On The Road...

Or, "In Search of the Raggedy Madness"

“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives” - Jack Kerouac “On The Road”

16/9/22 6.04am

Half an hour, that’s all I’ve got this morning. There’s breakfast to be had, bags to pack, and that rugged, magnificent first tee is a solid two hours from here.

Another day of leisure spent On The Road; another golfing adventure to enrich my soul and replenish my energy. But each different course brings its own delicious flavour of expectation, and this one feels more like a pilgrimage than most.

I’ve been to this place before - twice in fact - but while the debut is often hard to beat, on this occasion, at this location, it is different. I know what it will be like down there (or up there, I should say), but this is one of the special ones, so the anticipation - the excitement - grows with every mile of tarmac I’ll cover this morning, just as my appreciation of the course grows as we slowly get to know each other.

Somehow I never actually read “On The Road”, though it sat alongside many other books I loved as a teenager, back when golf last had such a vice-like grip on me. But in the same way that, of late, the urge to set off on long-awaited missions to places like Westward Ho! and Aberdovey have reached a point where I had no choice but to make them happen, there’s something drawing me back to finally look at that book, and to get On The Road myself again. So I put on a recording of it as I drive, and soak in the cadence of those ancient passages one by one.

But while the golf will be heavenly - regardless of the score, or the weather, or the colour of the sward - these “Grass Routes” I keep following are not only about the golf. For, with the three folk with whom I will share today’s fairways and vistas, there’ll be moments that will feel special, meaningful. I’ll drive there with an alertness that is hard to come by, and make my way home full of things to ponder, other paths to take.

The journey will be as valuable as the destination, for it will give me the space to digest, consider. To decide stuff. But don’t think the golf is purely incidental, for it is perhaps the only sport that brings such curious souls together, gently tickling the strange undercurrent of a game that shapes who we are. Golf is the puzzle we’re all trying to work out, and when we’re finished with the clubs and the balls, golf might just be the blessed portal through which we’ve all fallen, in search of the greater mysteries of life.

These three precious friends, this extraordinary golf course, this now familiar journey - they all fall into line and, for a change, I can hardly wait to put this pen down, for that will mean that today’s adventure can begin. Today we will shake hands, and smile, and laugh, and maybe even cry.

Today we will feel the burn in our legs as we climb the Hill, and recover our breath on that hard-won plateau. It’s today we will all dream again, and stare from the top of the world down into the plains, and if the air is clear, even see the distant sea. Today will be full of what golf is really all about - building connections and memories, and being present - and you couldn’t pick three finer people with whom to share such activities.

And the venue? It’s that one that lives up a mountain, in the sky almost. It’s the one golf shares happily with the walkers, the runners, the mountain bikes; with the buzzards, the kites and the rabbits. It’s the one which seems like it’s already halfway to the stars, where at times it looks and feels like we could be playing on the moon.

I will turn the ignition key, fasten my seatbelt, and head for Cleeve Hill.

16/9/22 7.21pm

Another small window for reflection turns up before dinner, and, safely home after one of those great days that golf can provide, a chance to digest another batch of lovely moments. I realise I have spent the same number of minutes driving to and from the course as we spent on it, and yet I wouldn’t trade an inch of that mission for anything under the sun, for I think we’ve a pact, Cleeve and I; one that was silently agreed when first we met, a little under a year ago. As Kerouac would have put it, “we agreed to love each other madly”.

We’ve seen a wilder side of golf today, paid tribute to how the game used to be, and it has been a valuable reminder of why I love it so. The look of astonishment on S’s face, as another stunning hole comes into view on this, his first visit to “the links in the clouds”. The thousand mile stare of J and M, as they look beyond the flags and the sheep and the gorse and out over several counties, towards both Severn bridges and beyond.

There’s my impossible pitch up the sheer rock face of a quarry, and the incredible sweet crack of J’s driver off the dry fescue turf, a shot that ignites praise from even his opponents. There’s M’s endless jostling over my “biscs”, the unearthly human silence as a putt rolls just outside the circle of even these friendships, tumbleweed the only missing factor. And as if to compensate, golf provides a few of those chips and putts that we all know are going in long before they do, as if the ball is on a string, and we roar with laughter at the drama of this silly game.

But while we play some great golf between us, my mind unusually quiet over the ball, there is never any real silence up here. As we walk between shots, each of us finds moments to talk golf and life with the other three, and we cover most of what lies under the sun - the gorgeous sound of the sweetspot in S’s persimmon driver; the thrill of playing guitar; the nature of existence itself - but we have to stay close because the natural soundtrack is of the persistent, powerful wind, which challenges our ability to catch each other’s words just as it threatens to whip away our caps and balls.

The background hum of this strong breeze is more reminiscent of the distant Black Mountains than the average golf course, but Cleeve Hill is nothing like the average. Rather, in its stark beauty, in its architectural brilliance, in its glorious location, it is extraordinary, even sublime, which suits this particular 4-ball. For here are four lifers out seeking intensity in the teeth of this perpetual wind of change, whose direction today is unusual, and blows straight into us for our last few holes.

The landscape and the sky up here are expansive, and we feel no limit to the course or the conversation, but instead grow and delight in each other’s company. We are in harmony with the universe, and Cleeve Hill is the already marvelous canvas on which we paint today’s indelible memories. Somehow Kerouac’s phrase “raggedy madness” suits this piece of land and routing, and, as we smile at each other over a pot of tea before drifting back to our own lives, it certainly feels like we’ve had another golfing “riot”.

The drive home is so different from the journey there, as is always the case when a course has touched me this way. I am full of thoughts, and ideas, and some spirit of hope that came in on that north-east wind.

I’m grateful for their company, these magical people, but most of all I’m pleased to have had the chance to play that golf course again, to see those endless views, and to share it all with them. And the hint of regret at driving away from such a slice of paradise is softened by a certainty that I’ll pass that way again before long, for, though I’m too elated to listen to more of Kerouac On The Road that leads me steadily home, I can at least steal another line from him.

A piece of my heart is left up on that peak, near the battered tree of the Cleeve Hill logo, but it doesn’t matter, for I will collect it another time. Because we four will soon pull out our diaries, and find another date, and “lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies”…

With grateful thanks to J, M, and S. Not to mention Joe Powell! And I don’t know what more to say about Cleeve Hill. If you haven’t been there, your bucket list just got a little bigger. It has all of what is great about golf, with little of the other stuff.