Golf in London

I had high hopes for the Northern Line. My earliest memories of the Tube are of that dark old track. It’s hard to believe now, but not so long ago trains on the Northern Line were built of wattle and daub. It’s only recently that London Underground have experimented with such exotic materials as wood, metal and plastics.

It’s the Cinderella line, built for discomfort not speed, absorbing light and time as it clatters about in the dark, ignoring the timetable. No coloured rails to hold onto here. No shields to stop the jumpers. No gimmicks at all but the thick grime of skin and hair holding the seats in place. The carriages full of crusty, shadowy figures, half obscured by a low lying pungent mist of marijuana, just enough to cover their urine stained legs. The influence of the twin palaces of debauchery, Camden and Brixton, writ large over their cracked rheumy faces.

It bisects the rigid order of the geometric tube map like a venomous forked tongue. Masquerading as a mode of transport by day, burrowing under houses undermining foundations by night. A force for evil. An insidious subterranean menace sending its hot smoky tendrils out into the North and South West. Born in the bland black hole of Morden and fighting its way North to the frontier towns of Barnet and Edgware, where the suburbs gently trickle into the countryside, forming placid pools of nurseries and DIY stores. 

A low-speed depraved dominatrix, manacling suburban north Londoners to the cogs of its evil machinations - work, sleep and oysters. Rumbling and growling under the weight of the earth, feeding on the sooty squeaking mice that thrive between its tracks. Spitting sparks at passengers like some long forgotten beast brought to life by Tolkien. The ‘Misery Line’ for some, a passport to cheap City thrills for others.

Constantly drip fed with provincials at Waterloo, it churns their gizzards and perforates their soft downy eardrums , before processing them out like a giant mincer, to blink blindly among the cut price electronica and soft leather of Tottenham Court Road. Or to gaze idly at the matinees of a Lloyd-Webber-weary West End. It barely registers its cynical disdain of the gaudy tourist playground of Leicester Square where the flickering lights make the drunks indistinguishable from the celebrities as they shout and wave at the public. Before pressing on to the Gothic watery wonderland of Camden. Divulging its contented middle class teenagers to buy trinkets and practice their depression, then darting away to prise apart the twitching twee purse strings of Hampstead Villagers.

Nosing its way through the cans of Tenants Super piled high above ground. It emerges with a flash of lights and a rush of stale air, dispersing the smell of baked bagels and echoes of bygone broadcasters at Golders Green. Replacing their genteel fragrance with the familiar stench of burnt fuel and brake fluid. Shuddering through stations as though through a distant communist regime. A relic on wheels with its asthmatic wheeze, creaking undercarrige, and arthritic doors. Past a lone chrome wheel dangling from a railing, bent out of shape like a Dali clockface, long bereft of bicycle.  Only to gasp impotently outside the conspicuous gated wealth of Totteridge…

…in a vain search for golf courses.

But despite its promising length and brief stops at the wealthy enclaves of the middle class, there’s not much evidence of the Scottish Game out here, only:

1. South Herts (Totteridge and Whetstone)
Links Drive
Totteridge
London
N20 8QU
Tel. 020 8445 2035
Google map

2. Finchley Golf Club (Mill Hill East)
Nether Court
Frith Lane
Mill Hill
NW7 1PU
Tel. 020 8346 5086
Google map

3. Highgate Golf Club (Highgate) 
Denewood Road
London
N6 4AH
Tel. 0208 340 3745
Google map

4. Hampstead Golf Club (Golders Green)
Winnington Road
Hampstead
London
N2 0TU
Tel. 020 8455 0203
Google map

5. Urban Golf Soho (Leicester Square)
33 Great Poulteney Street
London
W1F 9NW
Tel. 0207 434 4300
Google map

6. City Golf and Health Clubs (Bank)
40 Coleman Street
London
EC2R 5EH
Tel. 020 7796 5960
Google map