Yes, I like baking.
Not the sit on Manley Beach in August watching the girls get brown,
kind, although that’s not bad, but the butter, flour, yeast kind. Right now my first attempt at Pain au
Chocolate is in the oven and I am a bit distressed about how it is likely to
turn out. I will let you know the
result later. An immediate flash however
for those of you who have never made bread from scratch by hand; its hard
work! Never take a croissant,
brioche or baguette for granted again.
But that is not what this is about.
In addition to my culinary worries, I was also sitting by
the window, watching the snow drift up and the temperature drift down and
ruminating darkly like some Shakespearean King on the state of things in
general. Only my weather is worse
than either Denmark or England.
Suddenly I was shocked out of my melancholia by the following note from
my friend Sam Sanderson. Sam is my
oldest and dearest friend.
Although our relationship over the years has periods when we have
suffered from over-familiarity, I have always retained my great respect and
affection for him.
Bob - thought you might like this as you've
played Waterville, perhaps know Higgins as well. How are you?
Sam
Learning the long ball
from one of golf's great characters
Posted
at 7:41 PM by Connell Barrett |
A
good yarn from a legendary Irish ballstriker
I
couldn't resist a second post on the charming Liam Higgins, the European Tour winner and longtime head pro at Waterville Golf
Links,
in Southwest Ireland. I spent two days with him this week. He's one of
golf's great characters, brimming with vivid stories.
Many
club pros can't break 80. Higgins still breaks 70. Back in the day,
he had the gift-wrapped talent to hang with the likes of Hogan, Miller,
Palmer. He won from time to time but never found fame outside Ireland. He could
have. He could been a contender. Still, Higgins, 67, hasn't a whisper of
regret in his voice when he says, "I could play with the best of them, and
yes, I could have won majors, could have won a lot more than I
did. But I guess I wanted other things. I wanted to go fishing. I wanted
to play for fun. I didn't feel that drive to fight it out every week. I'd win
one week, then take a month off. It's just who I am." (Higgins made the
1977 Ryder Cup team but withdrew after breaking a rib in
a car crash before the
competition.)
For
an old Irish pro, his looks are straight-from-central-casting: rickrack teeth,
rosy cheeks, brow like a Ruffles potato chip. Slight of stature, he can still
crank it 300 yards--and you should have seen him in 1968, when when
he took on the reigning long-drive champion. Relaxing in the Waterville clubhouse
earlier this week, waiting out a wicked storm, Higgins remembers:
"I
was just in my teens. A mere child. I used a persimmon club with a
steel shaft that bent like a fishing pole. I could really hammer
it. I didn't know when it was coming down or where it was coming down. Some well-off Americans saw me driving
and they flew me to New York for a contest against Dick Parlow,
the long-drive champion. I'd never left Cork [in the south of
Ireland], where I grew up. I was scared to death to be away from home at that age. I get off the plane and
there are two huge
African-American men waiting to pick me up. I was so sheltered that I'd never
seen a black fellow in my life. Turns out, one of them was Joe Louis, the
boxer! He knew the fellow putting on the match. The contest was
at Westchester Country Club [near New York City]. Parlow was
6'10''. Massive! We're at a 380-yard hole. We can hit as many
drives as we want, and the longest ball wins. There are 300 people
watching. I'm so homesick, I just want it to be over. I want to go
first. The coin-flipper liked me. He says on the sly, 'Call it in the air,
and no matter what, I'll say you won [the toss].' Wouldn't you know I 'won' the
flip. I took one swing, flew the ball 350 yards, and it reached the back of the
green, 380 yards out. I said, 'I'm done. I can't do better.' Well, Parlow
drops his bag of balls and walks away, without so much as one swing.
That's all it took. Just one swing!"
I was surprised that Sam had to ask if I knew Higgins since
Liam figures prominently in one of my favorite Irish episodes and I would have
thought that Sam would have been bored to tears already by having heard the
story repeatedly. The only Hansford
tale that Sam is likely to have heard more often is The Duck Story which
recounts Sam’s legendary prowess with a shotgun in Alaska, but that one is for
another time. The Liam story is so
much one of my favorites that I was just telling it to my son Jason a couple of
weeks ago.
It was 4:00 AM and I was sitting in my tiny hotel room on
Marion Square in Dublin feeling sorry for myself. I was tired, having just arrived from Calgary the evening
before and having sat up all night trying unsuccessfully to get to sleep. And trying unsuccessfully to find
something worth watching on RTE, (Sorry Eugene). The hotel had been booked by the Canadian travel agent and the
room is so small that it reminds me of the nights I spent in my Volkswagen
camper in the Alaskan Bush. The
only thing that the room had to commend it was that it had its own bathroom and
I did not have to walk down the hall.
But using the facilities also reminded me of taking care of business on
the chemical porta-potty that came with the VW van. All in all, I was not happy, camper or otherwise.
It was my first time in Ireland and I did not know a
soul. Not knowing anyone has been
the case many times in my life and most often, as with Ireland, it has led to
some great adventures and some great people. However, believing that does not erase the sadness, fear and
isolation that you are bound to feel when you are far from home and all alone.
I have learned, however, that you cannot wait for people to
knock on your hotel room door.
Although one of my friends did show me one time that if you look under
escort services in the phone book and make some calls, sometimes they will.
I figured I had to do something. I had known and liked a lot of people of Irish descent over
the years. I found out that it was
not surprising most were not living in country since only about 6 million
people live in the Republic and Northern Ireland but the Irish Diaspora around the
world is estimated at between 50 and 100 Million. With that many Irish living in other countries, there may be
something to the idea that God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling
the world.
I decided that I would try to look up the only Irishman I
knew who was actually living in Ireland.
The only problem was that I did not actually know him. Patrick O’Connor and I had met at
dinner in the Post Hotel at Lake Louise, Alberta the winter before my first
trip to Dublin. The problem was
that this was the only time I met him and we had shared dinner with 25
others. Patrick was really more precisely
an acquaintance of a friend. Even
I would admit, all in all, a rather tenuous connection. But I had liked what little I was able
to share with Patrick and had learned that we both had a passion for golf. Patrick had developed a golf course in Ireland
called Old Head and he was recruiting members. A golf course owner, really, how bad a guy could he be?
Patrick was a member of a group of 15-25 individuals from
all over the globe who shared a love for heli-skiing and joined in an annual
ski trip to the Canadian Rockies. They
did a week of heli-skiing at various locations mostly in BC. My real friend, Peter Grey, was also a
member of this group and had not missed a trip in over 20 years. Peter and his family live in Sydney
where he and his partner Brent Potts have built a very successful investment
business. Those of you, who have
actually read these rants, know how fondly I hold both Peter and Brent and how
much I appreciate the many kindnesses Peter and his family have showed me over
the years.
The year before I first went to Ireland, I had been working
in Calgary and had made an effort to meet Peter on his ski trip. That is how we ended up at dinner with
Patrick, Peter and the rest of the group.
At 5:00 and still awake, I sent Peter an email and asked him
if he had a number for Patrick and would he mind if I contacted him? Peter told me that Patrick actually
spent most of his time living in the South of France but he thought he did have
a place in Ireland as well. He did
have a cellular number, which he shared with me. A bit later that morning, I called the number and reached
Patrick on the first try. I do not
think he actually remembered me but of course knew Peter from the skiing. Patrick said he was in Ireland at the
time and after a bit of a chat he invited me down to his house in Kerry for
dinner and a game or two of golf at their club Waterville. Not knowing where Kerry was from Dublin,
I said I would hire a car and drive over on that coming Friday. Patrick said he was on the exact other
side of the country and that in fact he was looking at the ocean and if he
jumped in a started swimming the next thing he would hit was New York. He suggested that I fly to the Kerry
airport and hire a car there to drive to his house in Ballinskelligs.
(Ballinskelligs
(Baile na Sceilge) is situated in the Gaeltacht, an Irish speaking area on an
attractive bay facing the larger resort of Waterville across the water. The
area is renowned for its miles of golden beach and turquoise water. The area
has its own Irish College, where children come in summer to learn the Irish
language. The area has a unique history and culture and was the land base for
the monks that lived on Skellig Michael)
I asked for directions to his house but he said it was just
too complicated for the phone and that once I got to Ballinskelligs I should
ask anyone for directions to Boolliskeaolichivouvkish House. I did not quite catch the name but
wrote it down phonetically as best I could. He also gave me his Irish cellular number but said it did
not always work since the coverage in the area was somewhat spotty. It was all agreed I would see him for
dinner on Friday.
I finally went to sleep feeling much better about having
something to look forward to doing and someone to get to know better. When I looked at my note the next day,
I was a bit worried about the name of his house. The phonetics I had parsed out looked more like the name of
a Russian Eskimo village than a small fishing settlement in Ireland. Those of you who have lived in Alaska
and tried to spell some of the Eskimo village names will know what I am talking
about, they seem impossibly long and mostly filled with consonants. In any case, I did have his cell number
so I booked the flight.
I heard that when Alaska was first made a state in 1957 that
the US Geological Survey (USGS)
who was responsible for mapping Alaska, decided that since many of the Eskimo
village names such as Nunapitchuk, Qagun Tayagungin or Kwigillingok were so difficult to pronounce, they would translate them
into their English meanings. It
just seemed that it would be easier in the future for those using the maps. However once the project was fully
funded and staffed they found out that most of the names meant things like
“Where the Caribou Shit” and “Two Bears Fucking” so the effort was immediately
abandoned. Tom Jensen, the
greatest storyteller of all time, may have told me this so it could all be
bullshit, but I believed it at the time.
I took the first flight to Kerry and arrived
in time to rent the last car available at the airport. It was some kind of tiny ford, in fact
it made a standard VW look like a stretch limo, but as I was to come to
understand, when it comes to driving in Kerry, smaller is better. I will not bore you with pages and
pages of how bad the roads are in Ireland generally and Kerry specifically but
will say that I have been on US Forest Service fire trials that were in much better
shape than most Kerry roads. Some
new roads in Ireland are quite nice but most are designed to be 1 1/3
wagon-widths wide. This creates
some concern when meeting an oncoming car around a blind corner at speed. And most of the corners are blind. There are also very few, if any highway
direction or route number signs. I
think the Irish share the Australians’ belief that, “if you do not know where
you are going then you do not belong there”. For all their fine qualities the one thing that the Aussies
cannot do is give directions. I do
not know if this is some kind of genetic defect but I found it to be absolutely
true in every corner of Australia and it is a trait that they share with the
Irish.
One way to know how far west you are in Ireland
is to look at the few public signs you do find. In Dublin and the east all the signs are in English. Once you reach about 2/3s of the way
across the country they are in both English and Gaelic. I cannot think that Gaelic and Eskimo
share a common root but they both have a fondness for very very long words and
a paucity of vowels. You will know
when you have arrived in western Kerry when they dispense with English on the
signs. That is what I was
confronted with when I finally arrived in Ballinskelligs. The trip had taken much longer than I
had thought since I had been lost several times and had to drive so slowly due
to road conditions. It was not yet
dark but it was not long before sundown and I vowed not to even attempt to
drive anywhere in Ireland after dark, certainly not in Kerry.
If I said that Ballinskelligs was a not a big place I could
be leaving you with a very large misconception. Reno is not a big place and it is tens of thousands of times
bigger than Ballinskelligs. The
only non-residential structures I could see were a small church and a pub,
neither of which was open nor occupied.
The only people about were two guys who were changing a flat on what I
took for a telephone repair van. I
was not sure since the lettering on the van’s side was in Irish but there was
what appeared to be a rendition of a telephone. I tired my cellular but had no signal. I approached one of the telephone guys
and asked if he knew the location of Boolliskeaolichivouvkish House. I figured I had butchered the pronunciation
so I added the name Patrick O’Connor.
He turned to his partner and said something in what must have been
Gaelic. They jabbered back and
forth for a bit and I though; “great, now what?” In an accent I had difficulty following but which was
definitely English, he said, John O’Connor and quickly gave me a complex set of
directions. I quickly wrote down
what I thought he had said and then repeated with emphasis, “PATRICK O’CONNOR”. He shook his head in agreement, said
John O’Connor and repeated the directions.
I had little confidence but also little choice so I followed
the indicated road down past two turning; just beyond a ruined church and ancient
graveyard I turned right up the hill.
I immediately figured I had the wrong course since the road narrowed so
severely that the heather was scraping the car on both sides and I had no idea
what I might do if I met someone coming the over way. But I did not, and I was able to take the third left at the
top of the hill. Here the country
opened up a bit and there were
open moors on both sides. I
went the instructed ½ mile but found not a single dwelling. I did pass what looked to me like the
entrance to a government park of some type. It had a paved drive with two large stone monoliths on each
side of the entrance. I looked
carefully but, surprise, surprise could not see any signage. The entrance looked like what you would
expect to see at Yellowstone or some other National Park in the American West. I kept going for another couple of
miles without finding any habitation.
I figured I had understood the directions wrongly and decided that if I
could find a caretaker at the park, he might know how to direct me. I tired the cell again and while I was
getting an intermittent signal I was unable to connect with Patrick’s number.
I turned around and went back to the ‘park’. Still no sign but the road was in best
shape of any I had encounter so far in Kerry and I drove along for about
another ½ a mile of so. The road
crested a hill and gave out into a pretty fair sized graveled parking
area. There was a fantastic view
of the ocean and through a light mist a look at the coast drawing away along
the left hand side. There was a
very large and obviously quite old structure and a number of out buildings made
of what looked like the local stone.
I was the only car in the lot and no one was stirring. I got out and walked out to the front
of the large structure, which was facing the beach about a quarter mile
away. There were quite extensive gardens,
which covered most of the ground down to the coastline.
The building was kind of a cross between a very large house
and a castle. I could not tell how
old it was but it obviously had been there for a very long time but was
currently occupied since all the windows were modern and the entire structure
fully enclosed and secure. The
entrance was comprised of very old and very thick wooden planks that were
placed to form two sides of a large curved portal. They were locked and bolted shut. The doors looked like something you would see in an Errol
Flynn production of Robin Hood. I felt
a bit foolish standing before these 12 foot doors with no bell or knocker that
I could find. The only thing left
to do was shout “Hello the House” at the top of my lungs in the hope of getting
someone’s attention. This I was
unwilling to do. I walked around
the entire structure without seeing any signs of life and decided to return to
the village. Just as I was getting
into my car another vehicle drove up and parked right next to me.
There was only the driver and as he got out I give him a big
smile and a hearty hello. He
responded with a fairly non-committal “Geuten Abend”. Shit! Just my
luck to finally find someone and they only speak German. But that’s the way it goes
sometime. Fortunately. I had
studied a little German in college and had lived in Germany for a few months
during the winter of 70-71. That
was back when I had this vision of becoming a noted professor of philosophy
reading Hegel and Heidegger in the original and pontificating to the adoring
students. That was before I
actually sat down and tried to read Hegel in the original. The selection I randomly picked went on
in a single sentence for three pages and was so utterly impenetratable, even
with a translation dictionary, that I quickly decided to become a whizz bang
telephone marketing guy instead of a Philosopher.
I had not had much practice with my German in the intervening
30 years and was a bit rusty but was able to determine that my new arrival was
a cook and had gone to town for ingredients for a dinner he was going to
prepare for the house’s owner.
When I enquire if this was Patrick O’Connor he agreed and said John
O’Connor. He let me into the house
through the kitchen entrance and then began to prepare dinner. We were struggling a bit on our
communications but he indicated that the owners should be home before too long
and that I should wait. He was
targeting dinner for 9:00, which was still some 3 hours away.
The inside of the home was just spectacular. It was filled with furniture that
looked old, comfortable and expensive.
There was a large peat fire burning in a big open-hearth fireplace in a
two story great hall with open beam ceilings. I
wandered through the ground floor rooms somewhat in awe of the size and the furnishings. I got to thinking that I had never
really got a firm answer that this was in fact Patrick O’Connor’s house but
each time I had asked had been answered with yes, John O’Connor. It also occurred to me that although there
were not many residents in the Ballinskelligs area, the name O’Connor was
probably not particularly uncommon in Ireland and that there was a very good
chance that there was more than one O’Connor, even in Ballinskelligs. I got to speculating how it would
appear to an unrelated O’Connor to come home and find me unescorted and uninvited;
standing in his home, after having apparently misrepresented myself to his
German speaking cook. I decided
that explaining my somewhat tenuous connection with Patrick O’Connor to an
irate homeowner or the Kerry police was not the way I wanted to start my stay
in Ireland. I had the cook write
down the landline phone number for the house and told him I was leaving but
would call in a couple of hours.
Since there was no hotel in Ballinskelligs, I drove to
Waterville about ten miles away and fortunately over reasonably good roads. Since I had no reservations I simply
drove to the biggest building in town which turned out to be the Butler Arms
Hotel. The parking lot was full
and I had trouble finding a spot. I
got to worrying that, even though it was not the height of the tourist season,
the hotel might be full. I was
tried and did not want to go hunting a room. So, while it has seldom worked in the past, I figured I
would bluff having a reservation.
I went to the check-in and of course the host asked if I had a
reservation. I said I though my
friend Patrick O’Connor had made one for me. He immediately brightened and asked, are you a friend of Patrick’s? Given the situation, I answered with
some trepidation, yes. He said, “You
just missed him” “I was having a drink in the bar with him and his brother John
but they just left for Ballinskelligs.”
Well that solved the mystery.
I figured I had time for a quick shower and still get back to Patrick’s
for dinner at 9:00. My host, who
turned out to be the owner of the hotel, said he did not have a reservation for
me but there was no problem. The
hotel bar did a land office business on Friday nights, explaining the full
parking lot. The owner asked if I
wanted a regular of a deluxe room.
Given that the place in Dublin was charging me 150 Euro a night for a
dump that I though was not worth a 1/3 of that, I figured I had better get the
upgraded room regardless of expense.
I just could not spend another night in a camper sized
accommodation. After all how much
could they charge in the off-season in the “back of beyond”, Ireland?
I followed the owner up a number of stairs and through
several corridors before arriving and a room door a very long way from the
front desk. He opened the door,
thanked me for my business, wished me a pleasant stay and said he had to get
back to the bar. I walked into a
quite large and very nicely appointed suite. There was a small entrance vestibule and a sitting room with
fireplace to the right with a large bedroom to the left. From the bedroom there was the door to
a bathroom almost the same size as the bedroom itself with a heated marble
floor and thick towels on heated racks.
Through the sitting room was a door opening onto a fairly good-sized
balcony overlooking the beach and the ocean right across the road fronting the hotel. I thought, shit, given what they are
charging me for the dump in Dublin this has got to cost thousands per
night. But I was tired enough that
it did not matter.
After a quick clean up and a talk with Patrick I drove back
to Ballinskelligs to a wonderful dinner with the O’Connor family. The two brothers along with their
sister and a cousin of some sort were at table and they could not have been
more charming. What a delightful
dinner and the food was excellent.
We made an early night of it and agreed to meet early at the Waterville
Golf Club the next day for a round.
I went to bed that night well satisfied with life in general.
The next morning I awoke to a raging gale. The wind was lashing the rain
vertically across the road from the bay, rattling my windows and finding enough
openings to make a continual ululating moan. Did not look like much of a day for golf but as most of you
know, weather does not often put me off a round. Any of you who question this should ask Jimmy Dennnihan. Jimmy and I played Ballybunion once in
one of the worst storms I have ever seen and I imagine he is still telling the
story of how a gust of wind had to blow me on my ass before we were prompted to
call it quits after only nine. Billy
McConnell just wishes we had quit after nine at The European Club one time when
the freezing rain was dripping off both our noses while we were standing on the
16th tee and still had three holes to go before we could get out of
the storm.
Patrick, John and I finished a round that day but none of us
would have said we really enjoyed it.
I still have three wind shirts and jackets from Waterville that I bought
that day and I wore them all. We
ended up cold and soaked but the outlook for Sunday was for much fairer weather
so we made a date for the next morning.
Patrick said that they had invited a few friends over for dinner that
evening and asked if I would join them.
I accepted of course and met at the Ballinskelligs house at 8:00 that
night. What followed was one of
the most enjoyable evenings I have ever spent.
I was seated next to the Waterville Golf Club pro Liam Higgins
who had just arrived in town that afternoon from Tralee. Seldom have I met a more engaging
fellow and Liam regaled me all night with tales of his exploits and the legends
of Ireland. He viewed himself as
quite a swordsman and related some of his many amorous adventures. It was with some bemusement that about
a hour later I listened to Liam relate with tears roiling down his cheeks how
his wife had broken his heart one time in the bar and the Butler Arms by allowing
another man to buy her a drink. I
think he old rogue actually did feel betrayed.
The evening was capped off with a songfest in which each of
the diners did a rendition of their favorite ballad. As genetically handicapped as the Irish may be
directionally, they are certainly genetically gifted when it comes to
singing. How everyone except me
can be so musically talented is a mystery. But my rendition of “Home, Home on the Range” was mercifully
short and I got to enjoy longer performances from the rest. All in all a very memorable and well-appreciated
evening. Some Irishmen have been
known to take a drink or two and if I had been drinking in those days, I might
still be there, buried in some small corner of the garden. As it was, I left a bit early but with
sobriety intact.
The next day delivered the promise of the forecast and was a
fine soft day with no rain. We
were joined on the third hole by Liam who had taken the opportunity to catch up
on a bit of his sleep from the night before. My understanding was that he had gallantly agreed to escort
one of the other guests home after the festivities and had not arrived at his
own home until quite early in the morning.
Playing with Higgins is a real treat. He was in his late 50s at the time but
could still knock the ball a country mile. I got to hear a number of his stories from his days as an
actual player on the Irish professional circuit. When we reached the 366-yard, par 4 16th hole, Liam announced that he had scored
a hole-in-one on this hole some years before. I must have appeared a bit skeptical to him. This was far from the truth, I did not
believe him at all and figured this was another of his endearing but obviously untrue
tales. Liam, sensing my
incredulity, kept building the detail of his feat as we progressed down the
fairway where upon finally reaching the green he turned and pointed out a plaque
set into a stone right next to the putting surface which commemorated “Liam’s
Ace”. Sometime skepticism, however
well founded, is misplaced.
Perhaps Liam has also slept with every female over the age of 18 in
Kerry but I will stick with my amazement at his hole in one on a 300+ yard
hole. You cannot see the green of
the 16th from the tee and Liam related that the group in front of
them was still on the green and putting out when his ball rolled onto the
green, through the legs of another golfer and fell into the hold. Apparently the Albatross, (three under
par), did not go unrewarded, Liam set the course record with the round he shot
that day.
As I was driving back to the Butler Arms from Patrick’s
house on Sunday, I could not help but think that I could not have had a better
or more enjoyable introduction to Ireland. I thought that the weekend boded well for my time in the
country. And I was right. I went on to meet some truly wonderful
people and have a fabulous experience in all things Irish.
I was a bit worried about checking out of the hotel but
figured that even at a 1,000 Euro a night, I had had great value. At the front desk, I opened my
statement with some reluctance. I
thought 80 Euro a night was pretty good value, in fact, Waterville was the best
value I have ever received in a hotel.
That is, unless you count the time in Thailand, but that was really the
value of the other amenities.
Thanks to my many friends in Ireland for your kind
hospitality toward me and thanks to Sam for letting me relive some very
enjoyable memories. Hope you are
all well and enjoying life to the fullest. I will keep you posted on the baking.
