Pitchmarks Archive ADVENTure #1 - “Robbers’ caves and underground passages”
In defence of the odd blind hole…
Many a New Year starts with a fresh fitness regime, and this one is no different, if I am to judge from the packed car park at the gym, and the dozens of runners I cycle past en route, still going strong though January is nearly spent.
But what is different this time is that, instead of listening to music as I perch on static bikes, or walk the dog through the crunchy morning frosts, I have been catching up on podcasts, and have taken a definite position of favouring golf-related ones of late, looking to re-kindle my interest in this wonderful sport. This has the splendid side-effect of helping the rigours of the exercise withdraw into the background, which is on some days a welcome development.
“State of the Game” episode 59 saw host Rod Morri joined by Mike Clayton and Geoff Shackelford, and it was a great listen, with plenty of analysis of the St Andrews Open of 2015, along with reflection on other UK courses, many of which are familiar to me. But one that I’ve not seen yet is Prestwick, the birthplace of the Open Championship, and it was fascinating to hear the panel talking about a classic “template” hole from that old course - originally the second but now played as the seventeenth.
The original “Alps” hole features a blind second shot, and any efforts that come up short are liable to find a deep bunker - “Sahara” - as a resting place. This classic hole has since been replicated all over the world, including at several notable, architectural treasures in the States, but discussion of this was within the wider context of blind and/or really tough holes.
On the course I grew up playing - Wenvoe Castle near Cardiff - there are a few holes where the bulk of the green can’t be seen from the fairway as a result of the surrounding contours, often just a sliver of a “false front” visible as the Braid layout weaves through rolling Glamorgan countryside. But there is also a hole that has always fascinated me - the eighth - where a good drive (and I hit many thousands there that were not of this variety) would leave a blind second shot that needed to fly over a marker post and run down a steep slope to a green below. Beyond the green lies a drainage ditch, but there are no bunkers awaiting any other forms of deviant shot or bounce; just run-off areas that take the ball away from the elevated green platform.
The eighth always seemed such fun to me as you could hit a bad one - mine would be typically way right - and still be able to have a crack at this downhill roulette of an approach, and in the summer, when the fairways were running hard, there was a decision to be made about how hard to hit it. It took a very rare drive in those days of persimmon to have a glimpse of the back of the green with the second shot, and in all the years of playing there, I am not sure I can ever recall reaching the brow of the hill, eagerly scanning for confirmation of an excellent result and finding that this was the case. Instead, I would often see that it had been dragged away to the right by the subtle slopes, leaving that deft pitch shot that occasionally still haunts my sleeping hours.
Without bunkers, or significant earth moving equipment, the hole had been created to play with this factor of luck that is such a part of the game - landing in a divot, for example - built in to the hit and hope second shot, and while it would be easy to say that the blind nature of the approach is a little unfair, I would hate to think that a modern preference for “sanitised” golf, to use Clayton’s term, would mean some of these blind shots are lost, for they are simply enjoyable to play, fair or not.
In the same way that most thought patterns seem to lead me to golf at the moment, most golfing reflections lead me back to Bernard Darwin, and this discussion of the Alps hole reminded me to look up his reflections on Royal St George’s. Darwin, a self confessed “helpless sentimentalist about Sandwich”, wrote a wonderful piece about the evolution of that course in the era in which he’d played it, and the changes that had left several blind shots derelict, while also softening the famous, remaining “Maiden” hole, whose tee shot is blind.
Ever the diplomat, Darwin understood the reasons for these improvements, citing changes in technology a century ago, and the Golden Age architectural sensibilities prominent at that time as they are again now, but he also, as usual, summed up what all this feels like to the golfer, talking of the sense of “an awfully big adventure” when hitting over a vast dune, and running, in childlike anticipation, to the top of the hill to look for the end result.
If you are overly particular about fairness and safety, then perhaps golf is not the game for you, as the bad bounces and cruel lip outs are as much a part of the game’s appeal as the occasional great shot, and when I think about that eighth at Wenvoe, or the still magnificent Maiden, or another incredible hole I am yet to master (assuming it’s even possible to do so) - the thirteenth at Darwin’s beloved Rye - all I know is that they are so much fun to play, regardless of the outcome, and there are times in our lives, golfing or otherwise, when we must stretch ourselves, take a risk, face the odds straight on. Our lives are surely “sanitised” enough already.
Stirred by writing and thinking about such holes, a quick Google search informs me that Prestwick is only 440 miles from where I now sit, ogling online pictures of its rugged contours, so it won’t be long before that mileage is steadily reducing as I head north, but meanwhile, the final, wonderful words fall to the great Bernardo, who reflects that these blind shots and dells “appeal to the child in us and make one think of robbers’ caves and underground passages”.
I enjoyed finding this old post (published 30th January 2022), thanks to Greg from Melbourne, who recalled the final Darwin quote and asked me to locate it. So often, a theme on which to muse emerges and I discover that Darwin was there first by a few generations, and nailed it. Also a lot of fun to then skip on to a subsequent visit to the magnificent Prestwick. You can find that post here:
Back to Advent releases! Thank you Richard!
The Advent releases were how I found your lovely writing originally. 😃