It is hard to know if people are enjoying reading this stuff at times. There’s a sort of strange, silent vacuum into which one steps when releasing a creative endeavour into the world, and from the reading I’ve been doing of far more successful, articulate and intelligent writers, to some degree the imposter syndrome never really goes away. If Stephen King worries about what he is writing, perhaps I can relax.
I guess we all like to be appreciated in some manner, though, and were there to be no kind encouragements along the way, I wonder if it would affect what I wrote - perhaps I would get increasingly needy, and tied up in knots over what other people thought rather than simply getting what rattles around in my head in the early morning silence out and onto a page or two.
I don’t think I am really here for a pat on the back, but it is good to know that people do seem to read these Stymies I am laying, and are hopefully occasionally finding a little hook that will keep them coming back for more.
Speaking of little hooks, and not the sort that dragged your tee-shot into the left carry bunker on the twelfth at the weekend (or for that matter, the spectacular and violent one I hit on the eighteenth at The Old Course in May 2014, when the firm links turf and the heavy, rolling topspin saw the ball milk every last inch of momentum, coming to rest a little over a foot outside the picket fence of the first fairway - although no one has ever described that hook as “little”), I had a snippet of feedback from a reader that has brought me back to a certain topic today.
Last Tuesday’s Stymie (here) was a rambling one (surprise, surprise), about our collective, selective memory after we golf, and it touched on those rare moments when we hit the shot, often towards the end of our round, which not only seems to dominate our reflection on each game, but keeps us coming back for more. We all know these moments - these enigmatic “hooks” - which I clumsily described as “the tiny dose of magic that the game will drip-feed every player when they are at their lowest ebb” and they seem to feature in our memories more easily than the violent snapping variety (my public shame at St Andrews aside).
This kind reader seemed to like this exploration of that elusive, magnetic shot, and his comment that it is “possibly the most powerful and mysterious force in the game” not only made me smile - his words cutting (not hooking) to the chase far more efficiently than mine had. But the feedback lingered in my head - a hook of its own that kept me returning to thoughts of this strange, fleeting phenomenon.
To say it could be “the most powerful and mysterious force” - in a game which exerts such a powerful force on each of us golfers (I think of a young John Malkovich here, who could, in a parallel universe, have been describing golf addiction in Dangerous Liaisons when he kept repeating “beyond my control” to explain some romantic situation, and there is certainly an argument that our compulsion to play seems deeper than logic, and that the ball often acts as if not at all under our control) and which, as far as I can make out, is full of mystery - seemed at first to be over-stating it, which perhaps explains the “possibly”. But the more I think about it, the more I believe he’s right.
I spoke to someone else about their children’s sporting exploits the other day. In amongst the varied other sports being played at school, he had also been witness to a moment with his son at the golf range, where, after a successful of mind-bending failures frustrated the otherwise coordinated youngster and his father alike, he eventually caught one flush, the pair of them watching the ball soar high through the air, the majestic parabola apparently in slow motion.
It was followed by a grin that spoke of immeasurable joy, like the genie was now out of the bottle, and of all the consolation hooks that this game offers over the years, some are more memorable than others, and perhaps for this young golfer, the “first cut (or hook?) is the deepest”. They may have been present at what Alistair Cooke would have called the very moment the man’s son caught “the marvellous mania”.
In between drafting this earlier, and returning to the page this evening, I managed to get a few holes in, basking in the warm, sunlit afternoon of early February (not a phrase I am likely to require too often), and all the way round I was on the lookout for an enigmatic hook. Hoping that the one great shot would come and visit, bless the outing with its presence, and make me even keener to get back out again tomorrow, or the day after. The mysterious force was out there somewhere, and it was fun to stand over each shot and wonder if this might be where something different happened. And it did appear - of course it did! - but when I least expected it; when I’d forgotten to look for it, in fact.
And I guess that’s what I need to do here - drop in something every now and then that we can all relate to, that makes us all appreciate the moments on the golf course, or on horseback, or on the school run, or whatever it is that brings you back to your special place, wherever that may be. Something that might make you a tiny bit more aware of the magic floating around beneath the surface of things. A hook. That’s what we’re after…
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Better than golf? Now you’ve my attention…where do a pay a green fee to get through this mystical portal?!!!
I enjoyed your use of ‘cutting to the chase’, which alludes to the one sport that is better than golf - Real Tennis.