Royal Porthcawl<\/a> something? \u00a0Prime, I said. \u00a0The Aberdovey members certainly wanted to hear that they had a links that overmatched Harlech, but nobody was soft-soaping the lordly dominance of Porthcawl.<\/p>\nAll this golf chat was conducted to the defiantly unmusical pealing of a bell, periodically yanked to life by the bartender, whose domain also served as the service bar for the other — white cloth — side of the restaurant. \u00a0Evidently it was thirsty work, for the bartender, a hale fellow in his mid-60s, refueled his own inner man each time he shipped an order. \u00a0As the evening wore on, he grew more rubicund and the bell grew louder, more belligerent. \u00a0On that trajectory, the evening ended.<\/p>\n
When I arrived in the Aberdovey car park next day, I could see the bartender standing near the practice green, and I thought I was going to have a very interesting playing companion. \u00a0He looked me up and down, told me to follow him, and headed for the clubhouse. \u00a0When we got to the door he turned to me again and told me to take off my hat. \u00a0We went upstairs. \u00a0He knocked on a door — the Club Secretary’s door — and I was given the honor of a formal introduction to Mr. Ian Hamilton. \u00a0The secretary hoped I would enjoy Aberdovey’s links. \u00a0With that, I was whisked downstairs. \u00a0And no, I wasn’t going round with my friend the bartender, who wasn’t playing at all, but had come over just for the rite of introduction. \u00a0He shook my hand and departed.<\/p>\n
I played, in fact, with two young, well-to-do gents out for a few days from London’s Wall Street, The City. \u00a0Because Aberdovey is close to London, a simple train ride from downtown London to the clubhouse door, (a convenience Darwin loved), it is something of a summer colony. \u00a0Its strand is lovely, full of dogs walking their people, the sea air is bracing, and the shopping is more cutting-edge than old curiosity. \u00a0The links themselves are built on a thumb-shaped piece of coast pushing into the sea, obviously prime golf real estate. \u00a0The earliest course comprised nine holes, these being flower pots sunk into the turf. However there was soon a realization as to just how splendid the local linksland was, and the Club was formally founded in 1892. \u00a0The first 18 hole-course measured some 5,540 yards, and over time it has been tweaked by some of golf architecture’s best: \u00a0Harry S. Colt, James Braid, and Herbert Fowler. \u00a0Darwin said of Fowler that he had a knack for finding\u00a0interesting routing with minimal invasiveness. His quiet hand touches Aberdovey in just that way. \u00a0There are few bunkers, and many greens are laid out at grade level.<\/p>\n
Because the greens ride the landscape, the hardest thing about Aberdovey is hitting approach shots with conviction. \u00a0The lack of mounds, or flashed bunkers, makes distance estimation a problem. \u00a0Being told<\/em> it’s 160 meters to the center is very different than knowing <\/em>it’s 160 meters to the center. \u00a0Creeping doubt is a golfer’s enemy and one of the architect’s most subtle skills. \u00a0Aberdovey, while loping and unfettered-feeling, is still full of double bogeys. \u00a0Lank, heavy, club-stopping grasses are the enemy. \u00a0They also hide golf balls most effectively. \u00a0An Aberdovey man is, of necessity, a superb ball hawk. \u00a0 And, bless him, a caddy of sorts. \u00a0For there are holes, in the center area of the basic out and back vee of a links, where several flags are visible, and the correct choice isn’t apparent.<\/p>\nOn the first hole, between the tee box and the fairway proper, lies a pronounced mound. \u00a0Last of a lawn mower, I was told. \u00a0Hmm? \u00a0Yes, from back in the day when mowing was no different that tilling; a horse provided the pulling power. \u00a0And when this one up and died on the crew, there was no sense in doing anything but digging a hole and rolling him in. \u00a0Thus the mound. \u00a0I began to ask if that was really so, but I stopped myself. \u00a0A good yarn or a hard truth? \u00a0Is there a difference?<\/p>\n
There is one hole, one unforgettable hole, the kind of hole you desperately want to nail, that violates the basic out and back structure of the course, and that is the par-3 12th. \u00a0It sits high up in the shining grasses of a dune and slyly offers just a peek at its redan-style green complex. \u00a0Far to the left the stick stretches its neck above all that you must carry or go around. \u00a0The hole plays towards the water, and into the prevailing breeze. The first time I played it I hit the ball just left of the throat, and we watched it begin a good-looking slide towards the hole. \u00a0Tap birdie. \u00a0But that’s not right, is it? \u00a0My second, and, I’m afraid, most recent, effort, involved a snipe, which proved a lost snipe. \u00a0Then, ball gone, hole tragically misplayed, I handled the pin for the other players because I was (metaphorically, since I had no ball) in the linen. \u00a0The walk to 13 is short, and was no doubt lovely that day. \u00a0I was looking at my shoes.<\/p>\n
The last three holes head back to the clubhouse. \u00a0Going right risks another go-round in the thick stuff, but going left risks the train tracks, out of bounds. \u00a0Trains clatter through often, and I couldn’t help but feel that since virtually every man, woman and child in Great Britain plays golf, that there was some swing analysis going on in the passing coaches. \u00a0There was a last on-course story. \u00a0Our Pen Helig bartender, in the midst of his stretch run one afternoon, hit an awful hook. \u00a0A train, meanwhile, was gathering momentum out of the Aberdovey station. \u00a0There was that moment, that electric instant, when it became obvious that an intersection of ball and train was inevitable. \u00a0The only available emotion was fascination. \u00a0The ball, hooking hard, struck the train head on and spiderwebbed the engineer’s windshield. \u00a0He couldn’t stop fast enough.<\/p>\n
“You’ve hit my train,” he shouted, adding\u00a0some salty language to his wrath.<\/p>\n
There was no denying that bare fact: the bartender, already out of bounds and most unhappy about it, was back on his heels, sputtering, nearing a dreaded l’esprit d’escalier<\/em>, desperate for a rejoinder. \u00a0“Well,” he finally shouted back, he too dressing up his language for the occasion, “If you’d been running on time, you never would have been there.”<\/p>\nAfter the gauntlet of the final three holes comes the cure. \u00a0Upstairs in the clubhouse lounge are mounted the bits and pieces of a history that goes back more than 125 years. \u00a0I noticed a set of old golf clubs and ‘featherie’ golf balls neatly affixed to a wall. \u00a0They were presented to the Club by a member of the course-founding Ruck family, who wrote of them: “Set of golf clubs actually played with at Aberdovey about the year 1882.”<\/p>\n
In the grill I asked about Darwin. \u00a0Surely his passion for Aberdovey didn’t go unremembered?<\/p>\n
A member sitting with us excused himself, approached the barman, and said something I could not hear. \u00a0In a moment, a man whom I had noticed wheeling his clubs to the bag room minutes before, appeared in the grill. \u00a0I believe he had been waiting outside. \u00a0He introduced himself as Mr. O.G. James, and said he understood I cared to see the Darwin Room, of which he was the keeper. \u00a0He led me down a flight of stairs and unlocked a door. \u00a0There was — too bad for me — very little time to explore a place that begged for a good long browse. The Darwin Room is part memorial, part a library of sorts, full of Darwin’s prime products: books, both his and many others, and collections of his columns, along with clubs, balls and hardware that dates from an age that while earlier than ours, is hardly dead. \u00a0We know the game, and the way in which he writes of it: it’s all as fresh as the breezes that called him from his desk in London to the seafront at Aberdovey. \u00a0Mr. James, who plainly was familiar with every scrap and trinket in the room, gave me a cook’s tour. \u00a0I found myself as interested in him — the keeper of the flame — as of the room itself. \u00a0I didn’t know his name, had no notebook, and so when I inquired after him a month or so later, described him (to my eventual mortification) as an utterly genial, rather elfin-looking man. \u00a0I had this in return:<\/p>\n
Dear Tim,<\/em><\/p>\nI have just picked up the email from our secretary Ian Hamilton about your visit around the Darwin room at Aberdovey golf club in Wales. \u00a0I’m sorry it has taken so long for me to collect this email and reply but my elfin duties have kept me busy!<\/em><\/p>\nMy name is Owen Gwyn James and I have been a member of Aberdovey golf club for 40 years. When I first joined I was teaching in London and then I moved to Hereford where I now reside. \u00a0I have always made an effort to attend the Easter and summer meetings at Aberdovey and have been successful in one or two competitions over the years. My lowest handicap was nine. I now play off fourteen, not very well. \u00a0I am currently recovering from major surgery, so my golf is on standby. I hope to be fully recovered before long. \u00a0I have had the honour of being Captain of the club in 1999 and am currently Vice President, an honour which runs through 2010.<\/em><\/p>\nI have always taken an interest in the history of the club and when made Vice President I offered to become, with my friend, and former President, Dr. Edward Bell Davies, archivists for the club. So far we have listed all the books in the collection. These consist of most of Bernard Darwin’s published works, together with other historical golf books donated to the club by various societies and members. We have numerous photographs from the 1900’s onwards which we are in the process of cataloguing. Arranged around the room are other items associated with Darwin, i.e. articles from <\/em>The Times. \u00a0Darwin whenever he was “lost” for a piece to write, inevitably wrote about golf at Aberdovey, whether it be the junior championship, or the Welsh championship. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\nSome interesting facts about Aberdyfi (Welsh spelling):\u00a0\u00a0It is a founder member of Welsh Golfing Union 1892; Dennis Amis, former England test (cricket) player is a current member; and\u00a0Ian Woosnam and Ian Baker, former Captain and Vice Captain of the Ryder Cup, are honorary life members, both having caravans on the club park.<\/em><\/p>\nIf there is anything more I can do to help you, please let me know.<\/em><\/p>\nGwyn <\/span><\/em><\/p>\nDarwin in his day found comfort and ease at Aberdovey (not to mention the occasional emergency column), although a line like \u00a0“…about this one course in the world, I am a hopeless and shameful sentimentalist and I glory in my shame….”\u00a0\u00a0could never be written for the sake of expediency, but only from joy in the game brought to life by a favored links. \u00a0In the years since Darwin wrote that, the equipment has changed and changed again, book bindings have grown stiff, newspapers have gone yellow with time, but\u00a0Darwin’s writing stands up, and so does the golf course he loved best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The links at Aberdovey, Wales, as you see, are not a difficult place to get up an afternoon’s worth of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1483,1694,9,2226,1245,17],"tags":[944161,1259,268,1260,1261,1262,1417],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kalos","category-haversham-baker","category-golf","category-perrygolf","category-about-the-gameessays","category-courses-and-travel","tag-golf","tag-aberdovey","tag-wales","tag-royal-porthcawl","tag-harlech","tag-bernard-darwin","tag-ian-woosnam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2010\/04\/211.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":77,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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