The Great Game has nothing to do with deadly power rivalry in Central Asia and about who controls the Silk Road, the Hindu Kush or the Khyber Pass. It is all about the serious activities daily occurring at Muirfield, at Royal Birkdale, at Augusta, and at thousands of venues throughout the world, furrowing the brow of nations and giving participants 18 chances of triumph or disaster. In short the Great Game is the game of Golf.
Golf is called a game but it is in fact a kind of religion to be approached in hushed tones. PG Wodehouse writes comically in Those in Peril on the Tee, about how Frederick Pilcher and John Gooch play a round of golf, which they both desperately try to lose, for the hand in marriage of the formidable Agnes Flack, under the baleful gaze of lovesick but violent Sidney McMurdo. It is funny but a touch blasphemous. On a golf course you seldom hear peals of laughter only the odd groan, impossible to suppress, as the ball disappears in a dense stand of brambles. I recall guffawing loudly when my convivial partner Spike, at an otherwise jolly company golf day, drove off wildly hitting the ladies tee box causing the ball to rebound over the starter’s cabin and land 30 yards behind him. The spectators and other golfers were po-faced and silent and I realised I had committed yet another gaffe.
The Scots claim to have invented golf and they certainly codified its rules. As Scots are known to be serious-minded to a fault, it is not hard to see where the reverence for the game comes from. One can imagine an early McTavish, horny-handed son of toil, trudging over the windswept shore at St Andrews, calculating how a fiendish bunker might be fashioned and gaining some dexterity with a primitive club and pebble. A later McTavish learns the arcane secret of the gutta-percha ball and profitably carries the clubs of the snootily well-born and famous. Our modern pro McTavish rubs his hands in anticipation of the arrival of bus-loads of Americans in vivid checks, eager to kiss the sacred soil and spend mega-dollars on the paraphernalia of the great game. Much too serious a matter to be laughed at.
The vocabulary of Golf is an early obstacle. When I first was conscious of the game in the 1940s people still talked of mashies, niblicks and brassies (no, not peroxide blonde ladies in Soho), all clubs of varying lofts. The names were sensibly standardised by the Americans but we still have eagles, birdies and bogeys (triple-bogeys in my case), not to mention fairways, GASP and Mulligans. It all adds to the mystery - not unlike albs, orphreys and chasubles in matters ecclesiastical.
Learning to play the game only to a moderate competence is a labour of many years to all but the precociously talented. Depending on your mood, psychological state or hangover, you are likely to duff this drive, foozle that chip and miss a sitter of a putt. These frequent setbacks must be shouldered with a philosophic steadfastness although even Tiger Woods has been known to throw away a club and many lesser golfers attempt to snap one over their knee – but this is very bad form. This is where GASP comes in, (Grip, Address, Stance and Posture), steadying ordinances murmured to yourself, but hard to get all four right.
Having achieved some small ability, you should then try to join a club. This used to be a great and snobbish trial but now, apart from a few famous names, most clubs will at least consider your candidacy as the economic crisis has seen membership rolls nose-dive. To be admitted, you will have to be “played in”, an ordeal usually involving a round with the Captain and an Old Member to see what you are made of. In my case I was made of soggy meringue and I committed the horrid solecism of putting my ball hard against the Captain’s so that he was knocked away rather like a cannon in snooker. If looks could kill, I was toast. Somehow however I was admitted through pure cronyism – a revered former Captain, a business friend, had kindly proposed me!
After 30 years hacking round a variety of private and municipal courses, my own club golfing career was short and undistinguished. I enjoyed my club in leafy North London with its convivial bar and gentle undulations. I later joined one in the Cotswolds. There the members were very friendly too but the course was built on the side of a steep hill making a round a challenge for alpine troopers, let alone middle-aged gents with cardiac premonitions. After moving mainly to under-golfed and baking hot Greece, my enthusiasm gradually fizzled out, to the silent disappointment of my eldest brother who has been a good golfer all his life and who would still cross continents to attend the midweek Medal.
I can understand his dedication and that of proper golfers. I once watched Tony Lema, sadly soon to die in a plane crash, and Peter Alliss, later to succeed Henry Longhurst as the BBC voice of golf, play in Scotland and the power of their play, their long drives and accurate irons bowled me over. For much of the last 60 years, the Americans have dominated with charming Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in their pomp walking off with all the trophies. Even Nicklaus became fallible however, taking 4 shots to get out of Hell Bunker at the 14th during the 1993 Open at St Andrews.
Gradually the Europeans reasserted themselves. Who can forget the excitement of Tony Jacklin winning the Open in 1969 and then the US Open in 1970 or of the epic demolition of Greg Norman by Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters? Drama was evident too as Jan van de Velde, paddling without his socks, threw away the 1999 Open at Carnoustie with a catastrophic triple-bogey at the 18th and we could not watch Rory McIlroy go to pieces, shooting an 80 after 3 rounds of glory at Augusta in 2011. After a wait of 65 years, Sandy Lyle became the first Scotsman to win the Open in 1985 and the first Briton to don the green jacket at the 1988 Masters.
The Ryder Cup, long an American victory procession, burst back to life when the continental Europeans joined it in 1979 and Europe has won 4 of the last 5 competitions. Golfing talent is abundant. Great players like the mercurial and much-missed Seve Ballasteros have graced this event and curiously super-golfer Tiger Woods has never shone, even before his private demons undermined his game.
Apart from these public highlights, regular golfers the world over enjoy smart club-houses, beautiful courses and convivial company (although golf bores do pop up) - and they get away from their spouses. I now depend on my TV for viewing golf and I play Nintendo WII golf with my lovely wife every day. We are well matched, both unable to better a 4-under-par round and blissfully I do not have to don windcheater, waterproof trousers and lug caddie carts and bellow “Fore!” as my drive slices to the wrong fairway. Currently my namesake Luke holds the World No1 spot and I bask in reflected glory. Although I cannot prove it, I am quietly convinced he is a 6th cousin twice removed.
SMD
1.6.11
Copyright Sidney Donald 2011
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