Without revealing specific plot details, in Minimosca, the monumental novel by Gustavo Faverón recently released, there is a very interesting aspect that links the authorship of each book to specific moments and physical aspects of each author. The Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote The Scarlet Letter, for example, is not the same as the one who signed The House of the Seven Gables… and, in fact, in the novel, each of them has a different body… and their corresponding corpse. The author brings to the reality of the plot and, therefore, to the literalness, a common metaphor among creators: that of writers who do not recognise themselves as their career evolves.
This dissociation can be applied to any field and any profession. Was I the one who wrote that column? Do I see myself in those words? Am I still that person, as the song said? It sounds like a cliché, but it’s an undeniable reality: we are the sum of our days, of our experiences, no matter how much we sometimes don’t notice it when we look back.
When writing material was scarce, especially from the 7th to the 12th century, palimpsests were a common resource. Broadly speaking, they were manuscripts, either on papyrus or vellum, that were reused by scraping their surface to remove the ink and then writing on top again. But no matter how hard the craftsman tried, traces of writing always remained, and over time, the recovery of these lost texts has enriched cultural heritage and allowed the recovery of works by classical authors that were thought to be lost.
In a way, we are all a kind of palimpsest shaped by our previous experiences, and the same can be said of golfers. Given the long-term nature of golf, it is normal for professionals to evolve and need X-rays to rediscover what they were, because after so much scraping of the initial parchment, no one can recognise them.
In a way, we are all a kind of palimpsest shaped by our previous experiences, and the same can be said of golfers
The loss of essence is one of the dangers of the eternal quest for the Holy Grail that every golf professional undertakes when facing the challenges of high-level professional sport. There are swings chiselled with precision and that seem to have escaped from a textbook, such as that of Ángel Ayora (thanks to his efforts and those of coaches like Juan Ochoa, who have managed to shape, refine, and guide the young Andalusian talent), but there are also many other peculiar ones that should be left as they are, because over-correction or the pursuit of the canon would only lead to disaster. That is the case of Jon Rahm, whose swing, influenced by his physical peculiarities, was respected by all his coaches, on both sides of the Atlantic, because they recognised that naturalness was much more important than orthodoxy. Many careers have derailed for not having assumed that.
As Mike Tyson said in that prodigious and somewhat worn-out quote: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Then there is effort, always essential, and the balance between method and instinct. Although the evolution of golf materials (in clubs and, especially, in balls) levels the playing field and diminishes the importance of genius and imagination when planning shots, even if the barriers blur and technique often prevails over intuition, the ability to amaze in specific (and generally tense) situations is more common in artists than in craftsmen.
And even among artists and craftsmen, there are different ways to achieve the same goal. Returning to literature, and as Ciro Altabás explained recently at the presentation of his book Cabezazos en el teclado, there are map writers and compass writers; that is, writers who need to have everything planned to go from one point to another (and have everything under control before they start writing their novel), while others trust in finding their way once they set off, even if they are not clear on how they will reach their destination. It’s not a bad analogy to apply to golf, and we can surely think of a few names of “map” players and “compass” players, at least initially, because this categorisation can change depending on the day (and the tournament). As Mike Tyson said in that prodigious and somewhat worn-out quote: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
