sty·mie | \ ˈstī-mē - to present an obstacle to; stand in the way of.
One occasionally hears the term stymie in other contexts, but it is thought the term originated in golf, where it was a part of the predominant game of matchplay until its obsolescence in 1952, by which point matchplay itself was an endangered species. Up until that point, a player could leave his ball in the direct path of an opponent’s line of putt, leaving the opponent to either try and bend their ball around or chip it over the obstacle.
It is not clear what caused this archaic footnote to disappear from the rule book (as it did in the USGA rules in 1950, with the R&A following suit when issuing the first joint rules two years later), but it could have been in response to Ben Hogan being stymied by Mike Turnesa during the final of the 1948 PGA Championship (above).
As it happened, Hogan survived this to prevail, although his deft chip over Turnesa’s ball stopped short of the hole, slowed down by turf that probably ran slower than most modern tees, but I suspect this was, as the golfing world edged further towards the blandness of stroke play, another step in a doomed quest to rid the game of lady luck.
But as a glorious piece of “artwork” on a wall of a canal tunnel serves to remind me each morning on my cycle ride to work, it is often in the centre of challenge or failure that we learn our most valuable lessons. Einstein knew this well, of course, and I like to think that the artist who kindly replicated his words to shake me from complacency each day chose that precarious spot in order to make the task even more satisfying and appropriate. It is also harder to deface the reminder here, unlike a nearby companion piece “change is inevitable”, which rather aptly lasted only a few weeks.
I am reminded of “The Art of Learning”, a fabulous book about beauty, and development, and in Josh Waitzkin’s description of his desire to introduce to his young son an early understanding of the need for lateral, creative thinking, he talks of the concept of “going around”, whereby in order to solve a problem, they try and approach it from a different angle. At first this was a physical solution, but it quickly became their catchphrase for mental agility in the face of resistance, or trouble.
When one is stymied, a more imaginative, original tactic is required. So that is why this blog is called Stymied. I am looking for something different, an alternative approach. In order that, to quote Waitzkin, we might for a moment stop being “like tiny current-bound surface fish, floating along a two-dimensional world without any sense for the gorgeous abyss below”.
My hope is that in writing these pieces, I might examine and deepen my own relationship with this game and with the lives we lead. And if just one other person joins me along the way? How wonderful; what a journey we will share.
So while we mourn the disappearance of the stymie in golf, we might look for its equivalent elsewhere in life, for they force us to examine our options and start again. Thank you Messrs Einstein and Waitzkin, and of course the unknown graffiti artist.