The small white ball game

[Padraig]

Only a couple of Scots and myself seem to have any time for golf as a sport.
I find television coverage excellent, whoever provides it, but I have a big grouse with commentary, whoever pundits. Take distance, for example; whoever hits the longest drive inevitably gets most praise, despite the overwhelming evidence that over time the best short distance player will win. What's that old saw - 'Drive for show: putt for dough.'
It's not the money, they say too, it's the winning. Where have they been? Some of those players need the money and there's plenty to go round them all - as in our familiar world of us and them. But attention generally goes to the multi-millionaires - as in.....
And then there is the ideal -'It's not the winning, it's the taking part.' I can't remember when I last heard that - did I imagine it?
At any rate, I enjoy my own game and I would recommend it to all, women and men, boys and girls.

[johncorrigan]

Very sad to read of the death of the great Arnie Palmer. In '66 while on holiday I went to Muirfield for the Open, all sponsored periscopes, trying to catch a glimpse of the greats...Thomson, Trevino, Player, Nicklaus and of course Arnie. He was my favourite of the big 3...always seemed in interviews like an easy going, likeable guy. R.I.P.

http://www.golfweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/arnold-palmer-1960-us-open.jpg

[Padraig]

Very sad to read of the death of the great Arnie Palmer.

It was John. I noticed that AP was not present at the last US Masters for the nine-hole event, and that was sad too. His old buddies JN and GP made it, emphasising his absence.We're coming to the end of another era. Still, the young guns, or should that be 'clubs', are making the headlines, and Rory McIlroy, among others, has certainly shone in recent times. He had some nice words to say about Arnold, a man who was the epitome of honour in sport and who upheld the first rule of golf, which was, Arnie said, to play by the rules - which does not necessarily mean dull and uneventful golf, as we shall see when the Ryder Cup begins next week.
RIP Arnold Palmer.

[Padraig]

Well done Charley Hull. She has just won a big tournament in USA. She has appeared on this thread previously as a rising star -

[johncorrigan]

Seems like I come here to celebrate lost greats of the small white ball game, and I was saddened to read of the death of the great Argentinian, Roberto De Vicenzo who has died aged 94. I suppose he will be most remembered for a cursory signature on a mistaken scorecard which cost him a Masters' play-off and a potential green jacket. But I'll remember him as a golfer of the old school who seemed to exude charm at every turn...one of those guys I wanted to see win. RIP

[P. G. Tipps]

Yes, John, he was one of those seemingly ever-smiling Latin/Latin American golfers who first burst onto the UK golf scene in the 1960's and so enriched events like the British Open.

A great golfer, a true gentleman, and a real ray of sunshine!

RIP

[Padraig]

Thanks, John and P.G. I did not know of this golfer until now. (Somehow most of the sixties passed me by as I keep finding out).

A sad tale indeed. What impressed me most about that lost and last chance for The Masters was his acceptance without rancour of the rules. Would that I could say that I would have done the same.

[johncorrigan]

Yes, John, he was one of those seemingly ever-smiling Latin/Latin American golfers who first burst onto the UK golf scene in the 1960's and so enriched events like the British Open.

A great golfer, a true gentleman, and a real ray of sunshine!

RIP

Totally agree, PGT. I also liked his name - it seemed so exotic.

[Padraig]

As I was just saying ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/40551844

[Lat-Literal]

Only a couple of Scots and myself seem to have any time for golf as a sport.
I find television coverage excellent, whoever provides it, but I have a big grouse with commentary, whoever pundits. Take distance, for example; whoever hits the longest drive inevitably gets most praise, despite the overwhelming evidence that over time the best short distance player will win. What's that old saw - 'Drive for show: putt for dough.'
It's not the money, they say too, it's the winning. Where have they been? Some of those players need the money and there's plenty to go round them all - as in our familiar world of us and them. But attention generally goes to the multi-millionaires - as in.....
And then there is the ideal -'It's not the winning, it's the taking part.' I can't remember when I last heard that - did I imagine it?
At any rate, I enjoy my own game and I would recommend it to all, women and men, boys and girls.

Seems like I come here to celebrate lost greats of the small white ball game, and I was saddened to read of the death of the great Argentinian, Roberto De Vicenzo who has died aged 94. I suppose he will be most remembered for a cursory signature on a mistaken scorecard which cost him a Masters' play-off and a potential green jacket. But I'll remember him as a golfer of the old school who seemed to exude charm at every turn...one of those guys I wanted to see win. RIP

Thanks, John and P.G. I did not know of this golfer until now. (Somehow most of the sixties passed me by as I keep finding out).

A sad tale indeed. What impressed me most about that lost and last chance for The Masters was his acceptance without rancour of the rules. Would that I could say that I would have done the same.

FORE!

Sadly I didn't know this golfer either but he predates me or at least my memory. I always think it is interesting to hear about people who meant a great deal to other people. Long may it continue. One instinctively wants to discover more. Surely it isn't right that interest in golf is nation specific. It is universal. And I have set out my stall. I am not an enthusiast, nor am I a natural. An inability to understand the concept of timing in regard to a static ball and a lack of physical power meant that I could only hack around. But I like it. Given all the hours I spent as a child on what was the Rottingdean P and P I should have been more comfortable with golf as a physical pursuit than I was able to be. In fact, I should have been brilliant.

Very happy memories. I love a links course. We would go among other times in mid December on my birthday when we had the course for free and to ourselves. That is, initially with my Dad's mate. The one who was obsessive about sports statistics and supported my sports media based interests. His books with scores out of ten for each Reading player and each contributor to Kent County Cricket club were meticulous and a joy to behold. Rather like the equivalent of Bob Monkhouse and his serious volumes of jokes. He was also a complex man who if losing at the board game "Careers" would lose his temper and just fold up the board. I liked him for who he was but my mother could never handle it. She regarded him as extremely childish. His second wife, half his age, and a woman I liked came in for such flak. "Why the hell did you place the ball there darling?" But they were joined as many partners are not in a genuine love of sport. When he died at 65 in his bath, not necessarily of natural causes, she married an official cricket scorer half her age and emigrated to South Africa.

Earlier, his son had been on the verge of becoming a professional golfer - as near to that as anyone could get. But having placed himself in the hands of a sports psychologist to bridge that extra bit, he agreed to having his every move filmed, then took a few looks and immediately decided he would never make it. There are lessons there. Beware the Eugene Landys. He was ultimately a green keeper and it contributes to my conclusion that it might be better not to have been good at anything rather than to have been almost great and just missed.

In this decade, though, I am minded to perceive golf through a more complex lens. The one where it is common for the game to be seen as anti conservation. Not a lot of biodiversity on those courses apparently. Too much water needed which we can't afford. It was precisely that sort of thinking which led the Green controlled Brighton council to send its officials out in the middle of a winter's night to stick concrete in the holes of the Rottingdean course. It had seen that the arguments that it was privately unsustainable were winning and acted like the biggest school sneaks on speed. The conservation alternative? A segway track. Yeah right. Fortunately, while the pitch and putt went - a place where I had then taken university mates frequently when we all came south - true conservationists stepped in. Packham has backed the way in which they have managed to turn it into a site for wildlife, extending the significant conservation area on its border, not that I feel it is the same. As for the few remaining Dutch Elms in this country - several of which are in Brighton town centre because of the salt - threats to some were issued by the Council because they had grown too large for buses to easily pass. Ironically, they have mainly been saved by less political protesters.

So when people who were previously admired are re-elected with larger majorities and everyone cheers, I no longer cheer. I feel badly let down by the cult of personality, the broader non-green agenda as I see it and especially the fact that to be green has become merely to be internationally driven on ego, colourless air and white ice. I love biodiversity. I can see the need for grand designs for the planet. But what I am is truly green. Which is to say I like green spaces. I like the Green Belt which others who call themselves green are often willing to compromise. I'm keen on landscapes rather than concrete - and given that golf courses are undoubtedly green I will always be found locally supporting ours. When Crystal Palace chairman Ron Noades built a mini empire of golf courses within a few miles, I couldn't leap up and down about it all. A big wig. Travel two miles from here to his Surrey National Golf Course which has hardly drawn the names to live up to its name and what stands out on the champions' board is an uncanny number of wins by people with the surname Noades.

But, you know, this area has a bit of everything. You will read it on walkers' sites. We are very lucky. Except that is everything with one exception as rambling contributors also point out, not that I have joined them myself. We don't have much water. No sea. No rivers. Very few lakes. So the fact that what was the joint of old father Noades, although now sold, is extremely attractive, does have a very large pond which is almost a lake and is so beautifully landscaped with trees that it encourages biodiversity means it is a place where when I set out on a hike I stop for my first coffee. Especially midweek, when the mixture of fairly rich mockney gangsters and oiks aren't enjoying their competitions, it's bliss. And when the local authorities both at district and county level decided to meet housing targets by proposing to develop the entire lot, I was fully with the genuine miilionaires who were outraged. We haven't quite got to the placard stage yet - their natural home is the law courts - but one thing is certain. When it suits us, and irrespective of our nationalities, we are all lovers of golf.

(It's not great - as always I've done me best - hope on balance it is ok)

[P. G. Tipps]

You'd make a fine journalist Lat-Literal ... or maybe, of course, you already are.

As for golf I haven't played since I was a young man when other rather less worthy interests took over and I moved south of the border where golf courses were relatively few and far between and generally the domain of the rich and their faithful flunkies.

I now greatly regret my adult neglect of the game. As Padraig says golf is for everyone and should be available to everyone. It is the only game I know which is suitable for garrulous socialites and loners alike. As a boy I remember arising in the early hours of the morning on a family summer-holiday on the Isle of Arran, sneaking out of the boarding-house with my second-hand clubs, and playing a few holes for free at the local links course. I left a note on my bed for my parents just in case my absence was discovered. I was most considerate, you see. I quietly returned home to my bedroom and then appeared for breakfast my parents apparently none the wiser. However if my father was aware of my clandestine activity I'm sure he would have been secretly rather pleased ... my mother, I'm not quite so sure!

Of course, it wasn't only the game itself. I was never much good, anyway. It was hunting for lost golf-balls in gorse bushes and spotting the rarer varieties of animal wildlife. I saw my first water-vole on a golf-course, my first snake and my one and only badger. There were also, of course, the rabbits and hares to grab occasional and fascinated attention.

The great educational and character-forming game of golf should be made compulsory for schoolkids. Even if, like me, they stop playing the game in adulthood for whatever inexcusable reasons they will remember such wonderful moments with pleasure and gratitude for the rest of their lives.

[johncorrigan]

As I was just saying ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/40551844

Brilliant, Padraig - but surely it's been Saw Doctors' PH Doherty who's been instrumental in bringing the Open to Ballyliffin. I can feel that gentle sea breeze as I sit here. Loved that in the extension they lengthened the par-five fourth hole on the Glashedy links from 115 yards to almost 600 yards - that must have been a shock for the guy who got his 7-iron out on the tee. Nothin' like a spot of links golf. I used to have this thought that TV should have a programme where they took pros and celebs out to play courses like Tobermory or Glenshee or the likes. I'm dreaming of the fourth tee on Iona next week...a vista to stir the soul.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/61/8f/bc/618fbcc7329c6c4271a1b904c86dd4bf--golf-humor-isle-of.jpg

[Lat-Literal]

You'd make a fine journalist Lat-Literal ... or maybe, of course, you already are.

As for golf I haven't played since I was a young man when other rather less worthy interests took over and I moved south of the border where golf courses were relatively few and far between and generally the domain of the rich and their faithful flunkies.

I now greatly regret my adult neglect of the game. As Padraig says golf is for everyone and should be available to everyone. It is the only game I know which is suitable for garrulous socialites and loners alike. As a boy I remember arising in the early hours of the morning on a family summer-holiday on the Isle of Arran, sneaking out of the boarding-house with my second-hand clubs, and playing a few holes for free at the local links course. I left a note on my bed for my parents just in case my absence was discovered. I was most considerate, you see. I quietly returned home to my bedroom and then appeared for breakfast my parents apparently none the wiser. However if my father was aware of my clandestine activity I'm sure he would have been secretly rather pleased ... my mother, I'm not quite so sure!

Of course, it wasn't only the game itself. I was never much good, anyway. It was hunting for lost golf-balls in gorse bushes and spotting the rarer varieties of animal wildlife. I saw my first water-vole on a golf-course, my first snake and my one and only badger. There were also, of course, the rabbits and hares to grab occasional and fascinated attention.

The great educational and character-forming game of golf should be made compulsory for schoolkids. Even if, like me, they stop playing the game in adulthood for whatever inexcusable reasons they will remember such wonderful moments with pleasure and gratitude for the rest of their lives.

Never have been and never will be PG Tipps. You did the sensible thing. The only time I ever went out before breakfast on my own on a family holiday it involved walking along a section of Loch Long at Arrochar. Only when leaving the loch did I see the MOD signs which said "torpedo testing station - keep out". Not quite the same as a golfing range etc. But I survived.

[johncorrigan]

Never have been and never will be PG Tipps. You did the sensible thing. The only time I ever went out before breakfast on my own on a family holiday it involved walking along a section of Loch Long at Arrochar. Only when leaving the loch did I see the MOD signs which said "torpedo testing station - keep out". Not quite the same as a golfing range etc. But I survived.

Thanks for your pieces, Lat...so enjoyable. I was a bit like PG. Memories of family holidays in Girvan, Anstruther, Dunbar, Millport in the first fortnight of July are peppered with early rounds on empty courses. I think I realised as I went on that golf was a wonderful game spoiled by golfers. I've never been serious, never been clubable . I play with wooden woods because I love the sound when you make a clean contact - metal woods just don't cut it for me. I play about 5 or 6 rounds a year, two-thirds on Iona where there's time to sit and take in the sights without anyone racing up at the back pushing you on. I dream of a hole in one.
About 5 years back, during the winter, out in the shed, my old pencil bag got a visit from some rodent over the winter and developed a shaft sized hole which I attempted to cover but eventually Mrs C decided I needed a new golf bag. Claret was the colour perhaps reflecting my love of the Claret Jug, but when my present was opened on Christmas Day the bag was definitely pink. I of course decided that pink was fine with me but it has garnered a few snidey comments these last years, but my swing remains true.
I’m a better player than I ever was. Golf is certainly something that has improved with age. It requires a bit time, a bit patience and, to be honest, my life lesson from golf...that you can hit good shots all day long, but it’s how you recover from the bad shots that is important. In past times I would have knocked the ball further and further into the gorse. Now I try to put my shots into perspective and take the triple bogeys with a nod to the golfing Gods.

[Lat-Literal]

Thanks for your pieces, Lat...so enjoyable. I was a bit like PG. Memories of family holidays in Girvan, Anstruther, Dunbar, Millport in the first fortnight of July are peppered with early rounds on empty courses. I think I realised as I went on that golf was a wonderful game spoiled by golfers. I've never been serious, never been clubable . I play with wooden woods because I love the sound when you make a clean contact - metal woods just don't cut it for me. I play about 5 or 6 rounds a year, two-thirds on Iona where there's time to sit and take in the sights without anyone racing up at the back pushing you on. I dream of a hole in one.
About 5 years back, during the winter, out in the shed, my old pencil bag got a visit from some rodent over the winter and developed a shaft sized hole which I attempted to cover but eventually Mrs C decided I needed a new golf bag. Claret was the colour perhaps reflecting my love of the Claret Jug, but when my present was opened on Christmas Day the bag was definitely pink. I of course decided that pink was fine with me but it has garnered a few snidey comments these last years, but my swing remains true.
I’m a better player than I ever was. Golf is certainly something that has improved with age. It requires a bit time, a bit patience and, to be honest, my life lesson from golf...that you can hit good shots all day long, but it’s how you recover from the bad shots that is important. In past times I would have knocked the ball further and further into the gorse. Now I try to put my shots into perspective and take the triple bogeys with a nod to the golfing Gods.

Thank you JC - and that is a very good story. I liked it very much. It must be wonderful to be going regularly to Iona even with a pink golf bag. One difficulty I have with golf is that an absence of recovery from bad shots early on can mean it is almost impossible to recover the round. But there is a variety of scoring systems and I do continue to appreciate its appeal.