So the date rolls around, confirmed weeks before, and as the sun shines across a dry English countryside, we each make our way towards West Byfleet, to once again golf together. Old friends sounds awkward, but though we’re not that old, we’ve played off and on for many years, and a shared love of golf architecture is the glue that brings us together, that and a shared sense of humour at this absurd game we share.
I think about the times we’ve spent in each other’s company, and of the other old friends on which these good times have been spent…Royal Cinque Ports, Pennard. Swinley Forest and Burnham & Berrow. These courses sing of the merits of a natural type of golf, and so it feels a great privilege to me to share with them West Byfleet, whose design pedigree seems to quietly slip under the radar, though it is fast becoming my latest old friend.
So we rise from the table, and those of us who remembered to bring golf shoes slide them on, and out we stroll into the early June sunshine. We make a point of ignoring the handicap table, and though I hand each of them a scorecard, it is pleasing to see such distractions immediately filed away in the bags. For we are here for one more celebration of all that is best about this game, and so flat matchplay it is, for nothing other than the joy of it. The balls are thrown up, partners selected, and off we go.
Recent weeks have been dry and warm, and this parkland beauty is at its best this afternoon, firm and fast, and the turf a gorgeous blend of green and brown. And in between the sound of crisp irons shots and hollow bounces, I watch these old friends soaking up the little details that make Abercromby’s version of this layout such an appealing challenge.
The little mounds and hollows, the sliding contours of these masterful green sites. This sense of freedom as we gaze across acres of vibrant grass, weaving a way through a routing that seems to wring every inch of challenge from a narrow strip of land. A great many hands have played a part in the golf course that we stroll upon, but it is Aber’s touch a century ago that keeps the holes relevant today.
The match twists one way and the other, though S and I are always somehow up against it today, always on the back foot. And as the ubiquitous green woodpeckers bob across the horizon and the buzzards slowly rise on the warm air above us, our laughter and gentle banter ring out across the grassland as the trains hammer past for London, and it feels good to be back in this company again.
So we walk and talk, and these private corridors between the trees seem a sacred space somehow - a place in which we can be ourselves, and learn about each other. As we stroll up the demanding tenth, I ask why S calls R “Doc”, a question I’ve been meaning to ask for about a decade. But I wouldn’t have guessed the answer in a millenium, for this gentle nickname alludes to the fact that R had to deliver his own daughter on the driveway, after labour suddenly gained momentum.
My jaw is dragging on the thick grass carpet as R recollects the drama of those moments, imagining how inept I would be in such a situation, but I am glad to hear that a real medic on the other end of that very important call told him that his job was basically “to catch”. A certain pressure, but R’s nerve is steady in the match and so it was in his role back then, and all was well. And so R becomes “Doc” for me, too.
In another moment, I discover that S played golf with his father, a joy I’d never had as golf never quite got to Dad, and then he casually lets slip that they continued to play a little even after his father went blind. So well did he know his home course, another old friend, that S would simply describe the hole’s position, line him up and let the force of habit take care of the rest. And I am charmed by this precious knowledge, and mull over how much golf means to those of us lucky enough to carry it with us through life.
As I gaze across the pond that separates my ball from the thirteenth green, I hope that this game, and old friends like this one at West Byfleet will remain part of my existence for another thirty-five years. For I don’t know what I’d do without it…
As the back nine starts to bear its teeth, an unusual wind in our face from the fourteenth tee onwards, the old friends in our bags are called upon to try and rescue this tussle. A copper PING 1 iron here, a rusty Maruman blade there. The holes start to leak away and each shot becomes more important, but golf is not a game one can force, and so we just do our best, and let it all play out as it will. And when we stand upon today’s final tee all square, and hope for a strong finish, one of my other old friends visits from decades ago.
The same wicked slice that would send me down the right of Wenvoe’s eighth as a junior takes me soaring high above the pines out right, towards the first green where this particular adventure began, and from there, there is no way back and all that is left to do is look each other in the eye, shake hands, and hope that we four, old friends, do not leave it too long before this little game of ours returns.
Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but these people and places mean too much to me, and so as we slurp from the well-earned refreshments and leaf through our diaries for the next chance to fix up a knock, I feel I am raising a glass not just to these three but to all those who fall under golf’s precious spell. To old friends, in whatever form they take.
Another special treasure RP👏
Time it was and what a time it was ... I ride into the Arctic Circle today, heading for the Links. Is there time enough left to become an old friend.