Golf Clubs

(The below is taken almost verbatim from a recent e-mail to my particular friend Fred, because I am lazy.)

I have been thinking a lot lately about modern v. traditional, with regards to golf. I clearly prefer the traditional, natural links courses over the modern American over-watered, paved-cartpath strip mall courses. My recent thoughts have been to clubs, and if I should revert to my beloved collection of persimmon woods.

There was a time that I actually played with hickory-shafted clubs, circa 1910s-20s.
Although giving up dozens of yards on every shot, I played with a sense of appreciation of the past (and, I confess, a deeper appreciation of my self for appreciating the past).

I graduated from those clubs to a set of ca. 1930s steel-shafted Bobby Jones clubs. (Although R.T. Jones, Jr. never used steel shafts, the sets of clubs bearing his moniker had his seal of approval.)

From there I went briefly through a set of cast (not forged), perimeter-weighted, offset, oversized King Kobra irons. I was using these when I first met and worked with Duncan McCallum, my Scottish golf pro who worked at the (now defunct) driving range in Mission Bay. Duncan used beautiful forged Ben Hogan irons, which I loved. Justin Leonard, whose career I was following after his improbable come-from-behind Open Championship win at Royal Troon, also played Hogan blades.

Blades (irons made from forged-not cast-steel) are as notorious for their accuracy as they are for their lack of forgiveness for even slightly mis-hit shots. (If you’re ever in the clubhouse at Pebble Beach, which is a public building on a municipal course, you can see a glass case with one of Gene Sarazen’s original sand wedges. There is a visibly worn circle, right in the middle of the sweet spot. A woman asked Sarazen why he had sanded down the middle of the face of the club, to which he responded that he hadn’t, that was the result of hitting so many balls there. She refused to believe that EVERY shot it exactly in the same place. But that’s why he was a professional golfer. And she was not. But I digress.) I was not ready for forged irons, but I found a cheap set of used Hogan blades and have used them ever since.

At the same time, I got three persimmon Hogan woods (1, 3, 5). I used those for years and years, but over the last few years I have phased them out in favor of metalwoods. For the most part, my metalwoods have been very traditional looking (if not sounding), based on the standard dimensions of wood clubs. My latest club is a new Hogan driver, which is not obscenely, space-agely large, but it is slightly outside my comfort zone. This club has perhaps made me re-think my decision to abandon the persimmon.

I also recently added a matched set of hybrids, which I greatly love. Hybrids became fairly big about five or so years ago.

As you are no doubt aware, golf manufacturers are always looking for the next big thing to foist off (at grossly overblown prices) to their desperate consumers dying to improve their game. About 15 years ago, the latest wave were the Adams Tight Lies fairway woods (metals), which offered long and accurate shots from good lies in the fairway. Soon after, there were dozens of replicas flooding the market.

The Tight Lies revolutionized the average player’s conception that fairway woods were impossible to hit, instead fostering the belief that fairway woods were much easier to hit reliably than the hated long irons. This thought process has now been taken to a (logical) next step, the development of the hybrid sets. Adams again is leading the charge. In their flagship A4 set, the low irons/wedges have a fairly typical modern look, not unlike other wedges and low irons on the market. (The high loft of these clubs make them fairly straightforward for the average golfer to hit reliably.) As the clubs get longer, they morph more into the fairway metal look, so when you get down to the 3-iron, it is essentially a small version of the Tight Lies. The wide, rounded body distributes the center of gravity and allows for the forgiveness of the fairway metals. In between, there is a series of clubs, not unlike the old illustration depicting evolution: ape to man. Each descending club is a little bit less like the wedge and a little bit more like the fairway metal. The end result – the hybrids – look almost identical to the original hickory-shafted, long-nosed woods used in the 17th and 18th centuries in Scotland.

It’s come full-circle.

My golf links

For at least five years, I've daydreamed about making my own golf course. It would (naturally), be a links (or, at least, links-style) course. Ideally, it would be walking distance from my house, and open to me whenever I wanted to play.

There's an obscure sub-genre of golf called pasture golf, which takes on some of the tenets of the fabled Scottish shepherds who allegedly invented golf: take the land as you find it, add a hole, and get the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible. Fortunately for the Scottish shepherds, their fields were beautiful, rolling linksland. Unfortunately for most Midwestern pasture golfers, their fields are dry, dusty, flat-as-a-pancake hayfields. So, that's a bit of a loss.

There's a vacant lot I pass every day, twice a day, on my train to work. It's, oh, I don't know, 100 yards wide and maybe 300 yards long. There are pipes sticking up here and there, and it's very hilly, overgrown with native grasses and weeds. For years I've envisioned a course laid out on that property. Here's how it would work:



A green in every corner, with tee boxes on either side. From each tee box, you could play to the three other greens (blue lines). This, essentially, makes a 24-hole course over a very small area. The down side is that every hole criss-crosses every other hole, making play by more than one or two groups extremely dangerous.

But, the good side: no waits on the tees.


The ultimate, of course, would be to do this on a patch of linksy ground near a large body of water. Lake Michigan, while not an ocean, has proven itself worthy of passing for one with the much-vaunted Whistling Straits just up the road apiece.



And I've found a stretch of undeveloped (or, at least, at-one-time-developed-but-now-apparently-abandoned) land on the shores of Lake Michigan, just south of Chicago:

View Larger Map
I'd love to take that piece of land and turn it into a links-style course on the edge of the lake.

It is not big enough for a regulation course, I think (although 9 holes would probably fit quite well). And I wouldn't have $300 greens fees, either, to play there. It would be a private club, for members only, but the membership dues would only be enough to cover the expense of maintaining the course (most of which would be done by sheep, anyway). No, the exclusivity would be based upon the golfer's appreciation of links golf. You'd have to write an essay to join. And you'd have to convince the committee (the committee would be me) that you are a true links lover. No carts. No cart paths. No beer girls. No clubhouse and grille.

Just golf.

Leaving that for the moment in the pie-in-the-sky dreamland where it belongs, I do so happen to have a big vacant lot/flood overflow basin just down the hill from me, a two minute walk. Driving past it this morning, I see it's all dirt and knee-high weeds. I doubt there's a square foot of what you could describe as "fairway" turf on the entire property. But, on the plus side, it's THERE.

I'd guess at it's longest diagonal it's maybe 130, 140 yards. Which is long enough to practice a short game. I may just head down there this weekend with a bag of grass seed and a spade. I'll stick in a couple of holes, seed around a few spots, and wait.

Maybe my personal golf links is closer than I think.

Askernish

My particular friend Fred recently asked me if I had read the article about the newly-rediscovered Askernish golf course in the April 20th New Yorker magazine.

(Two side notes: a) he didn't so much ask as say "I presume you read . . ." I'd like to be cool enough to read the New Yorker, but b) Have you seen the New Yorker? Every article is like 15 pages long. Dense, typewritten pages. And it comes out every week. I just don't think I have the time to keep up with that much text.)

I finally - after much wailing and gnashing of teeth - secured a copy of the magazine in question, and . . . wow. I went from an apathetic "meh, my golf trip is never going to happen, so what?" to "oh-my-god-I-have-to-plan-every-detail-about-my-trip-right-this-second".

A well-written article, it follows the uncovering of a Tom Morris gem on the tiny island of South Uist (off the west coast of Scotland), which seems to be everything I would want in the a golf course: original, natural, as-you-found-it linksland. I'm smitten.

Completely.

So, it's gotten the juices flowing, and once again I'm dying to set off on my adventure. Over the last couple of days, I've been researching the kind of old-school, true links courses I want to play. Askernish is, of course, the top of that list. And Machrihanish has never left the list. But, just like last summer when I was planning this trip, more and more times I find a Scottish course I want to play, it turns out to be in Ireland.

One other thing I had forgotten is my home-base/cottage idea. A stroke of genius, that. So, here's my new plan:

Fly into Dublin (or Belfast, if that's cheaper). the home-base for the first week is County Donegal, which is on the northwest coast of Ireland. There are a heaping handful of courses to play there: Connemara, Carne, Rosapenna, Ballyliffin, Nairn&Portnoo . . . the list goes on and on. Home base in a cottage in County Donegal, equidistant from all courses.

Then a drive over to the east coast to play Ardglass, which is technichally in Northern Ireland, but a not-to-be-missed course nonetheless. Then a quick pop up the coast to Larne, where we catch the ferry to Troon, in western Scotland.

From here, it's a series of bed-and-breakfasts as we hit Machrihanish, on the Mull of Kintyre, from where there is another ferry to the island of South Uist, on which lies the aforementioned Askernish.

After that? Maybe a drive down the west coast to Glasgow to see the sights and then across the M8 to Edinburgh. I think the trip culminates on the east coast of Scotland, with a late afternoon round at St Andrews. It seems silly to go all that way and not see the Home of Golf. And, while playing the Old Course typically requires a papal injunction, from everything I've read, that typically applies to a foursome, trying to book on a specific day, in the morning, in high season. I have read in multple places that a single can sign up in the morning and it is rare indeed that he does not make it out that afternoon. I'll take my chances.

The down side to this plan is that for any non-golfers in attendance, that first week is relatively uneventful. Across the country from Dublin, the most interesting non-golfing attraction is the potato famine museum. Which, you know, sounds thrilling and all . . .

Maybe I should go for a week, and then meet up with the others for a week or two? That way I get some unencumbered golf, and then we can do the more touristy parts of Scotland together? Hmmmmm.

My "Ideal" Golf Trip

My “ultimate golf trip” parameters:
Two weeks, start to finish
Off the beaten path, interacting with true locals
Good, local food and drink
Castles, historical sites
Finding experiences which cannot be replicated elsewhere: not much time in the large cities because large cities, for the most part, are all the same. Sure, there are distinguishing factors that make Paris Paris, and London London, and Chicago Chicago . . . but ultimately, with the shops, restaurants, bustle, traffic, pollution, crime and multi-ethnic populace, Paris is nearer in feel to New York than it is to a small village in the Loire Valley. It is to me, anyway.

One iteration of the plan is to lease a cottage (or, ideally, a restored lighthouse—how cool would THAT be?) and use that as a home base for the entire fortnight (yes, I said ‘fortnight’), making day-trips out. The whole of Scotland is smaller than Oregon, so that seems a reasonable plan. (I think it’s about 45 minutes from Edinburgh on the east coast to Glasgow on the west.) It would make for a couple of long driving days (4-6 hours in the car, play 18 holes, 4-6 hours back . . .) But it has the benefit of not unpacking and repacking every night, which can get old. Especially with a family in tow. If it were just me, I would rent a car, drive where the feeling took me, and crash out for the night wherever I stopped. Somehow, I’m thinking that plan is not going to fly with the little woman.

That’s one of the biggest decisions: get a nice cottage, use it as a home base, and get a sense of being a local, or stopping every night at a different B&B.

My inclination is to split the difference; spend a week in each of two general locales, with a home cottage in each.

Ahhh, but where?

Glossary

blades (n): Forged golf irons. High-end, not forgiving. Made for the better player.

British Isles: a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe which comprise Great Britain, Ireland and a number of smaller islands.

chalk stream: the English term 'chalk stream' is most widely used among a small group of fly fishermen (who fish for trout on these rivers utilizing a specific type of artificial fly and their attendant techniques), as the ecology of the chalkstreams creates an especially entertaining variation on the general theme of fly fishing.

England: a country, which is part of the United Kingdom.[3][4] Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population,[5] whilst its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain.

gorse: a genus of about 20 species of evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia. Other common names for gorse include furse, whin and furze. A typical hazard on a links golf course (see below).

Great Britain: the larger of the two main islands of the British Isles. Great Britain makes up the largest part of the territory of the state known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England, Scotland and Wales are mostly situated on the island.

heather: The national flower of Norway, but with a strong affiliation to Scotland. It is a small perennial shrub growing to 20-50 cm tall (rarely to 1 m), and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on well-drained acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade. The other (along with gorse) typical hazard on a links golf course.

Ireland: is the third largest island in Europe. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.

links golf: Golf played on links courses; i.e., courses built on sandy soil (whether seaside or not) and that are buffeted by winds. A links course must play firm and fast, with sometimes crusty fairways and greens that feature many knolls and knobs to create odd bounces and angles. And a links course needs to be relatively treeless with a native rough that is tall and thick.

Linksland: The British Golf Museum says that "links" are coastal strips of land between the beaches and the inland agricultural areas. This term, in its purest sense, applies specifically to seaside areas in Scotland. So "links land" is land where seaside transitions into farmland. Links land has sandy soil, making it unsuited for crops. The land, in fact, was thought to be worthless because it was not arable for crops.

match play: a scoring system for golf in which a player or team earns points for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; this is as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted.

Mendoza Line: The Mendoza Line is an informal term used in baseball for when a player's batting average falls below the boundary between extremely poor and merely below-average. It is often used to characterize a batting average of below .200. The term is named for former shortstop Mario Mendoza, who actually hit .198 in the 1979 season.

Scotland: a country that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It is part of the United Kingdom, and shares a land border to the south with England.

United Kingdom: commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain, includes the island of Great Britain, the northeast part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland.

My Golf

I’m 37 years old and I’ve played golf seriously for about half my life. By ‘seriously’ I do not mean that I play professionally, or even that I play often. I do not have a regular Saturday game; I do not have yearly outings with my co-workers, college buddies, or neighbors. I do have a biennial (or is it biannual?) grudge match, but more about that later.

I’ve never been a long hitter. Which would bother me, if I let such things bother me. I’m a solid six feet tall, with an average build. Guys my size, and smaller, routinely out drive me.

Many years ago, I went on a golf outing to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, a bachelor party for my brother-in-law. There were, what, probably eight of us there, I suppose. At the time, I was still playing persimmon woods (I’ve since – reluctantly – gone to metal-headed long clubs) and I did not even carry a driver. I was hitting my Ben Hogan persimmon 3-wood about 220 yards off the tees, and getting smoked by 50 yards by various Big Berthas and the like. But you know what? I was in (or near) the fairway on every hole, they were not. I was on or near the green in regulation, they were not. They might be 300 yards off the tee, but I’d roll in my 6 foot up-and-down to win the hole. Every hole. Round after round. I’m like the Pepe le Peu of golf.

(All of that being said, I just got myself an oversize, draw-inducing Ben Hogan driver that I was TOTALLY crushing at the range. If I can keep that in the fairway, and long, I’ll be unstoppable.)

I’m Ben Hogan man, myself. The Hawk. Mr. Hogan. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is the fact that he’s the greatest ball striker in the history of golf?* That might have something to do with it.
I think it might have something to do with my first and only formal golf teacher, Duncan McCallum and it probably also owes something to Justin Leonard winning the Open Championship at Troon in 1997.

That was just about the time I was getting into golf in a very serious way, and the way I’m hard-wired, the Open Championship has always been THE major for me. I like the Masters. I respect the US Open. I watch the PGA. And the Players’.

But I LOVE the Open Championship.

I remember reading about Leonard after he won. It was a dramatic victory; a come-from-behind win, and it was a compelling story. Leonard, a short but accurate hitter (like me, I thought!) a Texan who idolized Ben Hogan and played Ben Hogan sticks. 1988 Apex redlines.

* Are you going to debate me on this? I didn’t say he was the greatest golfer ever. I said he was the greatest striker of the ball. The only people you can talk about in the same sentence are Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. I think Tiger’s a better golfer than Jack. I think time will prove that. Will Tiger ever match Hogan pure execution of the golf shot? I doubt it. Although, his 2005 Open Championship at St Andrews in which he didn’t hit a single bunker over four rounds? That’s pretty strong.

Itinerary

The purpose of this journal is to chronicle my planning for, preparing for, and ultimately taking the “once in a lifetime” trip to play golf abroad. (And to fish. And see castles. And important art and stuff. And eat. And drink.)

This trip was going to be my 30th birthday present to myself. But a few years before that, my first son was born, and we got too busy. So then it was going to be my 35th. Guess what? Second son, second postponement of the trip.

So, now it’s on target to be my 40th birthday. Which is about two and a half years away. There will be no more children (thank you, Dr. Challenger), so right now all systems are a go.

In 2011, Charlie will be 13, Henry not quite eight. Both old enough to “get” the trip, and remember it. But young enough to not, you know, be teenagers. And I’ll still be young enough to be able to walk the hills and dunes of the Scottish and/or Irish coast, day after day. After day.

Of course, this trip was originally going to be the “ultimate golf in Scotland” trip. I was going to hit the big ones: St Andrews, Carnoustie, Royal Troon, et al. Every golfer’s fantasy trip.

But one of the primary motivations behind this trip is to get AWAY from American golf and to try to get back to the roots of golf. Authentic golf. True golf. And the more I read about those courses, and the more I planned my trip, the more I realized that, rather than escaping from overpriced, over-watered, over-crowded American courses, I’d be heading for more of the same. The more I read about the great courses, the more it began to dawn on me that that is not where I am going to find the true golf experience I’m looking for.

So, a couple of years ago, I decided that rather than hitting the ‘big boys’, I’d play the more obscure, lesser-known courses. Courses where I could truly find that authentic Scottish links experience.

Lately, I’ve been torn. A year or more ago, I came across several magazines and books that really pushed the Irish golf experience. The general gist I got from these sources was “if you’ve been looking for that authentic Scottish golf experience, you really should just go to Ireland instead.”

Now, my latest reading indicates that enough people have followed that advice to make Ireland not the hidden golf destination it was even a decade ago. Prices are skyrocketing, business is booming, and the courses that were described in the first editions of “Golf in Ireland” books as “stunning golf, dirt cheap and virtually deserted” are described in later editions as “overrun with American and Japanese tour buses” and “four or five times the price from the last time we played there.”

(Its gone so far as my having recently received this tip: “You want the REAL hidden links treasures . . . go to Wales!”)

So I’m in a quandary. On the horns of a dilemma, if you will.
Which is one of the motivating factors behind this journal. I’m hopeful that it will become interactive, and that you will help me plan and execute my perfect trip.
No pressure on you or anything.