Pebble Beach, California – there is no driving range, here at Cypress Point Club, not for the event this week, The Walker Cup. The 20 players go a mile or so on the road to spyglass and use the reach there. Even under normal circumstances, the reach here is simply a modest sloping hill, no sense in something. Cypress makes no sense. It leans in calm, timeless, elegant.
At the end of Friday afternoon there was an opening ceremony for this 50th game of the Walker Cup. Some observers were on the reach and speakers and other dignitaries – President George W. Bush; Mr. and Mrs. Fred Ridley; Mr. and Mrs. Vinny Giles, Mr Andy North, etc. – were stationed on white folding chairs on the first fairway. It was beautiful. These are chaotic times around the world. Everything is good here. Things are fine.
The American players have worn baseball caps with a large W on their fronts. The W is for Walker. The event is named after George Walker, the first president of the USGA. His grandson became the 41st president of the United States and his great -grandson became the 43rd. W. spoke here on the opening ceremonies on Friday. He was funny, fitting and fast.
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The band continued. The del Monte Brass Band, 50 members strong, each of them a volunteer. Amateur players play for an amateur golf event. There were trumpet players in local colleges and horn players in the 1970s. They opened with “born to be wild”, all copper, no vocalists, but this might conjure something for you:
Get your motor runnin ‘
Go on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever we come
It was not absurd. It was congruent.
They wore black from head to toe and set up for an unlikely collection of club members and amateur golfers and the deepest fans of the game.
The sky cooled, the 20 players pretended to be calm and collected, the dignitaries were oh so suitable.
“We will play ‘God Save the Queen’,” the leader of the Del Monte Brass Band told his players. “I mean,” God save the king. “We will play the national anthem. ” ‘
It was wonderful because golf is beautiful. It was timeless because golf is timeless. It was orderly. The Golf here, in four sessions – Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon; Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon – will contain photos that end in the ocean and greens where three puts are not enough. The disorder will rule, as always in Golf. But when it was closed on Friday, everything was in the right place.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments on michael.bamberger@golf.com.
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