BEGINNER'S luck is a strange phenomenon.

About 20 years ago, a friend invited me to go clay pigeon shooting for the first time.

Having gone through the safety procedure, I prepared for my first clay. As it arced into the distance, I pulled the trigger. It disintegrated into hundreds of pieces.

My friend, along with the rest of the group who had been disturbed at my initial insistence that I would prefer a sawn-off version, were astonished.

I was a natural, I thought, and envisaged jolly weekends in the country with well-to-do landed gentry for the rest of my days.

Sadly, the other 49 clays fell to earth without a scratch and I never picked up a shotgun again.

Which brings me on to golf.

Most of my friends play golf.

I know lots of golf jokes. Cricketing colleagues used to say I should take up golf, usually when I was playing Cricket.

But apart from hacking round a municipal pitch and putt during my teens, the game has been a stranger to me.

Until now. For I have finally taken up the game.

To be honest, 'taking up' is a slight exaggeration.

Whacking a few dozen balls on a local golf range may not constitute a fully-fledged challenge to Tiger Woods et al, but we've all got to start somewhere.

The first tee shot for any virgin golfer is a rite of passage as important as your first kiss, your first pay packet or the first time your team wins the European Cup.

Like the first two at least, it can often be a bit of a let-down.

But not mine.

Wielding what I was reliably informed was a driver, I took a mighty swing at the ball.

To the purist, it was not a pretty sight. My stance, arms, knees, feet, head, neck and the rest of my body were nowhere near the place they should have been or, indeed, pointing in the right direction.

By rights, I should have missed the ball by three feet and should now be lying in a hospital bed with severe back and neck problems.

But boy, did that thing fly.

It eventually came to rest about 280 yards away and almost straight in front of me.

I was a natural, I thought, and envisaged jolly corporate golf days and weekends with the lads.

The next 49 balls - when I did connect with them - did not go in the same direction or travel anything like the same distance.

One shot was sliced so wildly that had its trajectory not been stopped by a tree, it could have hit me in the back of the head.

But like so many before me, I am hopelessly, irrevocably hooked.

So anyone got a second-hand set?