It had been on my radar for a long time, Blackwell. Maybe a decade, or more, this gnawing sense that there was something special to be found there. One of those courses that had been recommended quietly, in person, rather than in some ranking or magazine. A word of mouth referral, the sort you sit up and take notice of. Golfing friends whose opinion I trusted urged me to make the journey, believing that this club is the sort of place I’d appreciate, enjoy - maybe even cherish.
The motorway miles passed easily, as they often do on these pilgrimages, my good mood a factor of the joy in such explorations. Exactly two hours passed before the entrance gate slowly chugged away to the left, opening up a small car park behind the clubhouse, perched neatly between gently rolling hills.
A warm welcome was served, and in the charming comfort of the Members’ Bar, there was time for a well earned coffee, and a chance to absorb the serene ambience of this hidden gem, this outpost of golfing gold. In the club’s suitably wonderful history book, the author Charles Wade offers a dedication to his wife, “and all the other Blackwell widows who might, one day, begin to understand”, and as we stand up from the table to go and tackle this landscape, I’m full of anticipation, keen to also understand what makes this club so special.
From its humble roots, the nine hole course at Blackwell was transformed in 1923 into the eighteen hole routing of today, although the nines were initially reversed, like those at Augusta. The firm of Fowler and Simpson were charged with the project, but from the very first glance across this parkland setting, it feels very much like Tom Simpson’s hand at work here.
His alchemist-like touch for mixing strategic brilliance with flowing beauty appears in abundance, and the drawings included in the book confirm that this most artistic of architects poured his heart into this particular job. The bunkers are exquisite in position and shape, and the green sites the work of genius, mown into the over-riding contours with simplicity and a touch of cheek. Within them are the kind of wicked slopes and ridges that provide a lifetime of playful intrigue for the locals, and today is no different.
Within a hundred acres, Simpson somehow creates a routing that never feels tight, or awkward, but which at the same time wrings value from every last inch of the property. The direction of play changes with each new teeing ground, and the blend of long and short holes create a rhythm that steadily builds towards a wonderfully challenging finale; the mark of a great matchplay course.
While my golfing partners play, I marvel at the views all around, and smirk at the designer’s use of elevation changes, and of diagonal features and false fronts. Most of all I marvel at how many thousands of our golfing community will never even hear of Blackwell, let alone sample its delicious and unique qualities, and yet here in the early sun of a midsummer morning, I walk in the footsteps of Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, among others.
As we climb up the seventeenth I feel as if I am, like all those Blackwell widows, beginning to understand, and then it dawns on me that it is as futile to try and explain to a non-golfer the charms of a course like this, or of the game itself, as it is to play the game in the first place. For between the living puzzles that the likes of Simpson leave lying around for generations behind to discover, and the inherent difficulty of the game itself, we are doomed in our search for lasting answers and yet we still come back, time after time, propelled by a fascination with golf’s complexity.
Then Tom suggests that perhaps it is the occasional great shot - the one we all know which appears only when we reach rock bottom; the one that brings us back again - that is the problem. He wonders whether it is the glimpse of a forbidden mastery that makes the game almost unbearable, and that if he were to always play without this occasional, mischievous miracle in his armory, then it would be an easier game to accept, plodding along without the additional burden of hope.
We walk on, chewing on this idea, and when I mourn how infrequent such moments can be, and how much fun golf still is despite that, he likens it to the queue at nearby Alton Towers. You wait all day for your chance to come, and it is all over in the heady flash of an instant, the rollercoaster of our golfing emotions plummeting to earth as we hold our breath, savouring these occasional diamonds.
A few minutes later, a wonderful round of below-average golf delivers a devastating punchline, with a wedge that seems to hang in the blue sky above the clubhouse like a kestrel before hammering down beside the final flag. And we putt out, and shake hands, and feel so grateful for another mysterious loop in the golfing kingdom, and I know that when we return to our homes, and are asked “how was your game?”, there is no way we’ll be able to really answer.
For, wonderful as Blackwell is, it is not only the local golfing widows that will never fully understand what this game and its priceless playgrounds mean to us. The narratives of our real lives are litttered with natural highs and lows, peaks and troughs; yet golf offers this gamut of emotions - this rich tapestry of elations and frustrations - every time we step out, and it will never, ever make sense to us, let alone the more sensible souls who peer at us from outside the golfing net.
So I drive home, with a different version of the smile that got me there a few hours before. The keen anticipation has been replaced with a deep satisfaction, of another journey I could easily not have made but that I’ll now never forget. Grateful for yet another canvas of Simpson’s great art to study and savour, and for another slice of eternity on the links while life outside that sliding gate kept on rushing by.
This most poetic of architects once said, as quoted in the club book, that “one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, or a proper links out of an old park, or fields of good inland pasture”. How typical of Simpson, forever the enigma, to make so bold a claim as this and then leave behind, on this now precious parcel of ordinary Midlands farmland, one of golf’s most under-rated masterpieces.
Just another golfing day spent in paradise…
This rather rambling piece was the result of a trip to finally share some time golfing with Sam & Tom, two thirds of the great modern Triumvirate that is Cookie Jar Golf. It was Sam’s willingness to publish Rank Outsiders - a piece I’d written while musing over one of their wonderful podcasts - that forced me to start inviting people to actually read this stuff, which I’ve come to regard as more personal therapy than writing per se.
Without that kind gesture in December 2021, much of what has poured out since in the form of these Stymies might still be rattling around in my head, so I feel I owe the Cookie Jar team an additional thank you, beyond the one we all owe them for consistently entertaining content. But their good natures didn’t stop at that, and the invitation to sample the extraordinary delights of Blackwell in their company felt like a real blessing, a privilege. It is an unsung hero of the golfing world, a genuine diamond in the middle of the Midlands.
I suspect that a good proportion of those who’ve read this far will have done so after listening to their latest podcast (here), so if you are new here and have not deleted the email yet, you can find more from the Stymied archive here. But if you are one of the several hundred kind souls who seem to choose to open these missives from the edge of golfing madness, and have not yet acquainted yourself with the Cookie Jar material, start with the above podcast, but also check out their evocative, beautiful videos. A couple of favourites to begin with:
Story of a Golf Club - The Berkshire
We Will Play Again - Golf Under Lockdown
Enjoy! Or should I say…”Adios”…
Thanks Richard.
As a member of Blackwell from 1957, I must thank you for writing about it and record my pleasure that you found it worthy of inclusion within your golfing paradise.
It is a pity you did not experience fully a key element of Blackwell, its unique camaraderie of membership, particularly whenever gathered for lunch ( the most important part of any members day) or staying on into the early hours of the evening.
I believe the introduction page of Charlie Wade's history reflects some this:-
"The members know how lucky they are and are content to leave it at that. Would-be visitors can find out for themselves in their own good time."
A pleasure as ever. Wistful words exploring the impenetrable pleasures of golf and putting more temptation before us all. Blackwell now firmly on the list!
I would welcome the chance to offer you a game at Mid Herts if you fancy one of James Braid’s little gems.