November in Johannesburg is a glorious month.

The weather is hot and there are the dramatic thunder showers which clear the air for some spectacular sunsets. It is also silly season which makes it glorious on the social front as well. It’s a time when people start to want to do all the things they’ve promised throughout the year but haven’t gotten round to them, like early morning golf.

A bunch of us had met up at the Wanderers golf course at 6am on a Thursday morning. With plenty of moisture on the greens and no traffic at the reds, one arrives in a very relaxed state. The pro shop is closed, but the caddy shack is open, and there is already an excited energy and friendly jostling for position for a bag to carry and an income to earn. Really how friendly that competition is, is something us golfers might never know. There is more than just a pleasant walk at stake here. It struck me, as it often does of how differently the golfer and the caddy have arrived at the same place. It took me 9 minutes shower door to doorman, and would have been quicker with a newer version of the VW Caravelle. I had David Gray on the CD shuttle and cool air through the conditioner as if the crisp morning air wasn’t good enough. I wonder just how early Aaron had to wake up from his house in Soweto to make it to the club, or if he even has a house?

I love my golf, and there hasn’t been a round in the last few years that I haven’t enjoyed. I’m still trying to learn how to enjoy every shot, but a fluffed chip or a three putt still have never made it onto the all time cheesy grin list. From a golfing perspective this morning was no different, but I learnt something else today, or maybe was just reminded of it. I’ve often recognised that there is a story in everyone. In some there are nursery rhymes, in others, novels. Aaron’s story might easily be a tragedy but for two things. One he doesn’t tell it or live it as such, and two, it is sadly more of an Everyman’s tale for many of our country’s people.

We were due to only play the nine holes before returning to work with the rest of the traffic, but I’m afraid that’s a bit like dragging the half sucked candy out of a toddlers mouth or half a beer after golf. Aaron and I soldiered on whilst the rest returned, and this is what I learnt.

Aaron was born in 1961 and at the age of 2 months was horrendously burnt by an exploding Primus stove. This left him with a badly scarred head and face, two and a half deformed fingers on his left hand, and no right hand. He was also left without his Mother who ran away from the scene. Whether she was ashamed, scared or embarrassed, he doesn’t say. He would love to be able to, if he could only find her. His search, like his life continues. His Father looked after him until he was 14, and then in 1975 he too left, but as Aaron looked heaven ward at least he knew where he went. He has no brothers and sisters. These are said matter of factly now, and there seems to be almost more anguish in a misread line for my birdie putt on the 13th than in his recounting his family history. He looks forward now, and with the same enthusiasm that he hands me the driver for the next tee shot he proudly tells me of his own family. A wife and two children - a boy and a girl aged nine and ten. They are both at school now he beams with an orthodontist’s dream grin. He is at peace with the world and his life and he has proudly continued its circle. It was tough he says, but it has made him strong. With this he rubs his calf muscle to relieve it of its most recent injury, a full blooded three iron from under the trees which felled him like a skittle and caused him to make the point that you are not a caddy unless you’ve been hit. That was only this morning, yet it had only altered his style across the fairways and not his speed.

Is that all I learnt? Not by a long stretch. There were stories here of fate and fortune, of courage and of care, of fulfilment and fear. I also learnt that it really doesn’t matter where the ball goes - just imagine not being able to hit one at all.

Such different paths have brought us to the same place. The Wanderers at 6am on a November Thursday. Me from Sandton, he from Soweto. We met at a place called Peace. Me from prosperity, he from poverty. He has walked these fairways for 26 years, when caddy tips were 75 cents, and bus fares were 5, and if he had his hands back, I doubt whether he would ever have used them to wipe a single tear of self pity from his scarred eyes.

He has learnt how to carry his handshakes in his smile and his high fives in his heart.

This much I have yet to learn, but I’m looking forward to the next lesson.

Steve