No apologies from me for re-posting my thoughts...
The grey, misty, rainy dawn finally arrives, looking more like one from my homeland rather than the sunny, blue-skied one which has accompanied my life-long imaginings. Still, we are here to play Golf at ‘The Place’ and nothing - not even what we Scots call ‘a bit o’ dreich weather’ – can possibly be allowed to spoil the experience.
We drive along the scenic roadway through the trees and out into the grand panorama of the peninsula. Through the murky, drizzling downpour, we are able to see maybe only a few hundred yards at most. The lack of clear visibility only serves to add to the atmosphere of the place. It brings a perfect soft-focus fuzziness to the sensation of unreality presently attending the actual living-out of a dream.
I look around eagerly, trying to soak in as much detail as possible; making mental pictures, trying to record the necessary views for the ‘memory-movie’. Like a best-ever Xmas morning, I want, no, NEED, to be able to recall every moment of this special day; to be able to conjure up the entire experience in perfect detail in my mind for a long, long time to come.
Turning now towards the Sea, and dropping down to almost touch it, we pass through a glorious golfing landscape; a landscape as familiar as the Linksland of home, yet one also possessing a certain strangeness or, perhaps more correctly, an other-worldliness which is oddly unsettling to my eye. The shapes of the landforms are broadly the same as home, but perhaps somewhat more ‘theatrical’; many of the plants I recognise, but they are of a different ‘scale’; the rocks and soil look something like the rocks and soil of home but having somewhat bolder colours, shapes and textures.
Finally, a familiar vision begins to emerge from the mist. On the right side, a small peninsula reaches out into the ocean. Of course I feel I know it; I have seen it so many times in so many photos. My excitement levels rise as I know there are some of the finest holes in the world of golf there. This time, the overlapping horizons appear only in ethereal shades of grey, looking so like the monochrome images from a book I know very well; a jagged line of trees here, the rolling edges of dunes there. Then - rather quickly - more and more detail: crinkled bunker edges; a flag fluttering on a sweetly-contoured green; a tumbling fairway; areas of rough effortlessly merging with their gnarly surroundings; individual trees contorted into extravagant shapes by the elements. Good grief, I KNOW that Green! It’s the thirteenth at CYPRESS - and with luck I will soon be upon it!
Rounding the final corner, the entrance roadway appears, looking exactly as I had imagined; a sweeping, graceful curve wandering without a care into the woods. And there, devoid of any pretence, a simple timber sign proclaiming in subtle, tasteful white lettering: CYPRESS POINT CLUB; and, rather discreetly in smaller text, below a neat ruled line, MEMBERS ONLY. Why, of course! – this is ‘The Peninsula’; here there need be no fences or walls, no need for vain displays of neatly-trimmed box hedge or ranks of riotously-colourful summer bedding plants and certainly no need for an imposing grand guarded gateway. NO! Those would be ridiculous unnecessary affectations, for this is simply ‘The Peninsula’ – this is simply, Cypress Point.
We motor up the short driveway and, in the pouring rain, hesitantly begin to unpack the golfing gear. I ask myself some very serious questions. Will they allow us out? Do they close the Course on days like this? Do they perhaps do Rain-checks? Unnecessary questions as it turns out, as the rain begins to clear and I notice a few other lucky golfers also going about the same business, looking and sounding at least as thrilled as I. There may possibly even be the sound of an excited ‘holler’ or two. I simply can’t tell, for I am far, far away, in a world and time of my own, filled with my thoughts of MacKenzie and the days he spent here, creating this masterpiece.
So began a day without parallel.
A day which now, on reflection, fills me with an incredible happiness, tempered only slightly by a little sadness. The happiness, that which accompanies the realisation of a lifetime’s dream; the sadness brought by the knowledge of the possibility that it may never happen again. However, this is certainly not really a time for morose introspection, for this was the day I actually got to visit the golf course which figures in my thoughts and dreams more than any other. The day I experienced first-hand, the beauty, grandeur and elegance of The Good Doctor’s ‘Course without Peer’. The day I, at last, walked and played – Cypress Point. What a good day it was.
Hope you agreed!
FBD.