Let's be honest, there's nothing like the Club Championship. It's the competition that allows us to pretend that we are playing a Major, a Ryder Cup. Weeks in advance, for the better players the Club Championship is the only topic of discussion. You can keep your monthly medals and your winter stablefords, nothing is even close to the grand prize that is the Club Championship; thirty-six holes in one day to decide the best player and with no handicaps it means that it really is the best player.

So you've been playing well and practicing better. Maybe this year will be your year. The face of your lob wedge has a dime sized discoloration from where you've worn it away from your incessant chipping and pitching. So what the strike marks on your 3 iron are all over the place, the knowledge that if your can get it within 80 yards you can mix it with the best gives you hope. All you need are two of the best rounds you've never played and you stand a chance.

It's an early start. As one of the unfavored, you tee off at the crack of dawn. You're up at 5.30am to make sure than you're up early enough for a good breakfast before getting to the club to warm up. When you get to the club you nod at the other guys there and wonder if your face looks as drawn as theirs does.

Start simple. Pitching practice first. Nothing too fancy, just some 20 yard pitches and chips. The first one sails way past the flag, the second barely makes it to the green and the third is, oh bollocks, thinned into the woods behind the green… aaaaaaargh! Ten minutes later and the ball is making friends with the flag again. The trajectory is low and the ball is sticking to the face long enough to leap off with a fizz and grab on the second bounce. Your confidence is restored and you even feel a little bounce in your step.

Onto the putting green, the nerves are back. What a stupid game this is, where a 4 foot putt counts as much as a 200 yard long iron. To start you aim at the edge of the green just to get the pace before knocking some at the hole. By some miracle, your practice at home has had an effect (maybe Gary Player was on to something!) and you're pouring it into the cup from short range and lagging it close from distance. Even some of the better players are paying attention. "That's right" you think to yourself, 'I can be one of you'.

Five minutes to your tee time so you make your way to the first tee and visualize the first hole; the par 5 is a genuine 3 shotter with danger all the way down the left so a long iron on the tee is all that's needed. Your name is called and you stride onto the tee, place the ball down, address it and mutter the immortal phrase of the competition golfer "Please please please, just don't screw up".

The 3-iron in your hand manages to feel like a sledgehammer and a feather at the same time. All you are aware of are the watching crowds of your fellow competitors. The twenty people feel like a thousand. You bring the club back as fluidly as a rusty clockwork man, hearing your joints click and pop as you wind up into a position that feels wildly unfamiliar and hope against hope that you don't miss as the club drops back down to the ball.

The ball sings as it flies off the middle of the club face and climbs into the sky. Your heart is in your mouth. It finally comes to rest a fair distance over 200 yards down the fairway in the very edge of the fairway. You control the emotions as you look to your friends who you are playing with… HA!, IN YOUR FACE PLAYING PARTNERS! FOLLOW THAT!

After nearly perfect start, what could go wrong? How about everything? How about no putt over 6 feet dropping? How about 4 lip-outs in the round? How about a 50 yard bunker shot that took a hard bounce and ended up in a tree. IN A TREE DAMMIT! THREE FOOT OFF THE FLOOR! You can't point to a single bad shot and say 'that cost me a double' but it's uphill all the way and you grind it out as well as you can.

At the end of the first round, you shake the hands of your playing partners. Your death's head grin hopefully hides your desire to throw your bag into the nearest lake as you realize that you are comfortably out of the running.

Rather than sit and stew, you take it out on the putting green. All those putts that didn't make it are forgotten in a barrage of drills. All the lip-outs, all the ones that caught the grain and slid from the hole, all forgotten as you drive the ball into the back of the cup. Sod avoiding a 3-putt, make sure you bang the ball home.

Back on the first tee for the second round, you've learned your lesson. A hard cut and the ball is in the middle of the fairway. A lay up and a good wedge leaves you 10 feet from the hole. The putter swings back and forth and the ball is in the hole for a birdie start.

A regulation par at the second but a bogey at the third brings you down to Earth with a bump. Suddenly it's back to being a grind except this time a couple of putts drop and you hold it together. It's still a fight but this time you're not taking a battering. You even make the turn a couple well under what you would expect. Still no threat to the leaders but your playing partners are struggling and reports are that many others are wilting in the heat.

Then it all changes at the turn. Suddenly the game is simple; Tee shot to the middle of the fairway, a mid iron or wedge in and 2 putts. Rinse and repeat. The 3 hardest holes on the course are up next and where better players have faltered, you ghost through them like they were pitch and putt. You even managed to sneak a birdie at a short par 3 when the ball takes a nice kick off a bank from the front of the green and you roll in resulting the 6 footer.

It almost feels too good to be true and at the 18th, it is. The long iron fade becomes a double-cross and you're blocked out behind a tree. The sensible punch out sideways hits a hidden tree root 20 feet away and bounces back almost to your feet. The golf gods giveth and the golf gods damn well take away. On a tough par 4 you walk in with a 7 but still well under what you would normally score.

For a whole hour, you watch the big screen with the scores. Your name is at the top. You take some pictures with your phone knowing that it won't last but enjoying it while it does. Others have crashed in front of you and you are leading the pack right until the final two groups roll in. The very last group is a threeball of the top players in the club. One of them struggled in the second round (you later find out that you scored lower than him) but the other two have dominated the scoring. It was always really going to be between Joe and Sam and this year it's Joe that adds to his trophy cabinet.

You had enough flashes of genuinely great play to trouble the best but inconsistency cost you. Some more practice and maybe a new lob wedge will help. Okay, a lot more practice and some lessons is what you know you need but the way you played is fuel for your dreams.

Who knows, there's always next year…