Last week an article shared on social media by the ever-wonderful Society of Golf Historians (link here) caught my eye. It featured a newspaper article from 1932, in which the great Dr Alister MacKenzie - at that point still working on a little project named Augusta National - predicted that the future would see a proliferation of the small, approach-and-putt type facilities that could exist in a 10-13 acre footprint.
Mackenzie was not shy in coming forward to declare his undeniable flair for both course design and self-marketing, so my ears always prick up when his ghost has something to say. The thread stimulated a little discussion about simulators, but the change in the game since his time will probably be eclipsed by the shifts in the next generation or two, as artificial intelligence, the availability of land, and the environmental impact of golf come under further scrutiny. There are some very famous and enjoyable small “courses” in the game, of course, but perhaps we need more of them, sitting alongside the full courses like the pitch & putt in Portrush, or the Himalayas in St Andrews (pictured above).
This started me thinking, though, about my own golfing journey. At this point, I have been playing for 35 years, and have worked in the game in various capacities for two decades. I’ve been blessed to visit and play some of the greatest courses in the UK and beyond, and played golf on the links, the heaths, in parkland and chalk downland. I’ve played in the deserts, up the mountains, through the sand hills and on the beaches, and loved almost every moment of all of those experiences.
But if I were to look back at how I fell in love with the game in the first place, bearing in mind the challenge golf still faces of getting young people into the game, it was not through a golfing academy or a scholarship, or by nervously playing off blue tees or endlessly lunging at balls down the range. The way this game really got its hooks into me came before that, over the park on the local pitch-and-putt, and, when that was occasionally busy, in the garden, where a redundant hole for a rotary clothes line was my imaginary final pin position for any number of major championship victories, Nicklaus’s tally left in the shade.
On these small footprints, I would just play until the sun went down, with little concern over the score, or the equipment, or any of the other concerns that can dilute for me the profound pleasure of knocking a ball around, one shot at a time. Those endless summers of childhood would drift past with a constant smile, that look of concentration on my face evident in the odd (terrible) photo that remains of those years. It was just about having fun, hitting the next shot as well as I could, before all the distractions of adulthood and expectation took hold.
So a little under two years ago, when England locked down its inhabitants to stem infection of a strange new virus, it was wonderful to be cheered in those dark and stressful moments by videos and stories from other golfers, showing the sort of imagination and simple creativity that had once been part of my golfing path.
We saw balls being knocked out of first floor windows towards a plant pot target, pitched onto garden tables, and chipped and putted down corridors and carpets across the land. There were old mattresses, for once not ditched beside the road, but instead roped against the side of the garage, to receive a flurry of iron shots off a tiny patch of astroturf, presumably pinched from the local greengrocers.
Relieved of the normal time restraints of modern life, whilst rationed on exercise and without real golf to distract them, these players seemed to have re-discovered another level of fun in this daft, old game, outlawed for the first time in about 500 years. And on that day in May 2020, when they arrived back at the Club - beaming from ear to ear and full of anticipation for the “warm handshake” of that first hole, if not their playing partner - those smiles, that laughter, reminded me of this 11 year old who would head over to Heath Park with a copper wedge and three balls in his hand, in such a hurry to hit the next shot, and the one after that.
In those first few weeks of freedom, everyone seemed happy to play without any concern over scorecards or handicaps, or even how they played. We were all just glad to be back out there, in the fresh air, hoping to make the ball fly straight again, but happy to succeed or fail in each attempt, humbled by the strangest of times around us, as well as by this maddening, lifelong addiction that passes for a hobby.
It is this joy in the simplicity of golf that caught that little boy all those years ago, and as I fluffed a pitch yesterday from beside a green at another great golf course, this feeling, of being utterly in love with the game, is coming back, day by day, duff by duff. I can hardly wait to hit the next shot, be it a drive towards the Swilcan Burn or a tricky six-footer towards the bathroom. Bring it on.
Great post, love this idea and what Connor /Society of Golf Historians is proposing. Par 3 and less than 18 hole courses have been growing here in the US. I’m fortunate to live on 6 acres, in 2007 we dug a pond in the back half of our property. We shaped one green site to hit 100-110 yard shots and now we have 5 pins at “The Pond”. http://digital.wsga.org/wisconsin-golfer-november-2022/page/10
My golf origin was as a 6 year old, being plonked by the putting green at my parents common land 9-holer, cut down hickory and one ball (“don’t lose it!”) in hand, while they scampered round in an hour. I think the elderly pro was supposed to be ‘keeping an eye’ on me. A year or so on and summer holiday in Swanage became hour upon hour of solo enjoyment of the local pitch and putt. Everyone would benefit from a short game start to a golfing odyssey, none should be encouraged to set off on their own golfing journey with a 5 iron on a range….