Pitchmarks Archive ADVENTure #9 - "Golf on the Rocks"

A return to Cleeve Hill

“Many a hand has scaled the grand old face of the plateau
Some belong to strangers and some to folks you know
Holy ghosts and talk show hosts are planted in the sand
To beautify the foothills and shake the many hands”
“Plateau” - The Meat Puppets

From the vibration of my alarm to the key finding the ignition takes around fifteen minutes, and as I slide through the deserted Surrey streets of early morning, it feels good to be back on the road again. This writing habit of mine has been on pause for too long, and I’m aware of some sense that the reasons I give myself for this interlude are merely excuses.

There are other plates in the air, of course - there always are - but as the local roads turn into a motorway heading west, with Eroica gently pulsing from the speakers, it occurs to me that this sort of trip - alone on some golfing mission with nothing but my thoughts for company - has been too infrequent of late.

And though I program the sat-nav, I no longer need it, for this is my fourth visit to Cleeve Hill, and I feel as if I could almost smell my way there, such is my affection for this outpost of traditional golf. Eighteen months ago, my first foray onto “The Hill” seemed to crack open a dormant love for the rugged game - for grassroots golf - and that connection has only deepened since.

The miles steadily disappear, and I am soon basking in the sunshine on a trestle table in front of the clubhouse, savouring coffee in the company of a kindred spirit of this golfing realm. For today is a gathering of people who not only play the game, but also work in it, and in the smiles that appear all day in the rarefied air of what used to be known as Cleeve Cloud Golf Club, there is a simple love for golf itself that keeps us doing what we do. It’s easy to get buried alive in paperwork and handicaps, or targets and metrics, but today we are all out here for a reminder of what golf means to us, and there is no course better qualified to deliver that message to me.

So we wish each other well, and walk towards the tee, full of anticipation for the crusade ahead. The course is dry and firm, and as we plot our way across the rolling landscape - heading for the famous tree that adorns our caps, and the view over the thirteenth green that seems too magical to be real - the wind blows away cobwebs and errant shots alike. We remember what golf used to be like - wild, natural - and imagine a world in which everything is this simple. Hit it, find it, hit it again, and in between shots chew the fat with friends or gaze at the natural splendour all around.

Now and then, laughter rings out across the links like a chorus to accompany the skylark’s incessant celebration, and when a familiar rumbling noise enters the mix, we can only smile at the approach of Eric, the club’s roving halfway hut. In this place, where mountain bikes and horse-riders share the hills with sheep and golfers and even rock-climbers, only one vehicle could match so perfectly the romantic, craggy feel of Cleeve Hill, and that is of course a Defender.

Eric, with that wonderful tree in the distance

And in the sun-drenched yellow paintwork and slowly creeping rust on its gorgeous chassis, it seems to exemplify what these days are all about. Adventure, a taste of a disappearing wilderness. An experience full of meaning, yet not all of it is rational. And as the refreshments emerge from Eric’s back door - sustenance we have earned with all these feet gained in a blustery wind that comes fresh off the Black Mountains - I realise that I needed another mission like this to reignite this urge to write, to share.

For it is in thinking about and digesting golfing days like these that I feel I can somehow hold in place this elevation above the ordinary; cling on to a faint sense of wonder in the world, one that is rarely found in offices or on manicured lawns. Amidst all the other outdoor activities in and around this quarried plateau, the game holds its own as a sport, as a pursuit.

Golf up here, a thousand feet above the distant waters of the Severn, is not just the shuffling of the elderly male - though we hope we will still be able to do this when today’s energetic stride becomes a painful doddering - but a battle in which we pitch ourselves endlessly against the elements and our own vulnerability, and feel in our legs the ache of altitude gained and in our hearts a connection that makes it all worthwhile.

And as so often happens in these sort of places, we finish and I yearn to spin around again, reluctant to let this presence in the moment slip away just yet. But life beckons me back, and so as I “shake the many hands” and retrace my steps, cast again into a couple of hours alone with my thoughts and the stereo, I am too full of inspiration for podcasts, and even my beloved Beethoven doesn’t feel right for the return leg of a day like this.

So, in tribute to the jagged, rocky feel of Cleeve Hill, and of some sense of the fragility of this life through which we stagger, I opt instead for the rock soundtrack of my youth, and in the cracking voices of old friends, dead and alive, find a fresh sense of purpose as a tear rolls down my cheek, already nostalgic for the morning’s golf.

As I weave the final few miles through the suburban maze I call home, the algorithm finds Kurt singing of the “Plateau” for me, paying a final tribute to his own musical heroes just as we’ve paid tribute to the visionaries that “scaled the grand old face of the plateau” before us, and left behind the precious Cleeve Hill.

Once again my mission has come full circle, and I walk back in the door enchanted - even exhilarated - by this game I love so much.

It is purely coincidence that I chose to recycle this post the day after rambling on about altitude for the Kington piece, yesterday. But Cleeve Hill is such an extraordinary place to be, with or without golf clubs, and I am humbled that - since an earlier essay on Cleeve went out in “Grass Routes” (the original here) - people have been inspired to go and explore this place partly because I love it so. And - even better than that - they return and find me and tell me that they love it, too. But I’m not surprised, for what’s not to love up there?

It is wild, rugged, adventurous golf; the antidote to modern, comfortable, domestic life. I can feel my heart start to race…if I am not careful, the editorial note at the end will be longer than the piece itself, and you will need another coffee to get through it. But the truth is, you will read this (I hope!) on Monday, and I will be at Cleeve again by the end of this week, and nothing - not even Storm Darragh - will be getting in the way of that little mission. I was going to write “you should go”. I’m going to upgrade that to “you must go”. Maybe see you there…