The Instigator of this whole carnival - one Philip Truett - delivered in his opening address to the assembled troops “The Rules of Engagement”, including the mention of a “lifetime ban” for the heinous crime of helping another party look for their ball in this triangular fixture. Clearly, pace of play is important, but the notion of tackling Walton Heath’s marvellous Old Course - more or less as Herbert Fowler left it - without visiting the menacing heather seemed pretty unlikely. Layer on the additional pressure of representing one of three such distinguished entities - the host club, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, or the British Golf Collectors’ Society - and stray golf balls began to look like a certainty. And it would be three-ball six-somes, playing alternate shots. With hickories…
I’ve always loved the two courses at Walton Heath. Back when I was a greenkeeper down the road at Mitcham, the place - under the stewardship of the late, great Ian McMillan - was the gold standard for firm, fine turf and environmentally sympathetic management, and on the evidence of a quick glance at the first hole on the Old, it was in that sort of condition once more. Craftsmanship has always been a theme at Walton Heath, from the half-century of James Braid’s presence, through the persimmon mastery of Harry Busson, but this event in itself is an example of crafting something exquisite from nothing. It was originally a club vs Collectors fixture, but presumably after a certain number of clean sweeps from the home team, it was decided to bring in the R&A to add a bit of competition to this annual rout, as The Instigator explained with not inconsiderable delight. This worked in one respect, as the newcomers began to pick up the odd scalp, but the Collectors - the ones who are meant to know how to wield their sticks - remained eager competitors but perpetual losers.
And so we commence. The opening par three ought to be straightforward, but most groups had difficulty keeping all three balls in play, and further trouble remembering to not look for them. Then we crossed the road and the Heath opened up before us, parched a little but with gloriously natural golf in every direction. We learn that the award of a gimme is a delicate business in a three-way match, and that one side might be willing to concede whilst another would rather “see it in”, which keeps us all on our toes. Hopeful glances are perpetually cast across greens.
Another cause of a lifetime ban would be the use of distance measuring devices, but the more regular hickory players among us have long ago given up any hope of knowing how far we might propel the ball with a brassie or a mashie on any given occasion, so the business of how many yards remain is rendered a moot point. And with the ground as it is this summer and the Old offering more scope for the running game than Fowler’s entwined New Course, many of the yards a shot does travel are along the ground.
We also discover - playing “Sunningdale” format, whereby a team gets a shot when they reach two down until that gap is halved - that it is possible to be giving and recieving a shot at the same time, depending on the status of each of the two matches you are embroiled in. And everyone else pretends to be unclear of the specifics of the situation until they are due a shot, at which time clarity is instant, and suspicious.
All of this is taxing to keep track of, and way above my pay grade, but my partner Perry has played a bit of golf, and all of it sublime, it would seem. In the face of his effortless grace over the ball and tremendous skill despite the hickories, I feel like apologising not only for my game and the places I put his ball, but for my very existence. He has written “far and sure” on the side of this sphere that we somehow clip around the entire course, but neither term applies to anything I manage. Yet the phrase rings true for each of his strokes, and it is a joy to watch, particularly as his partner.
Perry has used only hickories for the last three years, and it is hard to imagine that anything more modern could improve this exhibition of ball-striking and temperament. I start to wonder if - despite living almost four hundred miles from him, with the small matter of The Channel in the way - I might have found a new golf teacher, over thirty years since my childhood Saturday morning lessons ceased, and then he admits to feeling “like I was born in the wrong era”, and the deal is done. Cologne is a long way from Surrey, but the prospect of maybe one day hitting a single shot like he does will go a long way.
The oppositions are doing well, too. Another Richard hardly plays with these clubs but his natural game keeps The Instigator on the straight and narrow, and in turn he benefits from a degree of local knowledge probably only ever rivalled by Braid in this parish. They are a delight, and to play at last with Truett is a privilege, particularly given that he started me on this path a few years back with some of his spare weapons (mainly Braid-stamped, as are all his - “support the local pro”!).
Cliff plays with a tempo almost as graceful as Perry’s, and at the very infrequent mis-cue, his smile only broadens. And his partner Gavin waits until he has watched me dispatch Perry to some dark corners of the first twelve holes before showing me his “secrets of hickory golf”, which he has written down and stuck to the back of his phone. I am both honoured that he’d show me such delicate information, and eager to deploy these nuggets immediately, but then I remember that Gavin is by trade a medic, and I therefore have no hope of making sense of the scrawled hieroglyphics he is kind enough to flash before me.
And so it goes on. At the fifteenth, someone’s ball takes a rather hard bounce left into the cut heather, and isn’t instantly visible, so we have a swift look, and Truett is quick to remind us of the lifetime ban, and even quicker to mutter “though some might quite like that”, as if any of this has been less than wonderful. If I needed a spur to work on my game over the next year, the thought of a repeat selection for the 2026 edition should prove more than adequate. It is a festival of golf, The Triangular, all cleeks and no cliques.
It is hard to imagine that any match could stand up to the brilliance of Walton Heath on a glorious afternoon like this, but I think - in terms of the friendship and laughter and, on occasion, the golf - we half a dozen managed to contribute to another of those days whose fun is etched in the memory regardless of the result.
But we do cover the result, and the day - after a 36 hole lunch - finishes as it started all those swipes ago, with The Instigator addressing the room. We run through the individual matches, swiftly moving on at the moment when Truett declares his and Richard’s quarter-point yield - “the lowest possible score” - perhaps an indication of unsporting conduct from the other four in the group, but I had no idea what the score was anyway. We discover that the R&A have won today’s battle, and closed the gap on Walton Heath in the series. The BGCS came into today with “precisely zero”, and will depart with the exact same total, but there are nothing but smiles on the faces of my fellow whipping boys and girls today. Truett says at one point that, in the context of enjoying your golf, “it doesn’t matter if you win. But it doesn’t half help”, and we cling to the first half of the couplet, tails between our legs.
I am still smiling when I get home, and still smiling when it gets dark, turning on the lamp to pore over my old copy of the club’s history book. It is called “Between Heather and Heaven”, which seems to me to sum up as well as any four words ever might a day such as this.
