"If God Designed Golf Courses, They Would Play Like This"

[David_Tepper]

Tom Coyne on Carnoustie and links golf:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/british-open-championship-links-golf.html

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, David. Lovely piece -- and likely true!

It reminded me of a beautiful passage from an old God-fearing Scot from the late 1800s, poet and writer and theologian/minister George MacDonald.  I liked it so much I went to look it up again (excuse the overtly 'religious' language/terms in some spots):

"'Sky and wind and water and birds and trees said to him, "Forget thyself, and we will think of thee.  Sing no more to thyself thy foolish songs of decay, and we will sing to thee of love and hope and faith and resurrection.'  Earth and air had grown full of hints and sparkles and vital motions, as if between them and his soul an abiding community of fundamental existence had manifested itself."

I think if God *did* design golf courses, He would design exemplary *fields of play*, nothing more and nothing less -- and let the *rest* of His 'scenery' and surroundings take care of themselves.


                 

[Marty Bonnar]

Nature, weather, climate, geology, geomorphology.
That’s it.
F.
Oh, and wind.

[mike_malone]

I worked with Tom’s dad for a few years and he sponsored me at Rolling Green. He’s a character and always fun to be around.

[Colin Macqueen]

David, thanks for the link!


Now that was a piece that stirred my soul! Golf, in the gloaming, is an absolute delight  on linksland.


I have fond memories of caddying at Carnoustie, for my Uncle Ivor, on many a summer evening. The "..crunch of hearty beach grass underfoot" and "..the thud of the ball hopping across hard-packed sand" are words that evoke exactly how it was for me those many moons ago.

Good writing which has almost brought a tear to my een!!

Cheers Col

[Thomas Dai]

Not sure I go along with the authors source of the word 'links'.
As to this Car-nasty stuff. The town might be, as someone once said, "a good place to emigrate from', but the golf.....Car-nicely would be far more appropriate.
atb