One of the definitions of nostalgia, as listed by the Merrick-Webster dictionary, is “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition”. Having played a few holes on Monday afternoon in the cold climate that is an English January, I’d been musing on my own journey through the highs and lows of a stormy relationship with the pitch shot, and this term irrecoverable condition leapt out at me. I particularly like these final two words, as they are relevant to the malaise itself - the pitch shot is normally required to recover one’s position after an error, but my apparent inability to perform such a recovery seems to me like itself a condition from which I may never recover, or so it felt yesterday, in the depths of winter.
There’s no doubt that I hold a slightly unrealistic (read: hugely wistful) picture of the happiness of my youth, spent chasing balls around the garden and the local pitch & putt. As childhoods go, it was, and I was, incredibly content, and much of that was down to the freedom to do what I wanted, which in those days, as now, centred to a large degree on just playing golf. So I am nostalgic about those days in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and the wistful or excessively sentimental chunk might well have been written about me by those closest. I quite like it, actually; might request it on my gravestone, to save anyone else feeling awkward about selecting it as an epitaph.
But one part of my recollection of those lovely times is definitely not exaggeration. Definitely not. Back then, I was able to hit pitch shots. With ease. And they would flick up in the air, float towards the pin, and land softly within a few inches. Stone dead. Time after time, relentlessly, verging on automatically. I’m not even sure how I got to that condition, of being able to face what would now keep me awake at night. I hit a lot of balls back then, but I don’t ever recall having to work at it, and so I wonder if it was just pure naivety with regard to what could go wrong…it wouldn’t be the first or last time that approach would manifest through me.
I could hit them high, low, spinning, rolling - whatever was required, on demand. I’d hit them with the mannerisms of Norman, then Couples, then Seve. Same result. Half the time I’d flop a lob wedge even where a 7 iron chip would be the recommended and sane decision, just because I could. I’d sometimes leave the putter in the bag and flick from the very edge of the green without a thought; not a flicker of fear or doubt. Don’t get the impression I was any good at the wider game of golf, as that has never been the case, and part of the reason I pitched so well was probably because I missed lots of greens, but with a wedge in hand, I was lethal.
I recall my main golfing foe through life once appealing to the gods beside the 8th green, as not only did I always get up and down, but I would normally hole one or two a round, and they would drop in that funny way long putts sometimes do, when your subconscious is a few feet ahead of you, and has calculated that it will go in long before it does. Drove him wild; it was probably worth a couple of shots in pure irritation. I know he’ll read this, too, so perhaps his recollection of that dynamic will be less excessively sentimental than mine, but he needn’t fear it happening ever again.
Then, somewhere along the line, this strange talent went away, atrophied. Unlike an old boyfriend of a family member, with whom I spent a drunken evening in London swapping tales of epic duffs and weighty divots, and who could trace his misery back to a single shot on a specific day, I’m not sure when it happened to me. It must have just slipped away gradually, a bit like that relationship did. You have to nurture these things, or they get weaker and drift off over time.
So in the dusky light of last night, alone on the heath with not even a distant dog-walker for an audience, I threw a couple of balls down near one of the greens, with a bunker in between me and the target, and tried to forget a total lack of confidence or competence in pitching that runs to two decades or more. I walked up to the first shot with the anticipation I felt as a kid, in a hurry to hit it close, and feel that effortless confidence flow. Just me and the ball, no pressure. I suspect you know what happened.
The first one was thin, hammering into the sod wall of the bunker, with a sound that seemed to echo through the shadowy trees. The other ball was swung at, and there was nothing thin about this. In fact, the finely milled grooves of this latest tool of torture had nothing to do with the ball at all, separated by a thin but surprisingly long divot. The ball flew in slow motion into the centre of the bunker, landing almost on top of the first effort, and this splendid, precise divot - the sort that would make a greenkeeper cry - slapped in just beyond them, face down like the toast always lands.
And that’s how it has been since about ‘94, at a guess. If it were a case of only hitting fat shots, I suppose I could plan for it; play the pitch shot as a particularly aggressive and damaging version of the sand splash, and thereby manage to flop the pathetic ball flight just over the trap, instead of right in the centre of it. I am not sure how it would go with only thins, apart from that it would probably result in greater expenditure through lost balls, and on certain holes, at certain venues, double glazing bills. But I don’t have the certainty of a single form of sin…I never know which will come to visit.
You might be beginning to understand why I favour the ground game. The golden age of golf architecture, from which were borne many of the great layouts in the world, saw a shift from penal to strategic design. In the field, this meant that bunkers that had to be carried by all, often stretching across the width of a fairway or carry, would be replaced by ones carefully placed in such a way as to enable an alternative option.
The likes of Colt, and Simpson, and MacKenzie, would lay out holes and hazards in order that the player had to actively think about their choices, and often the shot that would bear the greatest fruit would be the one that required a degree of daring - the advent of “risk and reward” in course design. On many of their holes there will exist a way to get to the green for the less powerful player - an entrance through which a running shot can be played safely - and as many of their designs in the UK were either links or heathland, and there was no such thing as automatic irrigation, the firmer, more rugged conditions encouraged the ground game to be played.
All of which is music to the ears of someone carrying the trauma of the pitching equivalent of stage fright, or writer’s block. Faced with a straightforward pitch, even the black and white clarity of this absence of choice cannot help me muster the self control to just swing the club without this snatchy action, borne of terror. So the concept the old architects had of the weaker player needing a way to approach the hole often helps my score, if not my self-esteem. I will putt from the most ridiculous distances given the chance, to the amusement of my opponents and partners.
There is certainly some ignominy involved in pulling out the short stick when I am fully sixty yards short of a green, and some of the looks I get, including those from my own foursomes partner, ought to be framed. But deep down I know the humiliation of hitting a pitch will exceed anything that this hurriedly executed Texas Wedge might incur, and so I continue to elect that shot, and hope that, unlike when I am brandishing a lob wedge, my hands will act as if they share the same purpose, belong to the same body.
Because it feels with the pitch shot as if the two hands don’t really hold the club in harmony, as Vardon intended, but rather use the rubber grip as the grappling ring in which they fight each other for supremacy. It’s normally a fight in which both competitors die of shame, and I am grateful, on the few occasions when I cannot putt (hello, modern water hazard!) that looking down it is all over so quickly, the horror of impact as fast as the ball that explodes of the bottom blade at shin height. Or, if it is the other miss, as fast as the flight of the intervening divot that prevented an actual meeting of clubhead and ball.
This is where the video lesson comes in. I’d tried seeking help with my pitching before, although I would normally start such a lesson by half-joking that it was probably psychiatric help that was required rather than a technical glitch. One PGA friend, who I won’t name, watched me hit perhaps four pitches (two of each specimen, obviously), listened as I explained my mental fragility in the face of this basic stroke, over which I once had a blessed and effortless mastery (there’s that sentimental yearning, again), took a deep breath (or perhaps it was a yawn), and then spent the remaining twenty-five minutes of the prepaid lesson talking me through several decades of his own case of the same affliction.
His delivery was amusing as always, but I felt awkward in my breathless laughter, as if I was mocking someone whose leg had fallen off. It was a deeply personal interaction, as if two grown men had finally found someone who could really understand, empathise. I am sure he felt better when he told me that our time was up, although I can’t say the same for myself. The strangest “lesson” I’ve ever had, that, or so I thought at the time. A year or two later, another seasoned professional suggested we explore the video lesson, in order to better understand what was going wrong mechanically.
The answer to that question emerged quickly - everything - and the sole redeeming feature of my pitching to that point; namely that from my position above the action as operator it was over so quickly, was lost in the slow motion playback of an action that reminded me of the dancing of the late Ian Curtis, frontman of Joy Division. Look it up…he looks positively cheerful and beautifully choreographed by comparison with the frame by frame replay of my pitching. There are some things in life you just cannot unsee…watching it felt like I had a front row seat at an Atrocity Exhibition. Perhaps that was what Curtis was on about.
I’ve tried throwing money at the problem, too. eBay is full of discarded tools, but I think there is probably the same again in my loft, if not more. The bladed Mizuno’s from my original set of TP9’s, some ancient Hogan wedges, various PINGS, including the copper Eye2 legends of my childhood golf. There are Clevelands up there, too, and somewhere a couple of oil can Vokey’s, although I’ve worn away the rust on the leading edge, of course, and it feels like I am the one covered in oxide rather than these discarded and largely innocent weapons. The funny thing is that none of these worked, so it is clear where the fault lies, but still I blame my tools. And buy more.
So where does this leave me, and any poor soul condemned to play foursomes with me? Well, it turns out that the days when I could hit pitch shots at will is not the only element of my childhood over which I am still excessively sentimental. I stumbled upon a long-forgotten quote this morning from a writer I loved through my teenage years, the French existentialist Albert Camus, and his simplicity of language and straightforward approach to life remains deeply inspiring:
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer”.
I am off to the short game area, to try and find the path back to the pitch shot, my own hero’s journey in search of that irrecoverable condition. No need to wish me luck, or try to help, for I must face this fear, and the search for absolution, alone. But it is probably sensible if you don’t laugh. Or stand directly behind the pin.
I hope you enjoyed this latest, aimless rambling. If you did, please subscribe if you haven’t already, share it with a friend or two, and encourage them to subscribe. This in turn will encourage me to keep on writing this stuff! Asking to receive more emails is akin to turkeys voting for Christmas, but I promise I will try and keep them different from the rest.
I would also greatly appreciate your comments, either via the blog or social media, as they help me to gauge what is working well. You can find a link to some other pieces here, and please also consider following my twitter feed here. Thank you, sincerely!
I am also a fan of the pitch and run but don’t get the chance very often as my club is generally unsuited to it.I enjoy playing this way on links heathland and downland