Clayton then wandered up to the green and, while chatting with his pals, bent over and simply picked the ball up, and strolled off.
Those with him were aghast – what are you doing, man? Don’t you want to make the putt? Don’t you want to make a birdie? Don’t you want to score?
I’m good, thanks, Clayton said, or words to that effect, before loping off with that languid stride of his, one likes to imagine squinting around the property, mentally designing ‘holes that aren’t holes’, and just enjoying his time amongst the gnarly, natural, bulbous, rolling links that he and Tom Doak designed along the wild north-east coast of Tasmania.
Golf, you see, for the renowned architect, former European Tour pro and Golf Australia magazine columnist Clayton is a touch more … organic, say, than it was in his angst-ridden, score-focused, play-for-pay days.
Today, like Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) in Caddyshack, Clayton rarely keeps score. Unlike Webb, though, who tells Judge Smails (Ted Knight) that he measures himself against other golfers by height, Clayton doesn’t measure himself at all.
Clayton just wanders about in a fugue, shaping shots, seeing golf holes in his head and enjoying himself.
Could it be that he’s onto something?
From bad to gorse: Mike Clayton in the wheat during the 2010 Casa Serena Open in the Czech Republic. PHOTO: Getty Images
It’s 10 years ago this week that Clayton wrote a column for this very journal querying if scoring in golf is necessary. If it’s even the point.
According to Clayton, “the game is about playing the holes and the course and thinking about the questions they ask.
“It’s about playing with like-minded people and the beautiful and unique Australian way of sledging and having fun.
“It is about hitting shots and trying things you would not try if your life depended on making a four at the 14th,” Clayton wrote.
And Australian golfers read the words of the Great Svengali, nodded to the sound of one hand clapping, and in a very Australian way thought, Yeah, bullshit, mate. Golf’s about the stableford comp on Wednesday and Saturday, and the Medal once a month. It’s about your handicap, your rank in the comp. Scoring is what golf is. It’s how we judge our worth.
Yet if types had read through the yarn – and you should, it’s good – the kicker in Clayton’s reasoning is that if a golfer could “learn to play carefree golf it’s a certainty you will score better.”
“The surest way to stay average is to play rounds of golf with one ball in competition,” Clayton surmised.
Mike Clayton looking for angles in the OKI Castellon Senior Tour Championship in 2010. PHOTO: Getty Images
Clayton grew up next door to the Eastern Golf Club in Melbourne and would head out for a hit and play half-a-dozen holes, out and back, multiple balls taking multiple routes.
As we know, golf is counter-intuitive in so many ways. And by ‘playing’ golf without measuring success by the number on a card, Clayton’s ability to write lower numbers on a card improved.
In a cracking story about short-form golf by a promising young sports writer, Clayton posed this question: “Why can’t you go to the golf club on Saturday morning and play nine holes? Why can’t you wander out and tee off the 7th, play 12 holes?”
Let’s throw that one again to our great Australian golf club member, and paraphrase their reply, which would almost certainly be: Tell your story walkin’, hippy.
Clubs don’t have public green free offerings, much less members joining the field on seven, during Saturday club competitions because boards would be flooded with complaints. There would be mass outrage. Finger-pointing. Shouting. Fear and loathing.
And that would be the case at nearly any course, public or private, outside Barnbougle.
The par-4 16th at Barnbougle Dunes is too good not to share. PHOTO: Brendan James
There is no thinking outside the square nor marketing short-form golf to members. Why? Because they don’t want it. It would be too new. It’s why we can’t have nice things. It’s why we aren’t a Republic.
What club members want, and it appears what Sunday social club golfers want also, is: stableford competitions. Scoring. Handicaps. Prizes. Beers after. Repeat.
Every day of the week.
People barely want par competitions. There’s no interest in Ambrose even the week after a core.
Lee Trevino was known as ‘The Merry Mex’ and could shape the ball for fun. PHOTO: Getty Images
Barnbougle Dunes, though, which is so good they made another one, Lost Farm, along with a 14-holer called Bougle Run just because they could, and which inspired Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes and Mat Goggin’s baby in the sandy links land at Seven Mile Beach, doesn’t have members because it doesn’t have a club.
Potato baron Richard Sattler and other creators of Barnbougle did an interesting thing back in 2004 – and people thought they were off their heads – when they opened the course to anyone who wanted to play. Barny would be purely public – pay the money, take the ride.
And thus, as a course without members, there is no exclusivity. There are no rules for wearing a hat in the clubhouse nor for socks to be certain length or colour.
Seven Mile Beach in Hobart appears the next great (fun) one of Australian golf. PHOTO: Seven Mile Beach
And without a club or members there are no club member competitions.
And Barnbougle is the most fun golf in the land, and draws in hundreds and thousands of pilgrims, including noted non-travelling Americans, drawn like fireflies to the fabled and immediately world-ranked links land.
One assumes that Goggin has taken plenty from the success of Barnbougle, and from the philosophies to the game of both Clayton and Sattler.
That he reportedly intends to have a clubhouse with a post where locals can tie up their horses before coming in for a drink bodes very well.
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