The ArT of Golf - Society of Hickory Golfers

y mungo park
news, notes,
correspondence
Hickory Golf –
the Modern Game
It is good to see that interest in playing
with hickory clubs is growing
steadily on both sides of the Atlantic.
Despite this, it remains a curiosity in the
U.K. to see someone playing with hickories
at his local club. Is the hickory game making
the comeback that it could? If not, what
is preventing it from being a modern and
accessible game? It seems that the debate
over hickories has in the past centred on
the concept of authenticity and historical
provenance, as well as on seeking to
establish a “level playing field” for those
using new and old clubs. Reproduction
hickory clubs have been frowned upon, and
occasionally excluded from events. Strokes
are added for incorrect dress at gatherings,
that purport to encourage the hickory form
of the game. At a time when “hi-tech”
manufacturers are driving the development
of the sport, rather than serving it, is it time
to re-evaluate the importance and benefits
of hickory golf?
Golf has not been slow, in recent years,
to realise that it needs to be more sustainable
and carbon-friendly. In course design,
its nitrate-rich, water-guzzling days seem
numbered. In the clubhouse, too, the
financial and environmental benefits of reducing
energy consumption are beginning
to be appreciated. Hoylake bravely led the
way, with previously unfashionable brown
fairways in the dry summer of 2006, and
the course challenged and entertained to
perfection. With the enlightened assistance
of the R&A, the Golf Environment
Organisation, Fine Golf, the Society of
Hickory Golfers, and many like-minded
golf lovers, more is being done to return
the game to a more responsible carbon
footprint, with finer grasses and a more
pleasurable and free-running game; and
fewer target-orientated set-ups. All of
this is likely to be well understood by the
many golfers who know something of the
game’s history, and perhaps played their
first game of golf with hickory clubs, but
that generation (my own) is passing, and
hickory golf is increasingly seen as an
historical, slightly eccentric activity, a “bit
of fun,” and irrelevant to the greater game.
I believe that hickory golf is more than
that, and can provide a genuine alternative
to “hi-tech” golf, although the golf
“industry” is predictably un-persuaded.
Every season, resource-hungry technological
change seeks to make last year’s
clubs and balls redundant in a frenzy of
celebrity-driven consumption. By climbing
onto this treadmill, and driving it
round at increasing speed, manufacturers
unwittingly diminish the game that they
seek to serve. Looking at the bottom line
will keep everyone’s head bowed.
Golfing numbers are decreasing. As
Adam Lawrence, the editor of Golf
Course Architecture observed last April,
“Every piece of research tells us that time,
cost and difficulty are the three factors that
prevent more people from playing more
golf…” and again, “…golf as a half day
rather than a full day activity – is vital to
the game’s future success.”
Technological innovation feeds an
insatiable appetite, we are told, for clubs
and balls that attain, for the mid-handicap
golfer, distance and accuracy beyond his
or her wildest dreams 10 years ago. But
the implications of this appetite are farreaching
and environmentally expensive.
Like the greed that drove the world into
financial crisis, technological advancement
may do the same to golf. It is already
impairing the quality and the pleasure of
huntercombe golf club in Oxfordshire, England, designed by
Willie Park Jr., is an example of traditional courses whose existence
is threatened by the modern need for “350 yard drives,”
according to the author.
the game for both players and spectators.
Many other industries have been in the
same situation, of dancing to the supplier’s,
rather than the consumer’s tune, allowing
the thing that they love to change out of
all recognition. It has taken committed and
vociferous consumer organisations to call
a halt and say “enough.” Of these, one of
the most successful in Britain has probably
been CAMRA (the Campaign for Real
Ale), originally a fairly motley collection of
home brewers, students and other beer enthusiasts
(I was all of these), who realised
that unless they did something to protect
“real ale,” it would, quite simply, disappear.
It nearly did, but, thanks to their energy and
enthusiasm, “real ale” is now embraced and
valued by a massively increased market, for
all the right reasons. In taste, its regional
inconsistency and diversity add to the
pleasure of its consumption, as against the
homogenised product that threatened to
supersede it.
In France, this central truth has long
been understood in viticulture, where terroire,
the nature, topography and aspect of
particular vinyards is minutely understood
and particularly valued. Whether in beer
or wine we all have our favourites, and
they are as diverse and interesting as the
regions, the brewers, and the winemakers
that produce them. In food markets, too,
the same has been happening in Britain,
where those who really care about the
quality of what they eat are once again
making themselves heard, and changing
opinion more widely. So what, other than
a predilection for good food and drink, has
this to do with hickory golf?
Although the organisers of hickory
events have no formal position within
the management of the game, they are
important in bringing a renaissance to the
genuine appreciation of golf, based on the
society of hickory golfers 10
spring 2012
game’s original form, and of attracting to
the game a younger constituency. Three
things stand in their way; plus fours, long
dresses and floppy hats. Let me explain.
Hickory golf is a modern game. This is
not the paradox that it may seem. Looking
at it simply, it presents a distinct and
valid alternative to “hi-tech” golf. To be
accepted as such, it needs to shed some of
its “historic” image. The young will find
it easy to marginalise as too difficult, too
“quaint” and played predominantly by men
(often over 60) who like dressing up as
“toffs” from the 1920’s. Unintentionally,
this also excludes those who are not good
golfers, and who don’t enjoy dressing up in
period costume. If we believe that hickory
golf has relevant and valuable qualities that
are disappearing from the game – and I do
– we owe it to the game, and to ourselves,
to broadcast the fact and to make a freerunning
game, played on
short, intriguing golf
courses (of which we
still have many)
that are part of the
local distinctiveness
that makes
one round so delightfully
different from another.
We need not accept the
hegemony either of equipment
manufacturers or the
media. We can reject those
course developers whose
mistaken perception
is that all golfers
need the space
and equipment to
hit 350 yard drives
on homogeneous
courses that, in their sterile perfection, are
becoming the same the whole world over.
At present, hickory golf is seen as elite
and exclusive, predominantly of historic
interest and perhaps slightly eccentric. To
be taken seriously it needs to abandon the
requirement to wear period clothing, and
outlaw the restriction on pre-1935 clubs,
except for specifically historical events. It
should encourage entries from the widest
possible constituency, and particularly
from young golfers.
If it were to do so, the game would
supply its own advertisement, and hickory
golf would again become a lively and
interesting modern game, accessible to all.
For the player, the challenge of hickory
spring 2012
less emphasis on period
costume might attract
younger golfers to the
sport, according to the
author.
Hickory golf is a modern game. This
is not the paradox that it may seem.
... To be accepted as such, it needs
to shed some of its “historic” image.
golf is enjoying an undiscovered gem. For
the club, there are financial and practical
benefits. Presenting hickory golf as a
modern game helps golf clubs and their
management in a number of ways. Older,
shorter courses, often of great quality, can
once again be considered significant and
benefit financially to a point where they can
maintain viable membership. The alternative
is to re-shape and lengthen the course,
often at great expense, only to have to do
so again in 10 years time as technology
moves on again. Hickory golf presents a
simple means of achieving a quick round,
more cheaply, on a course that is ecologically
sustainable and often closer to home.
Adam Lawrence’s “golf as a half day
game” becomes a possibility once again.
Where a round of 5,480 yards (Kilspindie)
will take somewhere around three hours, it
is hard to achieve one of 7,500 yards (The
Oxfordshire) in less than four.
What inhibits the development of
courses specifically for hickory golf is the
feeling that this form of the game, rather
like “real tennis” or “Rugby fives” is a
specialist game played by golf “geeks”
only interested in history. This need not
be the case. I see no reason why this form
of the game should not be promoted as a
modern game, played with modern clubs,
in modern clothes on new, as well as old
courses. I believe there are many practical,
financial and ecological reasons why it is a
worthwhile endeavour to do so.
Popularising hickory golf would achieve
many things. As has been shown, it would
reduce the time taken to achieve a challenging
and pleasurable game of golf by at least
25 percent. Two rounds in a day would
become a viable proposition again. New
courses, because they were shorter, and
required less land-take, would be less expensive
to build and maintain. They might
again be situated near to centres of population,
encouraging new golfers. Existing
“short” courses would not have to struggle
or close. Costs of maintenance would be
reduced, quality of landscape and ecology
11
Mungo Park
would improve. Membership subscriptions
would be likely to remain more stable, as
fluctuations in oil price had little impact on
a healthy golfing population.
New formats are already being tried – as
with 20/20 cricket. Powerplay Golf was
launched on Sky, and the “Tee it Forward”
campaign is gaining popularity in the U.S.
But these will do little for the game itself.
Hickory golf has the capacity to become a
modern game that is more accessible and
enjoyable than the present hi-tech variant,
however it may be modified. It offers a
sensible, and arguably a more interesting,
alternative to the design of 7,500-yard
courses. It would restore to many fine
courses distinction, rather than extinction.
Hickory clubs are still relatively easily
made, ecologically sound and reasonably
inexpensive. However, if it maintains its
“plus fours and floppy hat” image, and its
historicist exclusivity, it will remain remote,
and irrelevant to the golfing public; particularly
the young, to whom we pass the future
of the game. In so doing it will defeat what
I believe to be its purpose, to protect the
pleasure and value of a great game played
on great courses from the past, and to
provide the satisfying enjoyment of local
distinctiveness, through a uniquely subtle
and creative golfing experience. If this is
lost, golfers and golf will be the poorer.
I hope that in the future, every club that
has a suitable course will retain a couple
of sets of hickories to offer its visitors,
to expand their enjoyment of the game,
and the appreciation of the course; and to
demonstrate once again that golf, played on
a traditional course, with hickory clubs is a
substantial and satisfying test for anyone,
whatever their age or clothing preference!
Editor’s note: Mungo Park is a clubhouse
architect and golf historian. He is
the great-nephew of Willie Park Jr., who
designed more than 200 courses, and the
great-grandson of Old Willie Park, winner
of the first Open Championship in 1860.
www.hickorygolfers.com