Pitchmarks #76 - "Something to look forward to"
I usually start off a New Year with a whole raft of resolutions, but this time has been different, for one reason or another. In terms of golf, there’s not too much in the diary, and whatever “bucket list” intentions I have floating around inside my head are far from defined, and a few of them probably far from achievable.
But then an image drops in of Hunstanton, with a rainbow arching high above the links, and I know deep down that I must get up to that sweet little corner of Norfolk again, and finally play there, and also go back to that other, different marvel beside it, Brancaster.
And then someone else sends me a few photos from Royal Melbourne, and without any choice in the matter, my dreams consist of crafty escapes from vast, greenside bunkers, and drives that carry on bouncing along as if the turf is hollow inside.
On one of last year’s pilgrimages, a dear friend and I motored under the Channel and through the middle of France, and I recall him talking about his own father’s love of having some form of treat in the diary; “something to look forward to”, for it provides motivation, and hope. And he had chosen to carry on this family tradition, only in his case they are often golfing fixtures, and Royal Melbourne had been among them of late.
So as I waded through older blog posts for the Advent calendar series, I was reminded of certain missions from 2023, and reflected on how they come to pass, these whims. And it is often a photo, or some short message that tells me nowhere near enough but which contains some vague degree of promised charm, the pot of surprised delight at the end of the rainbow.
That some of these recommendations are so far from the beaten track brings me great joy, for it means that others share my love for the unexpected glory of a rustic links, or the hypnotic pull of a remote mountain course. In 2024, this little community of golfing friends that I have somehow fallen into have suggested, and sometimes joined, unforgettable rounds at the likes of Flempton and Bull Bay, Cruit Island and Coll. And those and other unsung heroes sit perfectly well among the likes of Walton Heath and Hoylake, for golf’s museum of marvels has a large and sprawling footprint.
I hope I will get to Hunstanton in 2025, for it is high time. And high time I returned to Royal West Norfolk, and high time I got caught out there by the high tide. I can’t imagine anywhere more wonderful to be marooned, just as long as I’ve got a few hickories with me. But no high tide will get this pauper’s dinghy to Royal Melbourne, so perhaps I shall buy a lottery ticket this weekend. For though I haven’t yet had enough of Greg’s images of the sun and those idyllic, hallowed fairways (Greg: nowhere near enough yet, keep them coming!), I’d quite like to appear in the odd one.
But maybe I’ve already won some kind of lottery, in a manner of speaking. Maybe I’ve stumbled across, in writing about golf and its seemingly endless chart of mysteries, what I was meant to be doing all along. Exploring this game we love and the places that inhabit our dreams and nightmares, and getting to know not only the deep bunkers and out of bounds fences, but also the people who inhabit this territory - you wonderful, beautiful people, shuffling along behind a ball that does us no favours but teaches us everything we need to know about life, and ambition, and magic.
Looking back at the shaky resolutions I had this time last year, and comparing it against the way my golf unfolded, it is clear that I don’t need some rigid schedule of major bucket list headlines. Instead, I need to stay flexible, to keep my ear to the ground for the whispers that drift in of adventures to be had, stories to be told. And there will be gold found along the way, though I suspect I will find that the pot at the base of the Hunstanton rainbow is not full of coins at all, but more likely some enigmatic mention of another place a little further up the road that few have heard of but which deserves investigation.
Now that is “something to look forward to”…
Happy New Year Richard, looking forward to many more golfing adventures and reading your golfing tales throughout the year and beyond
What a lovely way to start your 2025 stories, we all need “Something to look forward to”. I need to get to Hunstanton and Brancaster never mind back to them plus Cruit.