Does This Literary Quote Aid Our Grail Quest?

[Ronald Montesano]

"Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble I had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the XXXXXX YYYYYY past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was not till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension of the grandeur of the scene."

I had this moment when I looked out over Arcadia Bluffs in Michigan. Seeing the vast majority of the entire property from one vantage point allowed me to experience this sense of rapture.

With all the threads on course greatness, is this quote one of the rails on the tracks that lead us to an understanding of authentic architectural magnificence?











The quote comes from Life On The Mississippi from Mark Twain and the words "river" and "flowing" replace the XXXXXX and the YYYY

[Carl Johnson]

On the lighter side . . . Personally, I am not a fan of water hazards on golf courses.

[Mark Bourgeois]

This could be the first and hopefully last time anyone compares Fitzgerald (that's him, isn't it?) and...Arcadia Bluffs.

(Given the course's name maybe you'd be better off finding a quote from Tom Stoppard.)

I would say in a general way the passage from the book that never fails to get the head spinning (the good kind) is the one about the last time man experienced something commensurate with his capacity for wonder: being in the presence of the "fresh green breast" of America. Something like that.

EDIT: whoops, didn't read the whole post. Thought that was Gatsby believing in the orgastic green light. And now we can add to Fitzgerald's litany: plagiarizer! (Yeah, that must be it; I'd never get an attribution wrong.)

[Mark Bourgeois]

On the lighter side . . . Personally, I am not a fan of water hazards on golf courses.

But Carl, Clemens was referring to a lateral hazard. Those are okay, right?

[Carl Johnson]

On the lighter side . . . Personally, I am not a fan of water hazards on golf courses.

But Carl, Clemens was referring to a lateral hazard. Those are okay, right?

I'm not sure which way he was looking at it.  Additional research may be necessary.  You might say that a water hazard is not possible because the river would be too wide to hit over it, so it must be a lateral water hazard.  But, consider an island green just offshore -- one of those that you must take a small boat to and and return from.  In any case, I'm not really keen on lateral water hazards either . . . when my ball goes into them!

[John Kavanaugh]

Sorry but the above quote is confusing because it did not come from Clemens.  It is a quote from a Scottish Sea Captain in a book compiled by Mark Twain.  I really couldn't figure out why Clemens has to travel long and far to see "the river".

I get why a guy who had traveled across the oceans to see the Mississippi may not see the grandeur at first glance.  What I don't understand is how this relates to a golf course like Arcadia Bluffs that becomes more bland over repeated visits.

[Mark Bourgeois]

John, that is very well played. Well thought and well searched.

I suppose you and I could be criticized for not seeing the forest for the trees. Well, I could, at least. Clearly you are able to speak for yourself.

My own feeble attempt at redemption is a quote from Arcadia -- could it apply to Arcadia Bluffs? "When we have found all the meanings and lost all the mysteries, we will be alone, on an empty shore."

Don't spoon feed us the mysteries and always stay hungry, people. Or, in the case of water hazards lateral and otherwise, stay thirsty.

[Ronald Montesano]

Sorry but the above quote is confusing because it did not come from Clemens.  It is a quote from a Scottish Sea Captain in a book compiled by Mark Twain.

This is not very true at all, other than the part about the fellow being a sea captain. The book is not a compilation of anything; it is Twain's life story, to a certain point.

When we have found all the meanings and lost all the mysteries, we will be alone, on an empty shore.


And when is this very likely? At what point has anything in life lost all meaning and mystery? If it has, then you are either not looking hard enough or always looking from a single vantage point/perspective.

Point is, the original quote by my own self doesn't refer to any specific course~what I ask is, must it be the starting point for a course to be considered great?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - I'm a fan of Stoppard's, a truly wonderful talent.  But that's a literary quote -- no, better, it's a quote for and from the stage.  It's meant to be heard, in context, but in passing...lest we have time to let it sink in and weigh its truth.  It has a lovely cadence and balance and beauty, but IMO it merely skates along the surface of those two great awesome depths, meaning and mystery.

Ron - for you, what was it that was enrapturing? Was it the grand vista? Was it the journey to get there?  I don't mean to put you on the spot, or for you to put into words the depth of your feeling. I'm just suggesting -- in answer to your specific question -- that the capacity to be inspired/enraptured (in you) is at least as important to the experience as the vista (in this case, the golf course).  I do think, however, the "greatness" in a course may well be related, i.e. it may be the necessary partner in the conversation, the dialectic.  As I suggested recently, I think there is an "art of seeing" - who we are impacts what we see.

Peter   

[Ronald Montesano]

Pedro,

I'll confess that the first view was from a golf magazine and, says I to myself, I must get there. I did, and stood on the veranda and looked out and around. I did so again as we came through the 8th hole, did so again when I ran from 9 green (a bit away from the clubhouse) to get a bottle of water, did so again when we finished 18, did so again as we were about to leave the property.

It was the ability to take it all in (something that not all great courses offer, as there may be no single viewing point) that connected the Twain quote to the experience for me. You can't stand at one point at Merion East, for example, and take in the 1st and the closing holes, but you can cross the road and get a view of that incredible stretch from 2-12. That's kind of the same thing. Stand up by the clubhouse at Shinnecock and similar things happen.

I believe that there was only one great golf writer, and that was John Updike. The rest are very good golf writers. That Updike came to us from outside golf, suggests to me that we need to go outside golf to find the inspiration we need to detail and describe our golf. It might be musical lyrics, poetry, painted canvas, theater or other prose.

[John Kavanaugh]

Ron,

It feels to me that you saw the grandeur of Arcadia on your first visit.  This appears to be the opposite of Captain Hall's experience at the Mississippi.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter, but it's not just a throwaway quote, it's the central theme of the play, which Ronaldo unintentionally supports. The whole point of life is searching for verities known to generations past, lost to us, but ours to (re)discover. (You know, like Ontario.) Kind of helps explain why we end up discussing many of the same topics. That, or we all have Alzheimer's.

Monty, it's personal taste, and maybe mine is in my mouth, but even with Mid-Life Crisis Onset I just can't get into Updike. Me, I'll nominate Rick Reilly's SI and Thomas Boswell's 1970s-1980s stuff. Anybody who gets it done before thirtydashthirty gets my call, although Reilly gets an asterisk for only having to serve a weekly master.

On the other hand, and working off memory, "that arm;" "the good kind, like you get in the Shell stations back home;" and "Well, I've got Bosnia about to blow up on me" continue to delight.

[Ronald Montesano]

John,

I see your point. The evolution of my question could be, does it matter when the grandeur of the XXXX hits you? Does greatness of a course strike at first glance or after a dozen glances?

Marco Polo,

I do like Reilly, although not as much of late. I was a big fan of the two fiction novels about Ponky and its denizens. Updike's Golf Dreams is such a thorough book of golfing observations that I place it so high. The only other I would place with him is Wodehouse, now that I think about it.

[Rich Goodale]

Ronaldo

All grails are internal.  To call any of them "ours" demeans the indivdualities of the human spirit and misses the elusiveness and unpredicitability of "grailness."

Golfing wise, my grail was and is the first hole at Turrnberry, but I didn't know it at the time and today visit it very infrequently and when I do experience only dying warmth rather than a true tingle.  However, when in my mind I can return to that morning of 16 April 1978, the wholeness of the hole unfolds in front of me, and if there is only one golfing grail, that is it, at least for me.

The good news is that grails appear nearly every day, if you are attuned to them.  My latest golfing one was 10 days ago standing in the (other than my wife and I) completgely unoccupied clubhouse at Durness, on a stunning day, looking across the spectacular 9th/18th green and over the bay to a set of even more spectacular dunes on which only clueless amateurs such as we would even consider building a golf course.  My latest non-golfing one was two days ago playing tennis for the first time with my wife and two daughters on a family weekend away.

I am sure that there will be many more to come, golfing and otherwise.

Cheers

Rich

[Ronald Montesano]

That's a pretty superior attitude to take, Mr. G100%dale. I'm glad that one citizen of this planet is so cocksure of what is and what isn't, for I certainly am not.

Supposing that you are correct, isn't it sad and depressing that a grail quest cannot be shared? Next, do you suppose that my quote derails the individuality of the grail quest? Finally, is there no unpredictability in the events described in the quote?

I am tickled pink and purple to read of your time at Turnberry. I certainly had one of those at St. Andrews, another at Bethpage Black, another...well, I concur that there will be many more to come.

Yet, the events that you describe, are they planned or unplanned? I think it is impossible to state that a grail quest cannot to some degree be planned. A quest is not a trip into the unknown, seeking the unknown. It may result in the unexpected, but it always begins with the known.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Grasshoppers,

What is this about multiple grails, personal grails, serial grails? What is the story of the search for the original Grail?

Exactly. Come back when you have found the correct metaphor for whatever it is you are trying to describe.

[Stephen Davis]

This is how I felt when I came over the hill on Old Mac's #3 for the first time (and each time since). Seeing the entire course open up before my eyes was pretty spectacular. Definitely somewhere I could stay all day.

[Rich Goodale]

Ronaldo y Marco

The only thing re: this fine thread is that I am "cocksure" about is that there is no "grail" (golfing or other wise, single or multiple).  I think we are describing ephiphanies, which whilst also arising from Christian mythology, have been proved to be a proper metaphor for self-defining human experiences, by Joyce and others.  I'll take my metaphors from Joyce rather than Dan Brown (or even Fitzgerald) thank you.

Vaya con Diaz

Ricardos

[Mark Bourgeois]

Wasn't the epiphany in that Joyce story negative? Maybe what you're after is a Patsy Cline metaphor eg for minimalism or overly hyped courses: is that all there is?

Stephen, welcome to the zoo. When you laid eyes on the 3rd, did the scales fall from your eyes and all the eternal verities -- and mysteries, that's a critical component in this metaphor -- come rushing in (epiphany) or did you say, perhaps to a caddy or a playing partner, "At last! Here is a hole commensurate with my ability to wonder." (Fitz.)

[Rich Goodale]

Mark

There were epiphanies in each of the 15 stories which comprise Joyce's "Dubliners."  His being Irish, most of the epiphanies are bitter sweet, but the bitterness is about the environment in which the characters seem to be doomed to live, while the sweetness comes only in small doses and in the guise of hope.  As I am not Irish, I can look at the bitterness dispassionately but revel in the sweetness.  Just as being a crap golfer, I can deal with the inevitable tragedies of the links while still rejoicing in the wee moments of sweetness that raise every round well above the humdrum of daily life.

Cheers

Rhic

[Mark Bourgeois]

Sooo...we agree, then?

Sorry Joyce. I will continue to stare, in wonder, at Fitz's fresh green breasts.

PS I do recall a story in Dubliners where he wants to go to the fair -- Elysian Fields? -- and ends up in some sort of Crystal Palace type thing, where for some reason a powerful wave of shame washes over him. I feel that way when I find myself, fully golf attired and golf bag on shoulder, standing beneath the board in Waterloo Station.

[Rich Goodale]

Sooo...we agree, then?

Sorry Joyce. I will continue to stare, in wonder, at Fitz's fresh green breasts.

PS I do recall a story in Dubliners where he wants to go to the fair -- Elysian Fields? -- and ends up in some sort of Crystal Palace type thing, where for some reason a powerful wave of shame washes over him. I feel that way when I find myself, fully golf attired and golf bag on shoulder, standing beneath the board in Waterloo Station.

Next time at Waterloo, Mark, dress like a older member of, say, Royal Troon, i.e. like a rat catcher just back from a job in the Gorbals carrying his bag of ferrets.  You'll feel an epiphany greater than any of Fitz's imaginatively mouldy breasts.....

[JMEvensky]

Wasn't the epiphany in that Joyce story negative? Maybe what you're after is a Patsy Cline metaphor eg for minimalism or overly hyped courses: is that all there is?

 

James Joyce and Patsy Cline in the same post--that's talent.

Wasn't this Dubliners story about a guy who did/didn't cause a former lover to commit suicide Karenina style or have I conflated a couple of them?

[Rich Goodale]

Mark (and JM)

It could be that Ronald is describing a Patsy Cline moment vis a vis Arcadia Bluffs ("I fall to pieces, each time I see you again") whereas I am channeling Joyce's passion when he wrote, in effect:  "The CBM-huggers on GCA did not throw Hugh Wilson to the wolves; they tore him to pieces themselves."

Rich

[Mark Bourgeois]

A P, RG do you mean a  ?? I am emoticon impoverished but re Troon food-stained ties I do have. In abundance. So I'm good there.

JME the joke's on me as I'm not sure if the Patsy Cline thing is metaphor or metonymy. Probably neither. Well, I'm pretty sure the Fitz Breasts are metonymy. You'd have to play the entire body to hole out, right?