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© Copyright Julieanne
Savage and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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In my role as an accredited 'Golf
Course Whisperer' with over 20 years experience, one question that I
am constantly being asked by my parents is: “When are you going to
move out of our house, settle down with a nice girl and give us
grandchildren?”
I suppose when you break that down it's
actually three questions, but they always phrase it like it's one,
and they always wear the same plaintive expression when they ask it.
My mother likes to supplement this with an air of concern and
desperation that she otherwise reserves for the interventions they
periodically stage on my behalf.
I long ago came to terms with the fact
that my higher spiritual calling will forever remain at odds with my
parent's conventional notions of a secure middle-management position
in a recognised industry, a stable relationship and a double-figure
bank account. The vocation of Golf Course Whisperer is a solitary
one, akin perhaps to that of a shaman who must exist on the fringes
of the community he ministers.
My working week consists of a daily
white-knuckle commute to-and-from the astral realm, bolstered by
fistfuls of organically-grown, sun-dried psilocybin*
which I supplement with other, synthesised compounds that have been
bulked out with varying quantities of powdered detergent. I obtain
the latter from a bloke called Dave who owns three Rottweilers
and typically greets me from behind a reinforced door on those
occasions when I visit his 12th floor flat on the
flagrantly lawless 'Pleasant Oaks' housing estate.
~
Once a person has set foot on the
mystical life-path of the Golf Course Whisperer no two days are the same,
although I will admit that there are certain broad similarities:
Generally my work will bring me into contact with a golf course of
some description, however it may not be the same one as yesterday, or
the day after.
You might encounter me one morning,
striking naked yogic poses on the ninth hole at Royal Birkdale, at
the mercy of a small crowd of troll-like elderly men, whose ear,
nose, and eyebrow hair is in open rebellion, and who threaten and
heckle me from a safe distance while they await the arrival of
security.
Another day will find me freshly
bailed-out of jail by an old school friend who, during the long drive
home, will wearily inform me that this is absolutely the last time,
while in the back seat, their wife or long-term girlfriend glowers at
me in the rear-view mirror.
The time may come when you will see me
from a distance – a hazy silhouette, a few shades darker than the
dawn mist - licking a putting green in a spiral pattern from the edge
to the centre.
The following day you may read in the
local paper of my hospitalisation with suspected chemical fertiliser
poisoning.
The itinerant life of the Golf Course
Whisperer is physically and mentally demanding, accomodating few of the
modern comforts that we mostly take for granted. When I told the
careers advisor at my school of my intention to follow this path, he
suggested instead a career as a pop star or an astronaut as more
realistic alternatives.
Despite his counselling I chose to
remain true to my calling: A man or woman who finds themselves gifted
with the one-in-a-million ability to communicate with golf courses
must graciously accept the heavy mantle of responsibility that has
been laid upon his or her shoulders and should not be seen to buckle
under its weight.
~
Golf courses are the thoroughbreds of
manual landscaping - aberrations of a natural world that has been
warped according to the fastidious desires of men and women with
questionable fashion nous and a misplaced sense of self-entitlement
that seems to exist in equal proportion to their material wealth. Is
it any wonder that these shotgun alliances of manicured greens,
rough-fringed fairways, arid sand traps and brackish water hazards
are so prone to the mind-bent throes of lunacy?
The word 'madness' is a
frowned-upon expression in this era of heightened political
correctness and slavering Twitter hate mobs, however I find it an apt
description of the turmoil that festers beneath turf of the average
golf course, which, when left unchecked, will blossom into ever more
extreme manifestations of mania and depression:
A Native American legend passed down
orally from generation to generation speaks of a bunker on the 11th
hole of Nopah Golf Course in the US that fell victim to insanity and began to
expand, first covering an adjacent putting green, then a fairway,
until finally it engulfed the entire course and the surrounding
environs. Today this barren wasteland - the natural habitat of
rattlesnakes and coyotes - is more commonly known as the Mojave
desert.
In northern France a megalomaniac pond
flooded a golf course transforming it into a wetland preserve for
endangered wildfowl, ubiquitous colonies of newts and no less than
three species of endangered frogs, each one more obnoxiously loud
than the last.
In February 2013, a golf course occupying the
English hamlet of Lower Knotly declared itself a work of art and
claimed squatter's rights on the top floor of the Tate Modern on
London's south bank. Following its court-mandated eviction it moved
in with the model, Kate Moss and now has her name tattooed in a
scrolling banner across one of its heart-shaped greens.
The examples I have mentioned above all
represent extreme cases. By far the most common manifestation of
madness in golf courses is a regression to infantilism:
Golf courses who retreat to the safety
of childhood will shrink down to a fraction of their original size. Their crudely executed fairways are typically
strewn with discarded toys - windmills are popular, as are
waterwheels and faux Aztec temples. Outbuildings will be limited to a
small shack where players can rent putters and balls, and maybe also
purchase a Calippo that has been allowed to partially thaw and then
refreeze over and around its crumpled tubular packaging.
One should never lose sight of the fact
that these so-called 'Crazy Golf Courses' (as they have been branded
in psychological journals) were once mature 18-holers. They had their
own driving ranges. Their club houses played host to social functions,
such as wedding receptions and 70s-themed quiz nights. They had
trophy cabinets and some manner of large oak plaque where the names
of former captains were recorded chronologically in gold lettering.
Although drug treatments do exist I
advocate a program of rehabilitation based around the recovery of
lost self-esteem. My aim is to re-instil within a crazy golf course
the confidence to host an international tournament such as the Ryder
Cup, or the Rider Cup where the players must execute golfing manoeuvres
while on horseback.
Towards this end I try to appeal to my
patient's concept of play: A novelty windmill whose sails perform no
useful function, apart from perhaps preventing a ball from passing
underneath, can be fitted with the mechanism that allows it to grind
flour, which can be turned into bread by a local bakery. This
new sense of purpose can help to foster within the golf course a sense
of belonging to the local community
Etching hieroglyphics onto the sheer
sides of a wooden obelisk can transform it from an inconvenient
obstacle to a place of religious significance for those who worship
the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, nurturing any unfulfilled spiritual
yearnings that a golf course might have.
Fostering a sense of adult responsibility is vital to recovery: Recently I sabotaged the famous lighthouse at Branscombe Cove, leaving the smaller lighthouse
on the 6th hole of the crazy golf course, in the nearby
village of Buttonmoat, solely responsible for diverting container
shipping away from the jagged rocks that line the narrow deepwater
channel.
I have also campaigned vigorously
against those practices that exacerbate mental illnesses in golf
courses. To wit, an absurd law dating back to the late 1800s that
requires all crazy golf putters to be forged from melted down murder
weapons and cooled in vats of human blood.
Not all golf courses can be
rehabilitated. The Yorkshire Dales National Park is made up of a
patchwork of courses who have been allowed to return to a feral
state. These are culled annually to remove any sick or weak specimens
and ensure that their numbers do not increase to a point where they begin to encroach upon human settlements. Recent
attacks on ramblers during the golf course mating season may lead to
more draconian population control measures being introduced.
~
My parents will never accept or
understand my chosen career, but I hope that anyone who has read this far
will recognise the value of what I do.
*
I firmly believe that I have discovered a loophole in the current UK
drug legislation that negates the class A status of psychedelic
mushrooms if they are consumed doused in milk, at which point they
can be re-classified as a breakfast cereal and eaten within full view
of the police, theoretically with zero negative consequences.
There are officers within my local
constabulary who strongly disagree with me on this point and there is
an impending court case that will clarify the situation, hopefully in
my favour. These same police officers remain equally dismissive of my
assertion that heroin is not illegal if it is used as a seasoning in
cooking.
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