Handicapped

Sub par

I’ve been playing a lot of minigolf recently. Unfortunately, much like my ongoing relationship with Bertie, any sign of improvement is harder to spot than an honest politician. I can play three times a day, and still my average barely budges. One day I’m putting like a deity, the next I can’t sink a beer. Sound familiar? Because that’s Bertie to a tee (pun intended).

It got me thinking: there are striking similarities between a decent round of golf and a satisfying classic. Golf, at its core, comes down to three things:

• Knowing the course

• Having the skills to play it

• Possessing the mental discipline not to lose the plot

Failing in any of these and your round is doomed. The same applies to keeping a classic in your good books. It requires:

• Having the right car for your needs

• Finding a good, solid example

• Actually enjoying the thing

Ignore any of these and you’re in for a world of disappointment. You can have the “right” car on paper, but if it spends more time on a lift than on the road, it’s just an expensive lawn ornament. Conversely, you can have a perfectly reliable old chap, but if he leaves you colder than a tax return… well, what’s the point? You might as well drive a dishwasher.

Most things in life are about balance. You can mask one flaw for a while, but if your stars aren’t aligned, frustration is inevitable. Right now, Bertie and I are about as aligned as the Middle East.

The problem is simple: he isn’t the right car for me. Not because of any complaints from “her indoors” about size (a topic I will not elaborate on!), but because of that baked-in Rolls-Royce expectation of continuous, wallet-lightening devotion. Previous owners may have enjoyed being gently invoiced to death. Me? I like the occasional weekend that doesn’t involve lying in a puddle of oil. I don’t need another high-maintenance mistress.

What I want is something less… needy. Something from the 1980s. Something German. Something engineered with a slide rule and mild disdain for failure. Ideally with a Stuttgart badge and a reputation for being useful rather than fussed over. A Mercedes W126, for example. Mercedes made nearly 900,000 of them, while Rolls only managed 558 Bentley T2s. Statistically speaking, I’ve got better odds of finding a decent W126 than achieving T2 enlightenment.

But here’s the kicker: even if you find the perfect car, you might not love it. And no amount of polishing, fettling, or “she’ll be right once I’ve done the headlining” will change that. It’s like golf - some days you could thrash Tiger Woods (even when he’s the right way up) - everything is aligned. Other days you couldn’t hit a barn door. You can’t force it. Either the spark is there, or it’s gone!

So where does that leave Bertie and me? Well, let’s just say I’m browsing the classifieds… while avoiding eye contact. It’s not him. It’s definitely him.