As usual, I don’t know how or where to start, really. Most mornings the blank page stares back at me, daring me to find some loose thread that I might knit together into something of value, to me at least. Perhaps I am making too much of this, after all Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing”. His next sentence was “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”…
But this morning, as I hurry to get this out before the world wakes up, this page is not blank, but instead has a few images that make my heart sing the way the view out of Aberdovey’s bar windows does, the way a cruel bounce off the strange sleepers that protect Rye’s gorgeous greens does. They remind me of precious days in the sun and rain, falling back in love with golf, and this life, and the thought that these images will soon be the pages of a book - and a large pile of boxes in the hallway - fills me with an enormous, humbling sense of gratitude.
I think I’ve always secretly wanted to write, like I’ve always meant to run a marathon, play the piano and step on the tee at Askernish. But two years ago, it was barely coming to the surface, this dream. And now, with the encouragement of you - the readers of Stymied / pitchmarks - and the extraordinary kindness of D.M. Wilson III and his marvellous Grant Books, this little dream of mine gets to come true.
So for a change my words will be few, for I want the photos to shine and tell their own story. I know what writing about golf, for people like you, has meant to me, and words are a blunt instrument with which to describe how grateful I am - for you, for each game, each old and new friendship, each putt that topples in and every last duffed pitch. For golf - and the people with which I share it - are my medicine.
So buy it, or don’t - it’s up to you. But whatever you do, don’t let this game get away from you. For it is, in the midst of a busy modern life, a portal back into ourselves, into silence, and courtesy. I am off for a pitching lesson now, for being able to make the grooves talk to the ball is another little dream I’ve left behind for too long. But just remember that “every shot makes someone happy”…
Looking forward to hearing that US shipping will be available soon!
We colonists look forward to buying your book.