Since December 2021, I have sent out 91 of these Stymies. The first one reached two people; the latest was sent to (somehow) over 700 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!
27th August 2022: “Therapeutic Golf”
It was my first game for a while, on return from a non-golfing holiday, and it felt good to be drawing out those old sticks, and swishing them through the warm air of yet another fine afternoon. The sun was still high in the sky as I completed the least intensive of warm-ups, balanced a ball on a fine wooden peg, and took a deep breath.
I’d found myself feeling ambivalent about the game prior to the trip - over-golfed, perhaps, if such a state exists - and a similar, blocked feeling clouded my efforts at writing of late, but in the wide angle landscape ahead of me - a parched fairway flanked by borders of thick heather and tall pine - I knew a solution awaited.
We somehow rip our openers between these purple boundaries, my playing partner and I, and, along with his delighted spaniel, we leave the rest of life behind for a couple of hours. We’ve known each other for a few years, through golf, but never played together, so the journey permits a flowing chat of much of life, and though we don’t keep score, we smile and grimace at the good, the bad, and the ugly of our endeavours.
He’d warned me before a ball was struck that he was “working on something” - aren’t we all? - but regardless of each result there seems a shared delight in the process of simply hitting shots, as golf dishes out its recurrent lessons in abundance. Patience, tempo, humility. The importance of clear thinking, of having a plan. Basic stuff. Simple, not easy, though.
Our conversation covers these things on a more general level, so it seems as if golf is simply reinforcing any intellectual understanding with concrete examples, and then, near the end of our time together, I ask him about the balance in his life, how he copes with a never-ending stream of stuff, how he keeps overwhelm at bay.
The words “This is my therapy” drift back at me, and stick in my mind for a day or two. He’s busy - we all are, I suppose - but in between the bustle of a demanding job, and the joys and responsibilities of a young family, and the seemingly relentless march of every other facet of this modern life towards targets that only ever exist in a different, perhaps imaginary realm - the future - these pockets of fun and friendship on the well-trodden fairways of the Surrey heathlands are his recharging mechanism.
And what’s more, he knows it, and guards it, for without it he won’t be the same person he is in every other area of his life. Without golf, he wouldn’t be the same boss, the same employee, the same husband, same father. The same generous soul I get to share these glorious fairways with, and learn from. Time spent golfing provides him with a sense of balance that carries over into all these other parts of life, and it is clear how grateful he is for this discovery. And this sense of balance is something he passes on to those around him, for the good of us all.
The game is over all too soon and our real lives urgently beckon us back, but as we shake hands and prepare to emerge from this dreamy interval that is golf, I feel a deep calm, and realise that this game is my therapy, too. It’s not like I’ve any great trauma to overcome - besides that of a three decade fear of pitching, perhaps, and that one still has a way to run - but golf is to me restorative, precious. Three weeks without a game seemed to flow by, as even on vacation the noise - the random thoughts, in particular - just kept coming, but as I walk home from this latest episode, it’s as if I’ve rediscovered a tonic for all that.
To some, the mysterious allure of this absurd game - sport never seems like the right term; it feels to me more like a spiritual path than a sport - is hard to fathom, and the archaic codes of etiquette and dress just exacerbate the distance between us, but out here, with a single-strap bag on my shoulder and a half set of old weapons from which to select, life is once again simple for a while. Fun for a while.
It is out here where I speak to my few golfing friends openly; out here where we bare our souls, and face our demons. Out here I recall what it was like to spend parts of this life without all the hassle, to truly play in the glorious, fleeting moments of the present, to hope and to dream, to remember who it was I always meant to be.
Out here the past and future seems to quietly drop away, and as we stare at the ball and try in vain to tame it, and then look up in hope of a marvelous result that rarely appears, there is an innocence that is enriching, rewarding.
Google lists one definition of a therapeutic process as “having a good effect on the body or mind; contributing to a sense of well-being”, and while neither of our families will really know what we’ve been through out here - all the keen effort, the recurrent failures, the occasional miracle - they will surely see in our eyes that this definition hits the mark just as accurately as our opening drives somehow split that first fairway.
Perhaps those around us will also benefit from the balance and happiness golf brings us, and carve out some time to do the things that they also cherish, for life is short and if you let them, other things will surely get in the way.
We’ve all been wondering why we play this game, and perhaps he’s just handed me my reason after all these years. “This is my therapy”. Smiling, I return home, plot my next outing, and feel at least an inch taller. Once again, thank you Golf.
A light bulb moment for me. I've been struggling with an injured foot/calf/achilles for the past couple of years, and played zero golf last season. Looking back, I can see that I've probably been hard to deal with over the past 15-20 months, and I now know why -- I haven't had my therapy sessions! I haven't even been able to go to my local chipping green and have the satisfaction of hitting a couple of hundred pitch shots (even that weight shift hurts), which was a regular occurrence in my life. I'm not sure why I'd never thought about this retardation of my state of mind before, but thanks. Maybe I'll start re-reading some of my golf library, to in some part mentally alleviate the lack of golf in my life. Golf in the Kingdom it is...
This one hit the sweet spot. I didn't discover golf until my fifties - I am certain I have been an easier person to live with AG (after golf) than BG (before golf). It's the ability to escape, to live in the moment and discard all other distractions that is so good for the soul. Without wishing to labour the point, you get the same effect on a motorcycle.
On the other hand, it could just be that I am getting old :-)