Most of you have answered a question that is sometimes asked around here - why would an 18 handicapper like me play with old Hogan blades? Because the nicotine, the 'juice' (not the fun or the pleasant experiences or even the happiness, all of which I'm grateful for) is the moment of unexpected transcendence, i.e. those moments when suddenly but most assuredly I find myself living in a universe where 2+2=5, where magic and mystery are not outside of/alien to the natural order of created being but instead at the very heart of it.
Here's a minor miracle: the other day, wet, windy and cold, I got to a 195 yard Par 3 and pulled out a 3 iron and aimed for the right side of the green and tried to draw it into a left side back pin placement, and I stayed down and came in from the inside and heard a sharp crack like a gun shot and watched the ball soar up on its intended line and draw in (though not enough) and land on the middle of the green, from where I two putted for par. And so for one brief instance, Ben Hogan and I -- separated by time and space and talent and life and death -- were able to share one singular, similar experience, i.e. the experience of mastery.
Great description, Peter, and I know whereof you speak -- but to me, it doesn't begin to explain why you'd play with outdated clubs. Hogan never did, did he?
For me, there are a bunch of nicotines -- and I'm in withdrawal from all of them this week, with the end of our season. (My wife and my daughter Rose have both, independently, told me that I am a little *off* these days -- and they're right. And they know why.)
Here's one golf nicotine -- sort of the flip side of mastery: the ridiculously (or perhaps sublimely) lucky shot.
In my last round of 2014, I came to our 16th hole (a c. 200-yard hole that Seth Raynor called "Redan," but which is really unlike any other hole I've played; the green looks like a Frisbee twisted down with your left hand and up with your right -- or like a potato chip). I was playing well, as I generally do when playing alone -- but I hit my worst tee shot of the day: a hybrid hit very thin. It cleared the water hazard, which should NEVER be in play, and ran up the hill toward the green, right toward the hole -- which was in a front-and-center location.
The ball had no chance of getting up the hill. I was about 20 yards short (22 by my pacing, afterward). The hole was 15 to 20 feet onto the green. I took out my putter, aimed seven or eight feet left of the hole (I knew there would be a big break right as soon as the ball got on the green) and gave it a big rap.
I guess I've given it away that the ball zipped up the hill, rolled onto the green, took a 60-degree turn to the right and dropped.
I felt like Costantino Rocca, in the Valley of Sin, in the final round of the 1995 Open. In my mind, I got down on my knees and pounded the turf in disbelief.
It is shots like those (along with many, many other moments) that will keep me addicted to golf, so long as I can play a little.