When it comes to the joy of sport at its most pure, give me the grassroots amateurs any day. And how funny I should say that!

For, as if you didn’t know, golf clubs around Sydney compete at several tiers of their pennant competition, whereby the best players of each club take each other on in a men’s and women’s “match play” tournament – whatever that is. All of which set the scene last Sunday when the division two team from the tiny inner-west Massey Park Golf Club, which plays on a Canada Bay Council course, was taking on Muirfield Golf Club in the finals of the NSW Metropolitan Men’s Major Pennants at Riverside Oaks.

The victorious Massey Park team.

Under normal circumstances, Muirfield woulda moidered da bums, but on this fine afternoon the men of Massey Park are on song. Seven golfers from each club are matched, and late in the day it’s three wins apiece. But look now. As the mob leans in, the final match-up goes blow-for-blow for 18 holes, and they are tied!

Golden point, then, to see who can be first to hit a ball down the Riverside Oaks clubhouse chimney? Nah, this is golf!

The two players, Shane Fitzpatrick from Massey Park and Josh Lego from Muirfield, return to the first fairway, and with the hopes of their clubs resting on their shoulders, the two line up and tee off as supporters of both men line the fairway. Two shots later, they are both a football field’s length from the flag, two strikes down, with the bases loaded, bottom of the ninth.

Fitzpatrick is to play first and lines up his shot. He stares, he focuses, he pulls back his club, he swings with a “smooth gap wedge”, whatever that is, and connects . . .

The ball soars away and looks good! It lands high on the green, to the right, and starts to trickle back, just as Fitzpatrick intended. There is a cry of exultation from supporters. If it keeps coming, he might be able to nail a birdie. But, hang on, it keeps going. There is a gasp from the Massey Park mob. It’s not going to go in, is it? Is it . . .”

It IS! Off in the distance, they see the tiny white ball roll right to the base of the flag and roll in. Nothing but net! And a little bit of the flag-pole! Fitzpatrick’s hit an eagle for the most important shot of his life. Fitzpatrick is soon engulfed by Massey supporters jumping all over him, while in the clubhouse 600m away members are heard to say that, judging by the cries, “I think Massey just won!”

But quiet on the set!