Welcome to the latest edition of pitchmarks. This is your chance to pause for a few minutes, turn down the noise and immerse yourself in golf. Make yourself a decent coffee or something stronger and relax. Maybe it’ll even help your game!
In the same way as we might be lucky enough to get to know certain golf courses like the back of our hands, the genial vision of the architect and the honed skill of the greenkeeper steadily emerging as the relationship deepens, other investments of our energy sometimes bear fruit in a similar way.
Carefully placing the needle on the outer grooves of “Kind of Blue” or “Protection”, for example - thirty years after I first carried out these particular moves - will lead to an emotional rollercoaster, an alchemic blend of love, nostalgia and hope fuelled by the crackling soundtrack of this life.
And books are the same. Some will never leave my side; others have changed the way I see the world. Our experiences of certain things come to shape us, and we ought to be careful what we consume, for this very reason. I have quite a few golf books that I love dearly, and a few more that will probably make the grade, when I finally get round to their turn in this old-fashioned, low-tech waiting list.
But perhaps the equivalent of Miles Davis in this genre is Bernard Darwin, and his “Kind of Blue” must surely be “The Golf Courses of the British Isles”, a book that has rippled urges across many borders and continents since its initial publication in 1910, featuring not only Bernardo’s gorgeous, lyrical prose but the watercolour wizardry of Harry Rountree (here; thanks Evalu18!).
But one of my favourite lines in the edition on my desk are delivered from another artist of golf, on and off (and of) the course, Ben Crenshaw. For he says:
“A good golf course makes you want to play so badly you hardly have the patience to change your shoes. Reading “The Golf Courses of the British Isles” has the same effect. You want to hop on the next plane and play each and every course described by Darwin and illustrated by Rountree”
I love the thrill of finding a new book to read, or a song to listen to, or a course to play. That the recommendations of others can catch our attention so powerfully, sow the seeds of a new adventure, and that in the kernel of every such exploration is the potential to unearth another “Playing the Like”, or “Clair de Lune” or “Sand Hills”. Another treasure to carry with us down the years. So I travel with my senses open for clues, hunting for the signs that might lead to another precious gem of some sort.
Here is a piece that was sparked by a particular line in one of these investigations, from Episode 3 of “The Firepit Collective’s Need a 4th?!” podcast, on which the special guest was Michael Murphy, the author of “Golf in the Kingdom”, a book that has been translated into 19 languages and sold over a million copies.
If you share, like me, a love of great golf writing, then McKellar Magazine comes highly recommended. Issue 7 has just come out, and you will find inside it a wealth of wonderful articles and images, from an affectionate tribute to Trevino by John Huggan to Murdo Macleod’s staggering photographs from North Berwick. It is an occasional but sublime feeling to hear McKellar fall from the letterbox to the mat, and as a certain imposter (yours truly) somehow made their way into the latest edition, you can understand that this supersedes even Darwin for this week’s Reading. If you are looking for that feeling Crenshaw describes when he reads Darwin, please consider supporting McKellar. You won’t regret it…it is simply great!
Which is why this week’s guest post is a particularly pleasing one for me. I had the pleasure of interacting with McKellar’s co-founder Tom Dunne some years ago, when he was over writing a piece on the great Surrey & Berkshire heathlands, a paradise in which I seem to have accidentally built a life. So when I asked him if he might contribute something to the old friends guest piece idea, he carved out a window of time and, as usual, created something beautiful. Sit back and enjoy:
And though I have mentioned it before, this week’s pitchmarks is all about heading deeper into the realms of golf literature, so it is easy to select the latest Listening suggestions. I was planning to mention the Duffer’s Literary Companion Episode Two (here), on the British descendents of Bernard Darwin, but Episode Three has also landed (here), and I was thrilled to hear discussion of a recent discovery of mine, Charles Price (thank you Michael Estorick for the lend of the wonderful “golfer-at-large”). Price’s writing is so colourful and energetic, and if you aren’t exhausted by this point, there’s a little more on that topic here.
Thank you for tuning in, and I hope all this keeps you busy and dreaming of the links. Or that you have barely the patience to change your shoes before you step onto them.
Until next Sunday…
I have been meaning to buy a copy of The Golf Courses of the British Isles for ages and your story plus the image of the Aberdovey painting by Harry Roundtree inspired me to finally buy a copy - looking forward to its arrival next week.