Close Encounters on a Golf Course

By Lena Hagman

Lena Hagman has found a unique way of telling stories that are not usually told though they are about the utter joy we all can sense whenever we meet someone who can share the splendor of being who we are, in an activity that brings every aspect of our personalities out in the open, as during a round of golf.

The author dedicates her book to the Ailsa Golf Course, which has a very special place in her heart. Several of her close encounters described in the book have taken place at Turnberry, on the Ailsa course on the western shore of Scotland. Ailsa is the historic links championship course where the Open Championship has been held four times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491876619

Lena Hagman

Lena Hagman has written her first book, Close Encounters on a Golf Club, which was first published by Life Publications in 2012. Lena Hagman has long experience as macroeconomist in different government authorities and private organisations in Sweden. She is well known in Sweden as chief economist, making her independent analysis and forecasts. Her passion for writing about other interests than economics is not yet known to many in Sweden, like writing about her experience from the game of golf and the unique ways it can lead to memories and friends for life, which is what she describes in her first book. Lena lives in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, and works as chief economist.

Book preview

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

on a

GOLF COURSE

LENA HAGMAN

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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© 2013 by Lena Hagman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/27/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7605-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7661-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Front Cover Photo by Dean Mcallan

Back Cover Photo by Ulrika Färnefors

Contents

Hole 1 The Father and Son

Hole 2 The Man of the Future

Hole 3 The Talent in Her Own World

Hole 4 The Man with Perspective on Life

Hole 5 The Nearly Man

Hole 6 Dean, My Caddie

Hole 7 He Could be Between 40 and 60, but it Doesn’t Matter

Hole 8 The Mother of My Closest Friend

Hole 9 Madame Incroyable

Hole 10 The Great Couple in Bermuda

Hole 11 The Canadians

Hole 12 Being a Caddie for Free

Hole 13 The Open in 2009

Hole 14 The Possible Eternal Friend

Hole 15 What’s Required to Play on Par

Hole 16 Why Turnberry Brings Me Back

Hole 17 My Father and I

Hole 18 The Holy Grounds in St Andrews

Hole 19 Afterthought on the Close Encounters

In memory of the Ailsa Course at Turnberry

Foreword

This book is about several special meetings on different golf courses I have experienced, which in many respects have affected my entire life and the way I am. Those special persons I’ve met on different courses have left an eternal imprint in my heart and mind. They reflect different fates of life and therefore unique persons. Through them, I’ve found a unique way to tell the story I always wanted to tell by writing. The story that is not spoken around us, though it’s about the utter joy we all can sense whenever we meet someone who can share the splendor of being a human being, in an activity that brings every aspect of our personalities out in the open, like in a round of golf.

The aim and purpose of this book is to inspire every reader of this book to go out there and play on a course with an open mind towards players you never met before. It might lead you to friends for life. And if you are not a golfer yet, I recommend you to try the game, for so many pleasures to appear in your life. I also wish to inspire you to go on working on improving your game and strive for your own dreams, on or outside a golf course.

The reason I chose to write this book in English, though I’m a Swede, is the hope of reaching readers outside of Sweden as well. Another reason is that I learned to express my thoughts in the open by using the English language, which happened while I spent one year in the US as a teenager with an American family, now over 30 years ago. This book is also a tribute to this family.

Lena Hagman

Hole 1

The Father and Son

So why do I keep returning to Turnberry in the country of Scotland? Every time I return, I have longed to go back since last time I was there.

The first time I travelled to Turnberry was in April 2001. The reason I came emanates from seeing the first Swedish player almost winning the Open¹, Jesper Parnevik in 1994, though losing on the 18th hole in favor of Nick Price from South Africa. The loss has been interpreted as a mistake from Parnevik for not looking at the leader board and planning his shots according to the fact that he needed just a par to win. Instead he guessed he needed a birdie,² so he chose a wild approach shot on the 18th hole, par 4. A shot that failed, ending in the rough before the green. Then he had to chip from a difficult lie onto the green, ending with a bogey, i.e. one shot over par. Nick Price made his par on the 18th and subsequently won The Open.

When I followed Parnevik over The Open on our television at that time, I was so impressed by the way he played, (until the 18th of the last round). I could tell he was in the zone³ for most of the four days of the Championship, and it was a pleasure to watch. I could sense he had a chance to win, and it was the first time a Swede had been that close. So focused and in control. Then, I also saw Nick Price and his joy and exhilaration in playing magical shots too, and sending a fantastic 50-footer for an eagle into the hole on the 17th in the last round, which was the main blow to Parnevik, who heard the roar from the crowds, making him think he needed a birdie on the last hole in order to win.

Later I saw a picture of Price teeing off from the 9th tee of the Ailsa Course, where the professionals hit over a great ravine and the water, seeing the magnificent white lighthouse to the left of the hole, as the very landmark of Turnberry. I also saw a picture of the desert island rising like a half moon above the Sea on the horizon, as if it is connected to Turnberry, like guarding the area from a distance, adding to the visual experience of walking and playing the Ailsa course.

Those pictures of Nick Price, hitting from the 9th tee of the Ailsa, made me crave to go there and see it for myself, and of course, an almost inconceivable dream took form which was to play the course myself.

So, can you imagine the feeling of finally playing the course, in 2001, after so many years of dreaming of it? When I approached the first holes by the beach, hearing the waves roll in from behind the sandy hills, and spotting the distant island, Ailsa Craig, guarding Turnberry, I got tears in my eyes of happiness and thankfulness for being able to experience all this, at last.

During this first stay at Turnberry I was on my own. I knew no one in Sweden or elsewhere who would even consider joining me on such a trip, but I had been determined not to let that hinder me from finally going there. Still, I never felt lonely at Turnberry during that first visit. One reason is the company I got from a caddie, who made me feel he understood my great pleasure in playing the course. He was an experienced, older gentleman, John, who knew the course in and out. Besides him, some starters and the caddie master, I didn’t really get in contact with anybody else during that first trip. I’m sure I got the company of some other players, but those rounds didn’t lead to any further contact, so the memory of them faded way back in my mind.

During this first stay, I didn’t get a room in the beautiful white hotel from 1906, sitting on the hill above the Ailsa course. Instead I got a whole little apartment house to myself, right by the road, opposite the clubhouse and golf academy. It actually felt like a miracle I had gotten any place to stay at all. Somehow, a mistake had been made when booking the hotel through a special offer by British Airways over a year before the trip. They had booked me for a room but for the wrong year! When I called the hotel some month before the trip, I was told they couldn’t find my booking. This news chocked me, dreading that the trip would not come true after all.

To my relief, the hotel staff had an inherent sensitive ear to hear my desperation and great disappointment over the phone. So they booked me into this apartment house by the road for the same price as a single room in the hotel. To apologize for the previous mistake in the booking, the hotel management also surprised me by sending a whole bottle of champagne to my house on my arrival. I couldn’t feel more fortunate, and surely it felt special to sip that champagne, celebrating the moment of actually being there, gazing out the window, seeing the course I would surely fall in love with.

The second time I experienced Turnberry, in 2004, I had since long ago forgotten how it feels like to have a soul mate right beside me and be loved for the person and way I am, the special feeling I once had experienced in real life as a young girl and exchange student in the US, in 1976/77.

I had forgotten how it feels to be totally content in the moment of life and be able to talk about everything that’s on my mind, which I had gotten accustomed to when living with my American family back in 1976/77. I had forgotten how it is like to be able to share my thoughts and feelings through the connection with a true friend’s own mind and response to what I say. I had also forgotten how it’s like to be able to give someone, without hesitation, all joy of life I could ever feel. That particular feeling returned during my second visit to Turnberry.

The opportunity of once again experiencing the feeling of having a true friend by my side started on the first tee of the Ailsa Course. Almost ten years after the Open in 1994, I walked down the many stairs from the great old Turnberry hotel on the hill, overlooking the course, where I had had a great Scottish breakfast, with coffee, orange juice, bacon and eggs and some toasted bread with butter and marmalade. It was around nine in the morning.

From the restaurant serving breakfast, I had gazed through the windows, following the holes with my eyes, from the first tee to about the 6th par three hole in the distance, feeling the great anticipation of soon being out there playing again. Through the big windows of the restaurant one can see almost the whole course, spreading out like the most beautiful piece of art, changing colors of green with the shifting rays of sunlight. The artwork is decorated with tiny golfers in the distance, moving on the course, swinging their golf clubs, or workers cutting the grass. Every time I see this artwork of the Ailsa course I long to be out there myself being a part of it.

After getting my golf bag from the Caddie Master down by the clubhouse, I stepped up towards the first tee of the Ailsa course, by now so familiar to me. I had no idea then who I would soon meet and who would change my life forever.

Stepping up towards the starter on the 1st tee, I noticed some concern in his voice when he asked me about my handicap. When I told him it was 10, he seemed a bit relieved. There were three men standing on the back tee already, about to start hitting off, having three caddies. It looked serious.

I didn’t know we actually had the same tee time. So, the starter went up to the one man who had the radiance of being the boss in that party, and probably asked him if they wouldn’t mind my company. Then, this boss of the group looked into my face, first with a radar glance, then with a serious nod, as he showed me respect for joining them and accepting my company, like it was only his decision. He took the chance without knowing me at all, and without knowing what he could expect from me, as a golfer and as a person. He just saw a girl in her 40’s, wearing a black golf-cap, gazing from under it into his own face with amazement, but with an opposite serious look.

My first impression of him, besides the sense he was the boss, was a person not like anyone I had ever met before. A great person of a unique character, gained from a long experience of a life I couldn’t imagine. His appearance told me everything of respect, and I felt the honor of teeing off with this group of three Americans, a father and son and another American being there with his wife who didn’t play golf. I couldn’t imagine how we could ever become friends.

I realized that I wanted to play my best golf in order to live up to the honor of being accepted to take part in their ball. I also realized that there had been the possibility that the starter could have suggested that I play in another