AGAINST THE ODDS:Our hero fulminates on all he has to lose as his wedding day draws near, writes RODDY L'ESTRANGE

THE ANNUAL Turkey Shoot outing of Foley's Golf Society teed off on a December morning of sapphire sky and tundra temperatures in Fingal.

On the opening hole at the public links of Corballis, a fine par three played over a public right of way to the beach, a fourball were about to tee off just after 11am.

Three of the four were focused on doing their damnedest to win a turkey in the 14-hole competition; the fourth, a middle-aged bloke wrapped up like the Michelin Man, was preoccupied by the thoughts of his impending wedding to Angie Mooney in five days' time.

If it was PG Wodehouse who observed that the best way to find a man's character was to play golf with him, then on this chilly morning Vinny Fitzpatrick would have been an ideal subject for analysis.

Four weeks shy of his 51st birthday, the bachelor boy of Dublin Bus was about to get hitched to a doe-eyed beauty with a figure to die for and had every reason to feel his ship had just come in.

He should have bounded on to the first tee with a pep in his step, a twinkle in his eye and a glowing demeanour.

Instead, he shuffled up to the plate, mournful looking and monosyllabic.

"Top Flite 2," he mumbled before unleashing a shank straight right into a hillock.

Aware there had to be a source for Vinny's sulking, his old friend Macker joined in the search for the ball and asked if everything was alright.

"No, it's not," replied Vinny huffily. "C'mon. We'll never find this. Let's keep going. It's freezing."

For the next hour, foozle followed foozle for Vinny, an erratic 24-handicapper at the best of times.

He ran up a nine at the second, lost two more balls at the third and then putted off the green at the fourth into a bunker.

When Vinny plonked his tee shot into the pond guarding the fifth, he sighed deeply and waddled off to the next tee where he sat impassively.

When the lads arrived, Macker took the cue to get to the nub of his old friend's misery.

"Vinny, I'm not leaving here until you spit it out. Now, what's up?" he said, sucking heavily on one of his hand-rolled ciggies.

As a giant blob of salty snot fell from his veined nose, Vinny turned to Macker and said. "It's the wedding. I'm not sure I can go through with it."

With that, he took a ferocious swipe with his favoured spoon and sent his tee-shot unerringly on to the green.

"See Vinny, honesty is good for the soul, and your golf," grinned Macker. "Now, tell me more."

On the walk to the green, Vinny puffed out his cheeks and unburdened himself of his fears. "I love Angie to bits and know how lucky I am to have such a bird.

"But here's the thing that's bugging me, I'm perfectly happy with the way things are in my life and scared sick that it will all go belly-up when I sign on the dotted line on Saturday.

"I'm happy that I get to sleep in my own bed; happy I can walk to work in two minutes, happy I can meet you and the other lads in Foley's as often as I want; happy, damn it, that I have my own space," he said, voice rising.

On the green Vinny was confronted by a 20-foot downhill putt. Macker suggested it broke from the left but Vinny felt the line was straight, which it was, the ball bolting into the cup at a fair lick.

"Hey Vinny, that gets you on the birdie tree," said Shanghai Jimmy, sneakily pinching an inch while replacing his ball.

On the next, a short par four uphill through the dunes, Vinny waggled his Big Bertha and smacked a booming drive across the corner of the dog leg. As Shanghai and Brennie ooh-ed and aah-ed, he continued with his confession.

"Ye see Macker, I'm not sure if marriage is all bells and whistles. I mean look at Fran. He's left your sister and has hooked up with a Polish young one half his age. As for Angie, she's gone through a messy divorce herself.

"I'm been asking myself "is marriage actually good for your health?" and, to be honest, I'm not sure if it is," he said.

By now, they had crested the knoll and down below, lay a green ringed with frost on which rested Vinny's ball, glowing a lonely white about half a dozen paces from the pin.

"An eagle putt!" exclaimed Brennie. "Let me tend the pin," he said excitedly.

Macker was torn between offering Vinny advice on his life, and on the line of the putt, but he didn't get time to say anything as Vinny continued in full spate while he marched towards his ball.

"Another thing which I'm fretting about is actually moving in with Angie.

"I've never known another cot than my own and I'm seriously thinking of asking Angie would it be okay to go home for a couple of nights, just so I can used to not being there, if you know what I mean," he said.

With that, Vinny casually flicked his wrists and sent the ball on its way. He looked to have over-cooked the stroke but on the last roll, the ball caught the back edge of the hole and dipped underground.

Brennie and Shanghai went berserk; Macker smiled his laconic smile, while Vinny looked stunned. "Was that really for an eagle?" he said shaking his head in disbelief.

"Back to back twos; that's a first," shrieked Brennie, the society's resident statto.

"Vinny, that'll be worth a hamper and no better men than us to come around to your place to help you empty it," he added with a grin.

Vinny's head was in a state of flux as he contemplated his drive on the par-five eighth as the relevance of Brennie's words rammed home.

The lads wouldn't be coming around to his place at Christmas because his place was about to be Angie's; a chic four-bedroom detached house with a massive garden on leafy Mount Prospect, not a pokey artisan dwelling in the claustrophobic cul-de-sac of Causeway Avenue.

His life was about to be turned on its head and the feeling in his bones was not one of delight but of dread at the impending dramatic change in his personal circumstances. With that, he topped his tee-shot into a gorse bush just in front of the tee.

Bets of the week

1pt e.w. Jack The Giant in Tingle Creek Chase (8/1, Bet365, Blues Square)

1pt e.w. Miguel Angel Jimenez in Nedbank Challenge (33/1, Paddy Power)

Vinny's Bismarck

2pt Lay Rhode to beat Kilmacud Crokes in Leinster SFC Final (9/4, Boylesports, liability 4.5pts).