less forced. It’s organic, natural. It just is.

And it happens every day in every golf club in the land. A round of golf and a few drinks afterwards can be fun and social.

And it's actually important stuff.

Grayson Murray hits a tee shot on the 11th hole during the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club. PHOTO: Tim Heitman/Getty Images

Because men, any age, can feel isolated. Pressured. Stressed. Alone. Having a chat with the people at golf can be some of the few friendly interactions some men have. 

Some women, too, of course. Yet, generally, girls talk more easily. Vulnerability comes more naturally. Empathy is sought and reciprocated. Talking about relationships, feelings, love, pain, it’s like balm. Necessary.

Men, largely, not so much.

Yet regular catchups, conversations, particularly across four hours of light aerobic exercise in a fun and competitive setting, with one's mates, it’s valuable stuff, without, perhaps, even knowing it is.

Grayson Murray paid tribute to his fiancee, Christiana Ritchie, after victory on the first play-off hole during the final round of the Sony Open in Hawaii. PHOTO: Michael Reaves/Getty Images

With the tragic news that Grayson Murray took his own life, you wonder could the man have benefited from more social rounds of golf, more post-round bet-settling, more fun. 

Could more time with his pals throwing a little shade on him have given the poor bugger more light.

We can’t know, of course, what demons Murray was battling. But we do know the life of a touring golf professional can be isolating and stressful. They operate in a bubble, of sorts, accompanied by a little team of people who rely on that one individual, sole trader, as font of potential fortune.

Lucas Herbert missed six cuts last year and part of his worry was for his team - caddy, coach, trainer, few others - people who also had a mortgage, but for whom Herbert Inc. paid $0 on those lost weekends.

So, Herbert took a break for “mental health” and it was reported as such, and we received it as we receive news like this ... you know, as if it's a bit of a thing.

Lucas Herbert (right) with the winning Ripper GC team from LIV Adelaide. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Because you hear ‘mental health’ and there’s still … not stigma. We're largely beyond that. But we can think, Oh. Mental health. Mental illness. What's doing? Scary.

We don't know so very much. And the noises in our own melons are complex enough before we play Sigmund Fraud on someone else's.

Yet Herbert was at pains to point out that his break was a positive. It was a reset, a de-stress. He wasn’t "ill" – he just needed a holiday. And he was smart and ballsy enough to just do it.

Herbert has good people around him. And now, in the team environment at LIV, he has a crew of mates. He said he feels less like an individual contractor, as types can feel in their own world on the PGA Tour, slugging it out, ploughing around generic golf courses, staying in soul-less hotels, ‘working’, ‘grinding’ to keep the roadshow going.

 

 

You’d like to think you could offer a mate the advice that Herbert gave himself – step back, chill out, don’t worry, be happy.

You wonder what anyone could have said to Grayson Murray. He’d won the Sony Open in Hawaii this year. He’d made the cut at the Masters where he went birdie-eagle-birdie at 14-15-16 in the final round.

He was 30 years old. He was off the drink. Yet it, whatever it was, all just built up for the poor man.

His family and friends are now left with so many ‘what ifs’. What if we’d said something, been there, done that. It’ll be with them forever. 

As in Australia, as in England, where Members of the Royal North Devon Golf Club relax in the lounge bar area. Also known as Westward Ho!, it is the oldest golf club in England and was designed by Old Tom Morris in 1864. PHOTO: David Cannon/Getty Images

Of course you want to be there for your mates. You’ll do anything you can, right? Yet they can be difficult conversations. Saying something, asking something ... again, it's often not comfortable for men. 

But, play golf with your mates over four hours, have a couple afterwards, and you swap all kinds of stuff in an uncontrived, unforced setting. You talk, you interact, you give, you receive.

And, maybe, you feel comfortable enough to ask: how are you, mate, alright? Or let them know what’s doing with you.

Tables need the knowledge.

If you or anyone you know needs help:
- Lifeline (24-hour Crisis Line): 13 11 14
- MensLine Australia: 1300 789 978
- Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
- Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467
- Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
- Headspace: 1800 650 890
- ReachOut: au.reachout.com