Golf in London

I love playing golf, but never gave much thought to why. Even when prodded, I can’t latch on to and something immediately and say, ‘That’s it, that’s why I love it.’ And most times someone asks you about golf -  they don’t really want an answer. Its just some smart arse remark they had in store. Something about walks being spoiled, pimps, snobs and little white balls.

I don’t mind, it’s all water off a duck’s hairy bumcrack. Just some ribbing picked up second-hand. Golfers aren’t half as cool as most people’s blaxploitation image of a pimp and I don’t know anyone who thinks so highly of walking they worry it might spoil.

OK so snobs and clubs go together like pigs and shit, that’s a given. But however much it tries, golf can’t lay claim to all the world’s snobs. I must have been to over a hundred different golf clubs in the last three years and it’s always the same. The clubs with the windows that look like they’re dripping with condescension and steamed up with disapproval? They’re the ones that always the most friendly and welcoming.

I suppose now and again I wish golf was just a few degrees cooler. Not like Samuel L. cool, but just enough to thaw that mixture of pity and aggression which non-golfers reserve for meeting golfers. The way their eyes glaze over and seem to say, ’Oh, that’s a shame - you’re a borderline-autistic, misogynist pig’.

So I was happy to discover Timothy O’Grady’s book, On Golf, which is a welcome and convenient Lazy Man’s Apology for Playing Golf. Actually, it’s a lot more than that, but even on its own, that’s a good enough reason for me to read it.

O’Grady is a writer who happens to be obsessed with golf. He first came to write on golf through commisions from Esquire magazine and since then he has written about courses around the world and his encounters with famous professional golfers. I chanced upon him in an article he wrote for Time Out, which struck a chord with me.

This book is published by Yellow Jersey Press, publishers of Seve’s autobiography (I wonder how it compares to Peter Dobereiner’s book on the young Seve), Lawrence Donegan’s Quiet Please, and Tom Cox’s recent Bring me the head of Sergio Garcia (which I have reviewed here).

In eight short chapters bursting with considered facts, ideas and anecdotes he examines what it is about golf that has fascinated him - whether it’s hitting a pure golf shot or Arnold Palmer’s victories, or his blow-by-blow account of a 77 at El Saler - and describes how it has shaped his life and his relationships, particularly with his father:  

1.  The Shot
2.  Father and Son
3.  Can Golf Save the World
4.  Estrangement
5.  Professionals
6.  Marooned with Brigitte Bardot
7.  Mr O’Grady
8. Symposium

We follow from the author’s first brush with golf aged 8, to his caddying days at Edgewater Golf Club, on to his teens where ‘golf assumed an imperial presence in [his] life’  and his ‘estrangement from golf’ during his university years, to playing municipal golf in London and finally playing the world’s best courses on luxurious assignments with Golf World and Esquire magazines.

The weight and variety of quotes and anecdotes and the star turns from famous and unknown golfers which the author produces to illustrate why so many become obsessed with golf infuses the book with humour and authority. Until all the strands are gathered together and distilled in the ’symposium’ of ideas at the end of the book,  only for such high minded ideas to be brought down to earth by his touching account of the last days of his father’s life.

Golfers will enjoy reading this amusing and incisive account of why they are addicted to the game, and will devour the facts and quotes from famous golfers which punctuate the text. The tale of father and son will resonate with most readers and it’s told with a prose style not often found among golf books. You can read a sample in The Observer (3 August, 2003).

It’s not a new book, having first been published in 2003, but it’s still in print now in paperback. I think the hardback is worth searching out for its cover image of that coolest of student pin-ups - Che Guevara - putting out in military uniform (see above).

It will be particularly interesting for golfers living in London, as it describes the authors attempts to play golf with no car and no club membership. Maybe it strays too far down the cul-de-sac of analysis for some, but there’s always a gag or an anecdote to lighten the tone.

I enjoyed this little book, which manages to tell so much in so few pages.  It’s enough to stir even this laziest of golfers to think. Its style and themes won’t date and you can be confident giving it as a gift to a golfer or to someone unfortunate enough to live with one.

On Golf. Timothy O’Grady. Yellow Jersey Press, 2003. 0 224 06112 7. (currently available in paperback for £5.99)