Stymied Advent Calendar 2022 - #5: "The subtle art of foursomes"
Where apologies are not permitted...
Since December 2021, I have sent out 91 of these Stymies. The first one reached two people; the latest was sent to (somehow) over 650 of you. People are either very bored, or they share the same fascination with this daft game that I have sought to rekindle in this last year or so. Or perhaps a mix of those two factors.
In order to get some of the earlier ones in front of a few more eyes, I will be sharing a selection of re-issued Stymies daily until Christmas Eve; a Stymied Advent Calendar. If you have enjoyed reading them, please share them and encourage others to subscribe. Thank you very much indeed!
6th January 2022: “The Subtle Art of Foursomes”
In a few golfing outposts in Britain, a strange custom exists that would puzzle many a modern golfer. Every year the sport becomes ever more complicated, its participants obsessed by equipment and an infinite stream of measurements, while course conditioning and expectations continue to strive for a perfection that can’t exist in a natural environment, as if luck ought not to remain part of golf, of life.
An overwhelming proportion of golfers will only ever play their own ball, and will use detailed electronic metrics to judge the success or otherwise of their latest foray into this strange old game, and I wonder whether they are so blinkered by the numbers that they forget the reason they are out there - to enjoy themselves.
Such focused effort to lower one’s handicap or shoot a great score will normally result in slower play, and as we stand behind three amateurs, lining up putts as if they were to secure Green Jackets, it is clear that something has gone wrong. In all this inhibition and deliberation, the fluidity that often quietens the mind and permits good, natural golf to rise to the surface is smothered, and something magical is buried.
But another dimension exists where those “in the know” play foursomes instead, whipping round the course in two and a half hours or less, and building relationships on the way. In playing alternate shots, they trust each other to keep the game moving, to accept each outcome as it arises, and above all to have fun.
Often the game will be 36 holes, spliced in two by a lunch as long as the rounds, and the fast play creates a feeling of abundance for this central part of the experience of being with our golfing friends. For a change, we sit and eat, and drink and chat, without pressure on our time, and laugh about the holes behind and the holes ahead.
At a handful of traditional clubs and in a few wonderful societies, this sect continues, mystifying the newcomer whose ego is centred on the numbers, and maintaining the swift rhythm that becomes more important for golf as a game every year, as technology and working patterns rip into our discretionary time, and golfers flee the links for the punishment of the bike saddle, or the instant gratification and reliable dopamine hit of the obligatory, handheld device.
There is one golden rule in foursomes, though. You will probably want to apologise to your playing partner a dozen times by the end, and vice versa, but you mustn’t. No apologies are permitted in foursomes; you must simply find the ball and look forward. We play it as it lies. This pact is usually delivered with something along the lines of “until I tell you otherwise, you can assume I’m doing my best”. What more can we do?
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