Pitchmarks #79 - "Baltray - Beyond Termonfeckin"

“The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished”
Kevin Kelly

Along with my old sticks, and a camera whose operation is beyond me, and my toothbrush, I manage to pack a notebook, but - now almost three months later - the pages I’d reserved for that round remained blank. The slight chamois hue of the paper seemed to bleach towards brilliant white with every passing day, as if the absence of any words with which to describe Baltray was dragging me further from the experience, where normally my reflections would solidify the bond.

I knew I would love it, cherish it. Re-designed by Tom Simpson; a rugged links; that Irish welcome. And most of all, the way people spoke about it. Of St Enodoc, I knew very little on arrival too, but had noticed that people seemed to sigh and drift away at the mention of her name (“Ah, St Enodoc”), and it was the same in a way with Baltray. Folk would not reveal anything really, other than that I ought to go, and that it was brilliant. Maybe, it occurs to me now as I finally start writing, they hadn’t words to describe what they’d seen…

Plus there was the name. How often do these alternative course names - Dollymount, Brancaster, Sandwich - seem to promise some more familiar, personal connection? On the map and in the rankings, this is County Louth Golf Club, but every single soul who tried to implore me to go by the look in their eyes used Baltray, and that is how I will address my darling for ever, now.

And speaking of names, as the course got nearer and my excitement grew, we passed another glorious moniker, as a metal plaque told us we had entered “Termonfeckin”. The sign seemed particularly well-fastened to a lump of rock, which made sense when I read that the council are forever replacing stolen signs. I like the name, too, but I’d rather move here than go around pinching placards. Especially after seeing Baltray…

So we arrive, and it is spell-binding. We race round, absorbed in a little match, and love every single minute of it, but somehow I can’t find a convenient theme, for the specifics of the course are only brushstrokes from a larger picture. What has been written of it seems to lazily bang the same old drums - that the short holes are strong, and that the strange, gorgeous fourteenth is the icing on the cake. But this course should have no “signature hole”, for it is a masterpiece, a sublime monument to the man who rebuilt it. To get caught up in the details is to stay in the head when one contemplates Baltray, and the sense I have is that it was created from, and for, the heart, instead.

So I won’t go on about the charm of the routing, or Simpson’s supernatural ability to turn the functional into the fabulous. Or the wonderful, devastating match we fought, or the sound of the waves or the feel of the breeze through my hair. You get enough of that most other Sundays. Instead, having found a theme at last in the quote that began this ramble, I’ll tell you how Baltray made me feel.

For words can’t tell you what it’s like on the ground. But they might help me describe what it’s like to know - deep down in your core - that you simply have to go somewhere, see something. It’s probably a feeling you know, that draws from beyond reason or ranking and seems more vital for that. And then maybe you took heed of this calling one time, and made whatever pilgrimage it was, and saw the golf course or the waterfall or the portrait or the view. And when you finally made it there, despite all the expectations and every recommendation, it still blew you away, astonished you.

That’s what going to Baltray was about for me, I think. Another fine course, another rung on the ladder plumbing golf’s bottomless well of mystique. But more than that, a reminder to follow the muse, and prepare to be astonished along the way.

I think if I read that about a place, I’d be poring over maps and booking tickets. Plotting a route to Baltray, just as soon as I can. So in case you’ve been snared by this most vague of reports, I can give you a clue. It’s a little way beyond Termonfeckin…