Pitchmarks 2024 Christmas Card - "On the Word of Mouth Algorithm"
It is not clear which particular window our agency got hurled through, but it seems much of our life is run by algorithms these days, and I’m not quite sure about it all.
We permit Spotify to carefully curate our musical diet, quietly pushing us towards the middle of the road until the sounds just become part of the background. We probably encounter new influences this way, and decision fatigue is eased a little, but I can’t recall the algorithm ever serving up something I love listening to so much I “rewind” it immediately, like the way I finish “Old Man’s Nine*” or “Catch 22” or “Landslide” and just have to go again. But the flipside is that you don’t have to get up and turn over to the flipside, though I am increasingly drawn to the simplicity of the old ways in golf and life these days, so there are vinyl shaped parcels under the tree again this Christmas.
And the algorithm is endless, but we are not, so I think there’s some merit in opting out of breadth, and bracing ourselves for a little more depth. I want to discover things that make me want to holler in the street of their glory, in case some other lost soul hears the call, and immerse myself in them until they become part of my bone marrow. I’ve had a few of these revelations in the golfing paradigm recently, and none of them arrived via algorithm or ranking, I’m afraid. They came via Word of Mouth, a delivery system even more archaic than the carrier pigeon.
Wading through 2023 blog posts for most of what constituted this year’s Archive ADVENTure has been a lot of fun. Whether I get back to any of them next year or not, I will never tire of being reminded of the vast skies of Goswick, or the lush valley in which Hollinwell’s majesty hides. Or the mountainous hazards of Prestwick, or the windswept desolation of Durness. Each is now imprinted on me thanks to the kindness of strangers and this weird, old process of writing.
Some days it seems my memory went out the same pane as our agency, but in reading through these missives and sharing them again, I am reminded of places and people that feel so very precious to me on this Christmas morning. We are lucky to have golf in our lives, I think, but perhaps if you are here for the sort of golf that I like to attempt playing, this sport is also lucky to have us, for we keep the spirit of the thing alive.
Mike D gently tests me on a point. “You seem to love them all”, he says, and it is not a criticism, but a topic for exploration in our phone call. And he’s right, of course, but it is not that I feel I should write something positive, or that there isn’t a place for pointing out the less wonderful elements of this game and its pitches, but rather that I am too busy playing the courses I really yearn to see to waste precious time on any algorithm but Word of Mouth. So by the time I start rumbling towards some crusty old links, I already know it’s likely to work for me, and that’s what makes the mission so enjoyable. That and the company…
In 2024 I have again played a delightful blend of old haunts and first-timers. Most have been the result of a personal recommendation, and a great many of those with the person who first cast that specific spell on me. And this Word of Mouth algorithm seems to have worked better than it has any right to. A key focus has been on the rustic side of the game, and anywhere where some blend of grazing, or simplicity, or rugged terrain or the construction of an honesty box has been mentioned has either been visited or is on the agenda for as soon as time permits.
For every Top 100 course I’ve played - and some of those were fabulous too - there is at least one little joint with the same postcode where you can pretend for an hour or two that the whole world hasn’t “gone to sh*t”, as one new friend with whom I traversed the extraordinary peaks of Tom Simpson’s first course observed. This was immediately before holing his pitch, at which stage all gloom simply evaporated. Such places need us to not forget them altogether, but we must also not overwhelm them.
Maybe they don’t need some mega-viral social media post, and thousands of tourists suddenly waving their credit cards at the gate, but instead the continuation of a simpler tradition, whereby one person whispers to another that there is magic in that there field, leaving a little to the imagination. Most of the cues I have acted upon this year have been absurdly vague, but therein lies the beauty of it all. The algorithm can’t catch up with this. It works on facts and statistics and slopes and yardages. By now you know I care so little about these that I can’t be bothered to continue.
But I do care about love, and I have found enough of this in 2024 to fill another book and to last me a lifetime. When Jamie says “I love Durness almost as much as you love Rye”, the process to get to that clubhouse, perched a thousand miles from the world and left unlocked in case you’d like to make tea, is as automatic as any algorithm, for it comes from the heart. And so I pass the whisper on, and now and then someone else follows these same trails, and the world is a better place for it all, I hope.
People used to complete vast jigsaw puzzles at Christmas, and so the final, missing piece (“phew”; I can hear you!) in this rambling effort is the people. Golf can be an excruciating game to attempt in front of other people, and for those of you who shared a foursomes ball with me this year, doubly so. I have hit shots so awful that they ought to shatter the lens of a camera, and more than a few times wondered if a particular stroke really ought to be the one at which I draw stumps and move on. To snooker, perhaps. Or draughts. Anything but golf, it feels at times, when these near-final straws manifest. But then the game gives a little back; its own algorithm offers a chink of light through which a better future shines, and we look forward to the next time, and hope that we may play better, or at least suffer a few less sh*nks. So if you have suffered golf with me this year, I thank you. I’ve loved every moment of it!
My time is up, for today, for I’ve Darwin to read and presents to wrap. But I thank you for being here, and for the occasional whisper of the only alert system I will ever need. For your Word of Mouth, and for your patience.
Merry Christmas! May Santa bring you lots of decent balls to spray.
*Old Man’s Nine is a shorter loop of the wonderful, common land Old Course at Minchinhampton. It is the perfect golf course, as far as I can work out!
Your writing is just sublime and this piece strikes the chord on all we should be grateful for on a Christmas morning.
The perfect devotion/inspiration as I rise to embark on my journey to Scotland’s north coast in a bit of counter-Christmas programming. Open to whatever the next three days bring.