Pitchmarks #90 - REISSUE! "WD-40 for the Soul"

Or, "The World's Greatest Addiction"...

Another morning, another school run. Hurried bowls of porridge, books hastily stuffed into bulging bags. Dog walked and fed, teeth brushed, a tie straightened in the mirror and then off.

But the chain of the trusty commuter is a little rusty, after a recent epic journey through biblical rain, and so a further delay. Scrabbling around in the shed, beneath the discarded debris of this midlife, lies the solution.

The crusted links of the chain seem to welcome WD-40 as if it were the very elixir of life, absorbing its strange dark fluid in an instant, and when a recycled muslin baby cloth passes across the newly lubricated steel, gently removing excess moisture, the result is as good as new. Or perhaps better, for it has been worn in a little, and so won’t give that initial, marginal stretch in the way that a brand new one does. This chain has worked well with the sprockets for months now; they know each other, and work in tandem to keep that rear wheel spinning.

This moment of attending to the bike amidst the haste of the morning feels good; as if it slows down urgency for the sake of kindness - to the chain and the rider. I marvel at the simplicity of this procedure, and at the effectiveness of the chosen weapon. There are more refined oils in the shed - somewhere - but this familiar blue & yellow container is a convenient Jack of all trades; an essential companion.

I wheel the bike through the open gate, and notice a slight resistance as the dead bolt grinds into the strike plate on closure. Standing here, with a can of penetrant and an old rag, it is easy to push departure a few more seconds down the line, and soon the gate locks quietly, and for good measure the rusting hoop of the shed padlock gets a quick coat on the way past, and I leave the WD-40 in plain sight this time, for I will no doubt need it again soon.

The day goes on, but this thought keeps coming back of how useful this stuff is, and how we humans could do with a similarly versatile tool with which to keep our own lives running smoothly. And it takes a while before I realise that, almost two weeks since my last game, golf might serve that purpose for me. I’ve been busy, and the weather’s been foul at times, but two weeks feels like a life sentence these days, and I drift off into some reverie, thinking about how the lessons I am taught by this strict mistress that is golf rub off in the rest of life.

Golf takes me outdoors, under vast skies and between great, old trees. It takes me through landscapes too beautiful for mere words, and I share these with spiders and sparrowhawks alike. Golf teaches me humility; doses me with patience. Knocks me down if my ego rises; lifts me up when the black dog lurks. It is hard to remain too serious about it all in the face of a skulled chip or a wicked slice; anger will get you nowhere in golf. I am instead lost in the wondrous flow of childlike play when I golf, and I often catch sight of some otherworldly version of love between those lunging swipes.

Not just love for these old sticks, whose rusting Maruman blades might like a drop of WD-40 themselves, or the gorgeous, warm grains of this MacGregor persimmon 3 wood, a relic of a bygone age. But love for the bigger picture that seems to open up in these places. The artistry of golf architecture’s masters within mother nature’s gentle contours; the autumnal colours in the falling leaves; the crisp light of November’s sun finding a route through the branches, transforming the turf’s silvery dew into a glowing gold.

WD-40 does many things, but it most often helps things to work together, to remove friction. And golf can do a little of this, in the communities it builds. It should be no surprise that many of the great and the good of other walks of life play golf, for it is a way for us to understand not only ourselves, but each other; to find common ground. P. G. Wodehouse said “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him”, and there is much of value in this. Golf will bring the investment banker to their knees alongside the person who’d normally carry their bag. It does not discriminate, or care for airs and graces. Golf will beat and charm us all, young and old, rich and poor.

But in this leveling of the playing field, we build a rare tribe based on a single factor - a love of golf - and these hopeful, hopeless worshippers can be found drifting across the links in their fours like lost sheep, searching for their ball, or for a rare par on the 8th, or for the secret of life itself. It occurs to me that most of my network are from this strange sect, and that the friendships, memories and experiences golf has given me are among my most precious.

Only a day or two ago, a discussion over a practical matter, with a stranger on the other side of the Atlantic, turned swiftly into a celebration of the wonders of Royal Dornoch, and Machrihanish, and in that instant, as the voice on the other end described the wind rushing through the marram grass, I knew that we’d get on. And that I’d be needing to head north again this winter, migrating towards the Scottish links for another dose of the original forms of golf.

Before our call is over, we marvel at this game, which brings together so many facets of the good life, and I hear his American voice claim “it’s the world’s greatest addiction, and the best thing is…there’s no cure”.

And I get to play it, and hang around and serve other people who play it, and every now and then I write about it - for no other reason than I can’t not write about it - and I wonder how I ever let it drop down my list of priorities and vow to not let that happen again, no matter how cruel the bounces, how violent the hooks.

For golf is not only the world’s “greatest addiction”, it is to me the most powerful lubricant. There is in golf some kind of magic, I sense; a portal to another, richer dimension. It is WD-40 for the soul…