{"id":1000,"date":"2013-02-23T13:17:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T18:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=1000"},"modified":"2013-02-23T13:17:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-23T18:17:29","slug":"ancestral-links-by-john-garrity-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/instruction\/1000\/ancestral-links-by-john-garrity-an-appreciation","title":{"rendered":"Ancestral Links by John Garrity: An Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ancestral Links<\/em><\/strong>, by John Garrity.\u00a0 Published in 2009 by New American Library.
\nAn occasional series available at http:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/: The Best Golf Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best golf writing maneuvers along a treacherous ridgeline separating the chasm of sentimentality from the gorge of self-indulgence.\u00a0 There\u2019s something about golf that gets the sap rising.\u00a0 In Ancestral Links<\/em>, John Garrity had to tread with special care, because his themes normally come pre-slathered with schmaltz, to wit: a dear departed but occasionally impecunious and complicated father; the illness and death of an older brother; and memories of his parent\u2019s divorce when he was a boy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

"Shivas Garrity"<\/p><\/div>\n

This rich emotional material is squeezed into the narrative of a long, reflective golf-rich sojourn to the Irish town of Belmullet.\u00a0 The nearby \u201cbleak, lonely Mullet Peninsula,\u201d was the point from which his great-grandfather, Michael Garrity, had paddled out to sea on his way to board a ship for America. \u00a0(On arrival, he somehow flushed all the way inland to western Wisconsin.)\u00a0\u00a0 That Garrity negotiates this terrain with modesty and good humor, gathering a feast of delightful stories, is a testament to his reporting skills and to his courage, which is what it takes to face the past without inventing a narcissistic, self-justifying present.<\/p>\n

The subtitle to Ancestral Links<\/em> is \u201ca golfing obsession spanning generations,\u201d and among Garrity\u2019s discoveries is that his mother, who he never saw hit a shot, had been an excellent golfer in her youth.\u00a0 He was already well-acquainted with his dad\u2019s golfing passion, which was handed down to all of his three children.\u00a0 The oldest, Tom, was good enough to play on the PGA Tour, but, burdened by a stubborn perfectionism, didn\u2019t stick it out. He was good enough to beat Jim Colbert to win the Kansas Amateur. \u00a0Dan Sikes, who won six times on the PGA Tour, said that there were a hundred guys on tour who\u2019d pay to have Tommy Garrity\u2019s swing, but while Tommy was stuck \u201ctrying to perfect his swing while he\u2019s playing,\u201d the successful pros he was competing against focused on getting \u201cthe ball in the hole any way you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garrity always assumed that his golfing gene came down to him from his Scottish, Stuart ancestors, not from the Irish refugees launched on their journey by famine and despair.\u00a0\u00a0 He knew nothing of County Mayo or the wonderful golf course there until his good friend, the American golf course architect Jim Engh, mentioned in passing that while Ballybunion, which every golfer knows, was his favorite course, a \u201cclose second\u201d was Carne, in Belmullet.<\/p>\n

Garrity had been to Belmullet in 1989, but remembered only a \u201crudimentary\u201d 9-hole inland course, not a classic links.\u00a0 That\u2019s because Carne\u2019s first 9 didn\u2019t open until 1992, and the full 18 wasn\u2019t ready to play until the next year.\u00a0 One of the pleasures of Ancestral Links<\/em> is Garrity\u2019s account of Carne\u2019s creation, a shoe-string enterprise that depended largely on the support of the local tourism authority, the dedication of a committee of local golfers, and perhaps above all to the generosity of Carne\u2019s designer, Eddie Hackett, referred to by the American golf writer, Richard Goodale, as \u201cthe godfather of Irish golf course architecture.\u201d\u00a0 (In addition to Carne, Hackett designed Ballyliffin, Rosapenna, Donegal, Enniscrone, Connemara, Ceann Sibeal and Waterville.\u00a0 Goodale\u2019s appreciation of Hackett, \u201cDesperately Seeking Eddie Hackett,\u201d appeared in Issue 13 of Golf Course Architecture<\/em>, July, 2008.)\u00a0 Most of his work has been modified, but Hackett\u2019s courses form the backbone of Ireland\u2019s best modern links.<\/p>\n

Tom Garrity was able to visit and play Carne with John, and felt a particular affection for the 17th<\/sup> hole, a treacherous and demanding par 4 of 436 yards. \u00a0\u201cYou drive over a gully to a fairway that rides a ridge and bends to the right around a plateau of shaggy moguls,\u201d Garrity says of 17.\u00a0 \u201cThe green hides behind these mounds, the only hint of its existence being a solitary sand bunker set into a distant hillside.\u201d\u00a0 It was Tommy\u2019s idea to play an entire \u201cround\u201d on 17, hitting three tee shots in each sequence, then play them out and return to the tee five more times, thus playing 18 holes. \u00a0\u00a0Garrity writes that \u201cthe idea grabbed me the moment I heard it,\u201d thus providing a leitmotif<\/em> that sounds throughout Ancestral Links<\/em> and supplied its narrative glue.\u00a0 Tommy, who imagined the 17th<\/sup>hole quest but never got to try it, thought 80 would be a good score, but after all, he had been a touring professional.\u00a0 John, who plays to a 12, set as his goal breaking 90.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The 17th at Carne. Used with Permission<\/p><\/div>\n

Introducing us to the locals, who note that his height (Garrity\u2019s 6\u20197\u201d) and \u201cgood looks\u201d are common among Garrity men (who spell the name \u201cGeraghty\u201d in Belmullet), Garrity paints a convincing and enlightening portrait of the small Irish town where he\u2019s taking his sabbatical.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0He also demonstrates what an important role Carne has played in resurrecting the local economy\u2014something similar in character if not in scale to what Mike Kaiser did with Bandon Dunes in southern Oregon.\u00a0 Garrity finished the book before Ireland\u2019s property collapse summoned the ghost of gloom from the graveyard where contemporary Irishmen had hoped to inter it permanently.\u00a0 \u00a0Still, Carne has been an enduring success, and later this year a third nine, designed by none other than Garrity\u2019s American friend, Jim Engh, one of the best in the business, will open.\u00a0 You can see photos on Carne\u2019s website, and if you love links golf, you will surely salivate at the prospect of playing all 27 holes.\u00a0 In the meanwhile, spend a few hours in the pleasurable company of Ancestral Links<\/em>, a perfect companion for anyone contemplating a trip to golf\u2019s most enthralling province, the west coast of Ireland.<\/p>\n

********<\/p>\n

Ancestral Links<\/em> deserves a spot on the shelf of the best golf books ever written, next to Garrity\u2019s Sports Illustrated colleague Michael Bamberger\u2019s To the Linksland<\/em>, and James Dodson\u2019s Final Rounds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To learn more about John Garrity<\/a>, go to http:\/\/www.johngarrityonline.com\/.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For more on Carne<\/a>, http:\/\/www.carnegolflinks.com\/index.html<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancestral Links, by John Garrity.\u00a0 Published in 2009 by New American Library. An occasional series available at http:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/: The Best… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,32,33,9,3729,5353,18,17,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-instruction","category-golf-course-architecture","category-reviews","category-golf","category-golf-travel","category-tourism-ireland","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2013\/02\/ShivasGarrity.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1008,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions\/1008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}