1. I'm not yet addicted to, or more accurately I've endured a lifetime of withdrawals from, the charms and beauty and rightness of a golf course like Walton Heath-Old.
2. 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.
Peter