DISCOMFORT ZONE:Is it the game itself or the sort of people who play it that accounts for KATHY SHERIDAN'Sdislike of golf? She pays a visit to the K Club to find out

SO WHAT IS a Discomfort Zone? Feature writers lacking the specialists’ comfort blanket of a familiar hinterland and cast of contacts routinely leave their comfort zone (she said sniffily). Put it this way: four days at Cheltenham for a racing correspondent is all part of the job; for a feature writer, it might offer all the pleasure of a four-day root canal job without the lie-down.

But that’s not the same thing as leaving your comfort zone. It’s not about being inconvenienced somehow; it’s about confronting your prejudices.

So what is it about golf that makes it so completely detestable to me? What is it about the Luton “golf rage” story – 54-year-old psychiatric nurse breaks his eight-iron over another man’s head for mistakenly playing his ball – that wakes me up laughing at 3am? Why do I long to hammer a dozen tees through Peter Alliss’s skull merely for uttering the word “birdie”? Why, if a man is playing air guitar at a party and his pal is executing a pretend golf swing, is it always the golfer who is begging to have his fingernails extracted with red-hot needles?

Some might suggest all this is loosely related to the institutionalised sexism in golf and they might have a point. Let’s just recall Matt Doyle, a self-described “proud member of the K Club”. Doyle was very cross about an article published in advance of the Ryder Cup in 2006, in which US golf writer Bruce Selcraig joked that TV viewers abroad watching the event at the K Club might imagine that everyone in Ireland drove a Mercedes (this being pre-bust, of course).

“Just because [Selcraig] took a vow of poverty by becoming a journalist does not mean the rest of us had to,” riposted Doyle. “By the way,” he added, “if there were only Mercedes in the car park it must have been ladies’ day or children’s day. On a men’s day, it would have been Bentleys and Aston Martins.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself (especially since the pay cuts in here). And yet, Doyle’s perspective doesn’t quite cover it either. Consider rugby, for example. Think the colour, the noise, the full-on, charged atmosphere of Thomond Park or (lately) the RDS.

Now think golf. A ball. Swathes of buzz-cut, tortured acres. A hole. An insanely large bag of clubs to push the ball (which no one else is fighting for, except perhaps in Luton) in the hole. Hour upon hour of faffing around, the odd bit of prostration (the caddy’s, mainly), whole eras of heavy, portentous silence broken occasionally by a moronic fan yelling “get in the hole!” at a ball slamming into a pond.

So yes. This is my Discomfort Zone. What is not clear is whether the discomfiture is triggered by the game itself, by its proponents, or both. One thing is sure: I have never, ever, ever envisaged myself perpetrating a golf swing, real or pretend.

So here we are, Lynn McCool and me – just the two of us, mortifyingly, the golf-loather and the head professional – at the Smurfit course in the K Club. I’ve chosen unrelieved black as an “up yours” gesture to golfing tradition, accessorised with a particularly ugly pair of brown walking shoes. Lynn looks tentatively at the shoes, then me, and says brightly: “Yeah, they’re okay . . . They’ll have enough grip.”

Then we get in a little open-sided car and whizz off to a green hut with a tap outside that dispenses balls rather than water. There’s just enough time to establish that I’m a right-hander, surprisingly, and to observe that all the players around us are male (free as a breeze for a Friday afternoon, interestingly) before the heavens open and Lynn whizzes us back to the clubhouse in the little car for a nice cup of tea. But no. No tea. She proceeds to teach what she calls “the Dance”, in the diningroom, on a carpet. Lesson one: don’t even think about swinging a club before you master grip, stance and ball position. Yaaay! I may never have to swing a club.

But Lynn didn’t become a 13-year-old golfing prodigy by failing to focus. So. Grip? Check. Stance? Check. Ball (actually a tee in case I smash up the diningroom). Check. She says I’m a natural (liar, liar, Lynn). Check.

Here comes the science. Twist bosom to the right, raise club over right shoulder to 10 o’clock, swing it down – keeping an eye on the “ball” – and finish at 12 o’clock, with knees coming together and right foot raised in that leg-twisted stance that usually indicates an urgent need for the facilities.

Boy, do I feel silly. And a tiny bit sore. First concession: this uses up more muscles than anticipated. Second: keeping an eye on the ball is quite hard, what with everything else. Third: getting into that rhythmic swing, aka “the Dance”, from 10 around to 12 o’clock is not exactly child’s play, I suggest gravely. Except it is, embarrassingly. Lynn’s next session is with a bunch of alarmingly focused five- to eight-year-olds.

Anyway, we’re back in the little car now, ready to hit a few shots. Lynn wears a determined grin: “This is it now. You. Addicted.”

Occasionally, I make contact with the ball and execute a few dazzling hockey slogs. Amazingly, I do get lift-off a couple of times. “The Dance” starts to make some kind of sense. Lynn makes notes for things to work on, but no, I won’t be back. It just feels silly.

If anyone was to challenge a prejudice though, it would be Lynn. She’s upbeat without being annoying, and you could do worse than send your kids to her to learn about “goal ladders”. Afterwards, they might have a thing or two to teach you about getting focused – and not just about golf.