Nostalgia seems to be violently in or out of fashion, depending on which side of the American political chasm you currently stand. Many Trump supporters harken back to what they remember as a more straightforward time where jobs were steady, Walter Cronkite had never heard of “fake news”, and all of the caddies at The Masters were black. Many opponents of Trump and his supporters ridicule such views as anachronistic and out of touch with modern reality; for them, the past was never as good as we remember, modern life is better and indeed safer, and such nostalgia can be both delusional and dangerous.
I do not support Donald Trump. But I do often feel nostalgic for simpler, happier golfing times. Like, I dunno, December
2016.
I played in the final medal last year at my home club of Dunbar and shot a one-under-par 70. I hadn’t broken par in a competitive round at Dunbar before, and I hadn’t broken 76 in a stroke play competition all year, but I had one of those days when everything just clicked. I actually duffed two chips at the fourth and had to hole a 12-footer for double-bogey, but apart from that I hit almost everything straight, made four birdies, and finished with an excellent Texas wedge from 30 yards short of the final green and a sweetly satisfying six-foot par putt. It was a calm, comfortable day, and I had two wonderful playing companions; in short, it was everything I wish golf could always be.
My capacity for self-indulgent reminiscing about past rounds and shots is almost limitless. I’m hardly alone in this; for many high handicappers, remembering and dreaming of recapturing one perfect shot or one great hole is enough to keep coming back for round upon round of additional punishment. But my golfing recall is particularly onanistic. I can still feel the sensations I felt from almost every outlandish shot I’ve ever holed, going back to the 110-yard 4-iron I sank for birdie as a youngster in a Thanksgiving tournament in suburban Atlanta. And I haven’t played golf since that first week in December largely because I’ve enjoyed replaying every shot from that round in my mind so much; why risk sullying those pleasures with more immediate but less intense substitutes?
In these disturbing days, I find myself withdrawing even more to such safe spaces of the mind. I know such reveries cannot and should not last forever, but we all have our own defense mechanisms. And if I want to ponder afresh my hole-in-one in the Carnegie Shield at Royal Dornoch or to watch the final round of the 1986 Masters again, you can’t stop me. But still, I hear things.
A friend of an acquaintance of mine is a member of Trump National Golf Club near Washington DC, and he has many stories about the new President of the United States. Trump was once playing in the club championship at TNGC, and when his playing partner refused to sign Trump’s scorecard after the round on the grounds that Trump had cheated so many times, Trump literally screamed about how all great golfers improve their lies and how his partner would have his club membership revoked. Another time, Trump faced a blind approach shot and sent his caddie ahead to the green with the words “I need to get a birdie here”; the caddie took Trump’s ball after it landed and moved it to within 10 feet of the hole, but after Trump missed the putt, he grabbed the caddie by the neck and fired him instantly, saying, “When I need to get a birdie, I mean that I need to get a birdie!”
These are third- or fourth-hand stories, so you can choose to believe them or not. What I find hard to believe is that the person who knew and told these stories apparently voted for Trump anyway.
Right now, it’s difficult for me to care whether Tiger Woods can win tournaments again, if Justin Thomas is the real deal, or if the PGA Championship will move from August to May when America’s golfer-in-chief is Donald Trump. I strongly suspect there will be better days ahead, both on and off the golf course. But for the moment, I’m inclined to stop beating and let my boat be swept by the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.