Because, as with most everything in golf - even life - the game can be explained, if not rationalised, by quotes from the Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight and Chevy Chase classic - and, yes, perhaps the greatest film of all time - Caddyshack.

See it: towards the end of the film, Ty Webb (Chase) is nine holes into a big money match with Al Czervik (Dangerfield), and against Judge Smails (Knight) and Dr Beeper (Dan Resin).

And Ty and Al are copping a touch-up. Czervik is playing terribly. His scorecard looks like the chicken scratchings of a madman.

“I don't understand it!” he exclaims. “I'm playing the worst game of my life!”

Chevy looks at him, adopts a pose of consolation, and says: “Hey, don't put yourself down. You're not, uh... you're not... you're not good. You stink.”

As it was for Rodney Dangerfield, so it was for me on Saturday. Driver like a rattle snake. Hybrid a high-banana slice. Yips from the sand as if I’d been captured and tortured by the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine.

I lost three balls, a range finder, a chicken roll and so much mental equalibrium.

Like Dustin Johnson before him, Scottie Scheffler doesn't appear to have mental demons because he doesn't appear to think much. PHOTO: Getty Images

And questions abounded: Why do I do this to myself? Why don’t I beat balls and get lessons? How do you lose a range finder and a chicken roll in one round?

And this: how can I now be so bad when once I was almost half good?

Wasn’t that long ago, maybe eight years, I played off six. Admittedly only for one round after a purple patch, and then it was like too much too soon. The altitude was vertiginous. I felt like a nine-marker who’d broken 80 three rounds in a row. I was a kid thrown into first grade. I came to holes and thought, I have to par this for two points? Not happening.

Obviously, not a thought process espoused in the good books of Dr Robert Rotella. But what are you going to do? Turn off your mind?

Saturday’s round began, as the odd round can, with a schooner in the clubhouse. Again, a warm-up routine touted only in the good books of John Daly, a man not exactly competitive on the golf scene outside selling T-shirts at Hooters.

Onto the tee and in my head was a move I’d seen on Tik Tok or a reel or something – take your normal back swing, then half-squat on the downswing while bringing the butt of the club through low near your right hip. This was meant to promote an in-to-out swing plane, and shoot out a little baby draw.

It did not. Indeed it sliced hard and low and right onto some bark near the adjoining 10th fairway.

You've got to love the big lug. But John Daly's warm-up routine works for John Daly only. PHOTO: Getty Images.

I realised then I wasn’t wearing my golf shoes. I took them out of my bag while juggling a chicken roll in the other hand, and set off down the fairway dragging the cart.

I found my ball, put the chicken roll on the ground, took my trainers off, stood in damp grass in my socks, put my golf shoes on, and said hello to a golfer coming up 10 who promptly trod on my chicken roll. He didn't even realise. 

Shoes on, socks wet, hungry, I weighed up options: sideways chop out or thread one through the gettable gap in the trees ... of course I took the much harder option, and whacked it hard into a tree. Then I chopped out, chipped on, made two long putts, and wrote down double-bogey six and one stableford point.

And thoughts came afresh: how do I get a point for that? I am a bad actor. A bad seed. It should not be. I am bad.

And so it went – these half-squatting tee shots with the hands coming through low to the right hip, meant to promote an in-to-out swing plane but rather promoting … I don’t know what you’d call it. I didn’t video any of it. I just saw my new Titleist Pro-V1s sailing hard and angry, low and right, squirreling, evil and bad, onto adjacent fairways or into lagoons, never to be found

It was so very bad. And it took a birdie on nine to turn with 13 points.

Then I had another beer. And parred 10. Hello! Then I double-bogied 11. And double-bogied 12. I bogied 13 with a 15-foot sand save. I parred 14, parred 15 – hello! - then smashed a beautiful drive down the middle of 16 before writing down triple-bogey and wipe because I chunked one in the sand, skulled the next one out of bounds, and cursed those Sand People of Tatooine for the PTSD.

Onto 17 and I nearly scalped the guys on 18 green with another wild and low-slicing bit of devilry, it’s not a pleasant shot shape, I will give you the trip.

I whacked a hybrid towards some guys coming up their fairway, tried to hook a 7-iron around some trees, ended up on a big double-green and facing a 60-foot putt before somehow, sublime and ridiculous, two-putting that giant bastard for a par and three points in the stableford system of scoring.

It was a round like the Hunger Games in a game of Mouse Trap on a pure day on manicured turf.

It was madness.

Chevy Chase (left) and Michael O'Keefe, who played "Danny", in the sleeper hit film of 1980, Caddyshack. PHOTO: Getty Images

There followed a fine drive on 18, a fine 8-iron to 15-feet and two fine putts, and I amassed 18 points coming in, and 31 points all told, and not the worst score out there ... which made me wonder why all the angst.

Now, you could say the game is driving me to drink but I was going to have one either way, if I am honest, and I mostly am.

And it was here, as I bought another shout (not only does the game cost emotionally but financially), I pondered answers. How does one obtain mental skill in a hobby with more component parts than the Tron-like workings of Elmo’s Teslas?

And again, there was an answer in Caddyshack, and the following exchange.

Judge Smails: So, Ty. What did you shoot today?

Ty Webb: I don't keep score, Judge.

Judge Smails: How do you measure yourself with other golfers?

Ty Webb: By height.

Judge Smails: You know, you should play with Dr. Beeper and myself. I mean, he's been Club champion for three years running, and I'm no slouch, myself.

Ty Webb: Don't sell yourself short, Judge. You're a tremendous slouch.