Pitchmarks #104 - "A Handful of Pearls"

In praise of Littlestone's peaks!

“All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography”
Federico Fellini

I suppose the above quote shows a degree of self-awareness from Fellini, something that he might be suspected of having lost at points, particularly towards the end of his rollercoaster life in cinema. From the giddy heights of early masterpieces such as “8+1/2” and “La Dolce Vita”, his work drifted into stranger territory as time passed, the gulf in quality between the peaks and troughs acknowledged by his critics and fanatics alike. But - in the same way as Bob Dylan’s back catalogue includes significant chunks of the ordinary, between which sit these moments of unadulterated brilliance - the artist and the consumer alike have to work patiently through the flanks to climb the mountain.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Littlestone, though I’d been meaning to play there for years on end, and had plenty of time to form the usual, lazy set of assumptions. And now - three full weeks after returning from a day there - I’ll admit I am still not sure what to make of it. Perhaps I’m still working through it, for if just one word could describe the feeling I had driving home, it might be “confused”. Or perhaps “intrigued”.

Some films, some albums, and some golf courses have such splendid consistency - they feel polished, unified, steady. The bar is set at a certain level, and everyone knows what they are in for, and how to relate to it. But Littlestone - hiding away on a glorious strip of shingle between the golfing icons of Rye and Pegwell Bay - doesn’t quite work that way, I suspect. It rises and falls like the tide, and when the breeze is up, those waves come crashing in and you feel so very alive.

The start is a gentle one - a wide open first fairway welcomes you, then a cunning second asks you to weave your approach through a gap in the dune, beyond which lies more fine turf than you could have imagined from your lie in the fairway. Already, one key feature of Littlestone is evident - the vast, rippled greens, which along with the ever-present wind provide an ongoing examination. We trundle on, Mark and I, then the sixth seems to shift dimensions on us.

At the tee is a plaque that celebrates Alister MacKenzie’s influence on this short hole, and the devilish humour of the great man is in the air. The flag starts to bend as the south-westerly builds; the green perched like a tiny bullseye - a hairy bunker and steep run-off left, a vicious pot bunker right. The sign states that “a precise tee shot is imperative”, as if that weren’t instantly, blindingly obvious, but neither of us are carrying precision here, and as we scramble around when we finally meet the surprisingly large putting green, I am pleased for another golfing lesson from The Good Doctor.

From here, we move into the central verses of Littlestone, weaving in and around the end of the wedge-shaped links, between the seawall with its dog walkers and the Dymchurch Road with its lorries. Somehow it seems perfectly good golf, on very fine turf, but subdued, but then the fourteenth - a treacherous short hole to a green pitched into play - hints at the growing finish that others had reported. Fifteen is superb - an angled drive to a fairway whose inner crook is guarded by a vast sandy hell, followed by a dangerous chase into a well-bunkered green. If that hole felt like a distinct shifting of the gears, Littlestone’s engine would soon start to roar on the next tee.

By now, the gentle air movement that we’d set off with had turned into an urgent, incessant whistle in our ears, and the sixteenth felt like a marathon. Unless I have picked up the wrong scorecard, this is a par four, but we seem to be battering woods and long irons for an awfully long time before our balls make it up the slope to the short grass. And if we thought the challenge would cease there, we were wrong, for the green itself is a witch in disguise. It is a brilliant, brutal hole, but if we expected respite from the short par three that follows, we were very wrong.

I rue glancing at another MacKenzie plaque on the seventeenth tee, for I am still smarting from his other blows, and the yardage on the card is meaningless into this coastal forcefield. A half-decent one iron struggles to the front edge, and from memory, Mark’s effort is not much better, so we shake hands, but though I am long overdue a win, the only winner out here is Littlestone, as we’ve both been served a healthy dose of humility.

The last hole is back in the realms of the normal - a fine par five with a superb perched green - and as we drift back towards suburbia with our tails between our legs, I drift off into a bewilderment over what to make of Littlestone. Maybe I’d expected some baby version of Rye out here, but the land doesn’t have the mad ridge to work with, nor the epic dunes that rule Sandwich. Or a younger sibling for my beloved Deal, but though there are touches of that in a few of the greens and surrounds, and plenty of evidence that the turf and conditioning will soon reach the giddy heights inside that other great seawall round the coast, Littlestone is distinct from them all.

I feel bad that I don’t yet love the whole thing, that the good holes slide from my memory behind the handful of sublime moments. But then I think that perhaps I just haven’t grasped the subtlety of the middle section yet, or hadn’t realised that those holes - which would be sensational golf in almost any other town - are simply the lulls in which you are meant to take a breath, and build a score, and hope your courage will get you home.

Nothing of Littlestone could be fairly labelled a trough, as with eighteen holes on turf like this, the bar is high, but no golf course, or film-maker, or folk singer, could ever sustain the sort of genial blast that Littlestone’s, or Fellini’s, or Dylan’s peaks declare. I recall driving through the deserts of the mid-west two decades ago, and after a while feeling a little jaded at the endless display of mind-bending rockforms in Monument Valley - preserved in the same images that now enchant me every time I flick through them. We get used to things.

Without the lows, there are no great highs - in golf as in life, perhaps - but by the time I pull into my drive, almost the whole day later, I am already trying to plot my way back to this mysterious goddess down at New Romney. To better understand her, in all her complexity, and to play a few of this precious island’s most incredible holes once more.

I knew I needed to get to Littlestone and play the course. I didn’t know that - once I had finally managed it - the urge would only get stronger.

Maybe I’ll see you there, down near the water tower. Inspecting a handful of pearls.