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A Golfer's Education
By Darren Kilfara
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001
ISBN: 1-56512-301-8 $24.95
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Bernard Darwin slipped just a single golf reference into The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
It's from C.B. MacDonald's Scotland's Gift - Golf.
A University of St. Andrews don is struggling with the game.
"Ye see, Professor," a caddie jibes, "as long as ye are learning thae lads of the College Latin and Greek it is easy work, but when ye come to play golf, ye maun hae a heid!"
A heid indeed, especially to make one's way around the vexing Old Course, where the winds turn par threes from an easy 9-iron one day to a driver the next; a place Tony Lema likened to an old grandmother: "crotchety and eccentric, but also elegant."
Enter enterprising Harvard scholar and occasional Golf Digest contributor Darren Kilfara. Our man clearly has a heid, having the good sense to take his year abroad in St. Andrews. The Old Course is visible from his dorm. Feigning study at the ancient university, he embarks on an advance degree in links golf, wasting no time in procuring a pass for unlimited play for the astonishing equivalent of $150.
Against reality, the mystical glamour of THE HOME OF GOLF inevitably fades somewhat. When the local cinema extends the run of Braveheart, some of the locals take to attacking anything remotely English.
Also tough to take is the trail of golfing buffoons. Carnoustie caddies apparently refer to the more ridiculous Americans as "Charleston Whitfields III." A steady diet of C.W. IIIs forces Darren to confront an outbreak of reverse cultural snobbery. "I wanted to be a native, knew I was a student and abhorred the thought that I might also be a tourist." Elsewhere he muses: "How do the Scots put up with us?" Amusement value, one guesses, and the dollar. Ask the Irish.
There are other issues including an obsession with score. "I've always been so absorbed by my scorecard," he shares early on. "I can hardly loosen up enough to enjoy myself." It's a hard habit to break but 28 rounds on the Old Course and an interesting episode squiring around a blind golfer are strong medicine.
He comes around but not before discovering that his upbringing and pedigree in the game is no more a match for the ancient Scottish tests at golf than the hapless professor's mastery of the Classics. It takes time but slowly the inherent greed of American golf, the fever to play as many of the "great" courses as if they were beasts to be conquered on safari - enjoyed God Dammit! before crossed off a list - is flushed from his system.
The reader tags along on an introspective and entertaining quest. Times are good. He gets around and is adept at painting the picture. "Seeing the Old Course for the first time was like meeting a movie star in the flesh," he marvels, falling hard. "I somehow doubt that any course could ever provide the depth and the richness of experience that St. Andrews can." It's a lesson The Old Course has imparted for centuries. He analyzes and overanalyzes but with the help of a local lassie, the beauty of the game and Scotland, he begins to get IT on many levels.
What's not to like? There are sandwiches inside the R&A (Every November 30th the doors are opened to the public). There are quaint digs like "That shot was absolute toilet" and "Pants!" for bad shots. There's one magical match, the BBC's radio golf coverage, and the pleasures of hidden gems (Machrihanish), and the New and Jubilee courses enjoyed by the townspeople, faster and less hassle.
He doesn't drink. The lassie has feelings. He gets poetic. ("The dying embers of autumn flickered in the darkly proud gorse…") It's all part of the transformation although, remembering my own year feigning study in the U.K., well, to each his own.
Golf in the Motherland, he figures, "probably works because everything is taken in moderation, including moderation." That's quite telling, actually. Those merely tuning in for some insider tips (it's pronounced Mahk-ree-AHN-ish) will not be disappointed but they'll also get a sense of the world that lies behind the " haven of golfing tranquility and purity." It's an aspect of life the tourists invariably miss trying to keep to the schedule, observations that form the heart of the author's education.
Of the Old Course, an R&A member tells him of a "large Boston lady's" observation, a non-golfer, it turns out: "It's shabby, it hasn't changed in 400 years, and it's very British."
"That's why I love it so," our hero adds. Here, here.
Split the Difference
"What I've learned is that when a fellow is hitting the golf ball well he should try to keep in that groove until it becomes a habit." Mr. Ben Hogan
"Nothing can be gained by tinkering with your swing after it has been once straightened out." Mr. Bob Jones
Duly Noted - Edition I - Shouting at Amen Corner
Duly Noted - Edition II - Precision Putting
Duly Noted - Edition III - In the Women's Clubhouse
Duly Noted - Edition IV - Royal and Ancient
Duly Noted - Edition V - Into the Bear Pit
Duly Noted - Edition VI - The Biography of Walter J. Travis
Duly Noted - Edition VII - Uneven Lies
Duly Noted - Edition VIII - Sir Walter & Mr. Jones
Duly Noted - Edition IX - The Golf Ball Book
Duly Noted - Edition X - Balls!
Duly Noted - Edition XI - To Brookline and Back
Duly Noted - Edition XII - The Golden Era of Golf
Duly Noted - Edition XIII - The Story of Golf in Oklahoma
Duly Noted - Edition XIV - Fourteen Clubs and the Auld Claret Jug
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