(This series is neither well planned or coherent. What it is, though, is the result of spending a few spare hours at Christmas 2021 looking through some recently located files of pictures, and thinking about my golfing journey to this point. I’ve been lucky to have played in some pretty special places, and made some lasting connections along the way, and year end seems as good a time to reflect back on a dozen of these as any. Who knows, it might inspire me to plan a few more exploratory trips for 2022…)
“A picture paints a thousand words” or so the saying goes.
A series of twelve pieces celebrating the happiest, most vivid experiences that I’ve had in my few decades as a golf nut couldn’t really exist without a few reflections on a single day at Cypress Point. The date of this visit - 5th August 2004 - is ingrained in my mind alongside the key family birthdays, but I retrieved the above photo from the depths of a seemingly endless digital sinkhole four days ago, and have struggled to know what to write since.
It seemed to me - still seems, in fact, despite this awkward start - that nothing I could write would help anyone else less fortunate to understand what that golf course is like in the flesh. The image has long been my screensaver, and I doubt 10,000 words would get close to the feeling I get each time I look at that view, and remember for a moment that precious day.
I still feel a little awkward to have even had the chance to go there in the first place, and contemplated not including it in the Twelve Days of Christmas, as I thought my memories of those hours at what I regard as the most spectacular property in sport would be pointless and uninteresting, and could even seem like gloating.
But there are moments in everyone’s life where the tiny details over which we get tied in meaningless knots are swept away by the sense of something bigger at play, and whether that is for you in golf, or fine wine, or in the poetry of Blake, or whatever else floats your boat, it is sometimes good to be reminded of this transcendent feeling. So I will carry on for a while, trying in vain to describe how I felt in this spot on the Pacific coast.
We arrived in good time, carefully looking for the sort of tiny sign that tends to indicate the entrance to the most private courses. Throughout the journey, there had been a nagging thought that perhaps the arrangements hadn’t been finalised, or that we’d been expected the day before, or that there’d been a change of mind or some other issue. But the pro shop team seemed to be expecting us, and after a coffee or two with the Superintendent, we were let loose on the course, able to see with our own eyes the scale and grandeur of a place we’d only seen in two dimensions before.
The inland holes were moist from the sea mist of the early morning, but as always happens in California, the sun would soon burn off the dew, and the natural, abundant, other-worldly feel of this property was evident. The grass seemed so happy to be growing here, and glowed a lush green against the brilliant blue sky, with the flamboyant, flashed style of Alister Mackenzie’s bunkers faces lit up by brilliant white sand to match the occasional wispy cloud. Here and there, ancient cypress trees remained from the black and white photos of the creation of this golf course, their gnarled bark showing the effects of many decades in the sun, wind and rain of this rugged peninsula.
One after another, the holes were both beautiful and fascinating, back to back short par 4’s before the turn a template for imaginative design and routing, and the dogleg 12th’s green framed by the waves of the ocean behind. The 13th packs into under 400 yards more visual appeal and strategic challenge than most whole courses could, its greenside bunkers making it look more like a pastoral watercolour than a golf hole. We sat behind the 16th tee for what must have been an hour or more, watching the occasional other group grapple with this extraordinary hole, while the waves crashed in and the elephant seals roared to our right. Goodness knows how it must have played with hickories…
The term awesome is so widely used that it has lost much of its true meaning, but roaming the unspoilt masterpiece that Mackenzie left behind all those years ago brought a breathless feeling of awe. It felt like we were walking on sacred ground, participating in the sublime dream of an architectural genius, the result of a sweet spot between the magical landscape and the only designer with the imagination to not only manage not to spoil its potential, but to create something this staggering to look at, and play.
I don’t know what proportion of the world’s golfers really understand or care about golf architecture, or have any notion of how gifted The Good Doctor, or Tom Simpson, or George Thomas really were, to name a few, and that’s fine - as long as they are having fun playing, I’m happy. But something shifted that day for me - I saw another level of craft in what these brilliant minds have done in golf, and realised that I would not be able to follow that path, as I’ve neither the imagination or courage to do what they, and a handful of others, have done.
Yet alongside that feeling was another one, that I felt more motivated than ever to experience more of these great courses, and, if given the chance, to play some role in celebrating and conserving them for future players. To be a custodian of part of the heritage and wonder that this game has within it.
Because beneath the superficial stuff - about presentation, and green speeds, and equipment - there lies in some courses a blend of design thought and aesthetics that goes beyond just laying out a golf course. It is the elevation of golf architecture at its best into a fine art, and sometimes a glimpse of this is all we need to make our hearts sing.
I remember turning to savour one last look at the course, breathing in the fresh air of this hypnotic ecosystem, and wondering if I will ever see it again in this life. I hope so.
1,000 words. Still nowhere near what the image says to me…
I hope you enjoyed this! If you did, please share it with a friend or two, and encourage them to subscribe. This in turn will encourage me to keep on writing this stuff! You can find a link to some other pieces here, and please also consider following my twitter feed here. Cheers!