Fairway Philosophy

My name's Matt. I run an occasional golf-blog that considers the game from a philosophical angle. Basically wondering if Socrates could hit a knock-down 7-iron.

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

Talking cinematic golf swings with @coynewriter and none other than the possessor of the best one, Mr. Bill Murray, whose silky cut in "Lost in Translation" signals more meaning than just a good tee shot. What a treat.

@GolfersJournal

https://t.co/a9sB789FRK

[Philip Turturro @chompchomp15]

If you were wondering who made that hole out behind the pb, @PhilosophyGolf is your guy.

[Philip Turturro @chompchomp15]

When I built my Punchbowl @GatorNational in 2019 it was inspired by the 15th at Sleepy. A hole I had only seen photos of.

Today my son hit a towering drive, a blind approach and a a Bobby Locke ish cut spin birdie putt that never left the hole.

Someday he’ll know what it meant to me that he birdied my favorite hole at one of my favorite places.
But not until he’s a dad and he sees his son do it.

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@Brendon_Thomas @GolfersJournal We have a home game with one of @coynewriter's "A Course Called . . ." books. Voting is live in the BTS app!

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@JMWSPT Luce may become the Gritty of the Catholic world. A common trajectory is unfolding . . .

[Maxim Owen @maxim_owen]

@GolfersJournal @PhilosophyGolf Really just an incredible piece. Bravo, and thank you.

[The Golfer's Journal @GolfersJournal]

Bill Murray’s swing in “Lost in Translation” is sneaky pure, but is it the best move in movie history? @philosophygolf argues that it is in TGJ No. 29:

“After a buzzing, kaleidoscopic, karaoke-filled jaunt around Tokyo with Charlotte and her friends late into the night before, Bob has a day off and takes to the golf course. As the scene–shot at Kawaguchiko Country Club, about 60 miles west of Tokyo–fades into focus, he approaches a tee box, dressed in all black, during what appears to be a solo morning round. The framing is steady and still, with Mount Fuji presiding in the background, unmoved and uninterested. Bob pegs the ball, takes a practice swing, then casually makes his address. There is no soundtrack but birdsong, the crunch of turf underfoot and the club moving through both space and the ball as Bob launches a pretty fade off the centerline tree in the distance. The finish is held just long enough to betray some satisfaction. The scene takes but one minute of our attention and closes with Bob sauntering after his tee shot, club slung over shoulder.

A golf swing is the reverse of a camera aperture in that it opens and reveals rather than captures. It’s also like a Magic 8 Ball, with uncertain revelations always emerging from its murky, black, globular depths. In the story’s unfolding, Bob’s time on this tee box displays a certain quiet, rhythmic vitality pulsing through him and in concert with the world about him. Though the scene is spare, there is something deep down that I trust most all of us have felt during some simple but spellbound times on the course.”

Words by @philosophygolf
Illustration by Leon Washere

[The Golfer's Journal @GolfersJournal]

“Before we could begin to process what was before us, down the second set of steps appeared John G. Capers III, Merion’s historian and archivist. Our dumb luck turned to good fortune as we caught him at work. His shock of white hair, delight in the arcane, and professorial air might conjure a real-life Dumbledore, but the loafers and Torrey Pines polo gave him away. There’s no magic; Capers is just a man who knows and loves golf. And Merion. And he was happy to tell us about both…

Before leaving, I asked Capers what this place meant to him. Like a true historian, he paused, then spun a yarn:

‘I once came over here at 11 o’clock at night. Merion is not a late-night club. At 11 o’clock in the middle of summer, you can get a chair and sit on the back of the first tee and nobody is around. And I spent that hour in solitude. You could see the twinkling lights through the trees as the wind was moving the leaves. And I just sat there, thinking of all the people who had stood where I was sitting. Recently we found a ticket from an exhibition that was played here, and [Harry] Vardon played in it. So now I had an opportunity to go from Vardon to Jones to Hogan to Trevino to Nicklaus. That takes you back to the 1890s. It’s time and place—just lucky as a club, as a course, as a piece of turf, to walk in the same place that all of these people have walked in one way or another. And you just don’t get that opportunity at too many places.’”

Words by @philosophygolf
Photos by @hafe_life
“Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” from TGJ No. 21

[The Golfer's Journal @GolfersJournal]

A note from Editor @coynewriter on what you'll soon find in TGJ No. 29:

I knew @JSamuelStarnes wrote great and gritty novels about life in the South, but I didn’t know he was a golfer. And I certainly didn’t know he grew up in the same town as 20-time Tour winner and golf playboy Doug Sanders, where Sam’s mother had known Sanders as someone a respectable Southern girl “should be wary of.”

“Sanders from Cedartown” is the sort of story that makes me grateful for The Golfer’s Journal. It’s a story about golf, certainly, but it’s about family and hometowns and the nature of Southern storytelling. It has images that are hard to believe, and it’s long, because some stories deserve more than a social media post, and some readers are willing to put down their phones and curl up with real storytelling, presented by a writer who knows how it’s done.

I’m pleased to welcome Sam to the pages of The Golfer’s Journal, along with @Pooshdaddy, Karen Crouse, and Angus MacVicar, all debut contributors in No. 29. When we set out to create each issue, we have a few goals in mind: Take you places you haven’t been. Introduce you to characters with whom you might like to spend a round. Give you a break from the noise and offer a chance to recall your connection to and love of this game. But above all our aims at The Golfer’s Journal is great storytelling, and in No. 29, I hope you find that we have lived up to these ambitions, and that this book earns its spot among your colorful collection of TGJ spines.

This book will take you on adventures to Iceland and Santa Barbara and will have you playing muni golf alongside an architect, a missionary, and an airplane mechanic. You’ll hear about golf dreams come true in Tennessee and in Scotland, and you’ll get to know a man who, when not booking gigs for U2 and Harry Styles, builds things like the Sphere and a golf course in the desert that plays like a small piece of heaven. When we select our stories for each issue, we look for the subjects that get us most excited not just as editors, but as golfers. Reading @PhilosophyGolf's breakdown of Bill Murray’s swing from Lost In Translation was irresistible, a story that deserved the frame-by-frame swing sequence you’ll find in the pages of No. 29.

We aim for variety in our selections, but our mantra is always that the best story and best image win. So four times a year, you get the best we’ve got. Carefully curated. Rigorously crafted. Deliberately presented. And just as you’re always grinding for improvement, so are we. We are kindred sickos in this regard, always looking for what we can do new or do better, not settling for formulas or bowing to the algorithm. Thank you, as always, for allowing us to chase our best. Thank you for chasing it with us.

Sincerely,
Tom Coyne
Editor

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@BigRandyNLU What's your favorite three-hole stretch so far at LCC and which do you think will prove most pivotal come Sunday?

[Travis Hill @travismhill]

Apparently Bernard Darwin lived one of the most consequential—and fun as hell—golf lives ever? @PhilosophyGolf with a killer profile and a quote for the ages from Wright Thompson: "The better angels of all that sports writing involves flow through him."

https://t.co/gVFWtvW9s3

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

Some great footage of the first Walker Cup, played in 1922 at NGLA. Good looks at B. Darwin, Bobby Jones, and Ouimet.

"Darwin, British team captain, bangs out a long one . . ."

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@WillieParkJr1 @coynewriter Thanks for filling that gap

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

I had such a great time talking Bernardo Darwin with @coynewriter in his golffice. Much, much more could be said of Bernard's fascinating life, but this should whet the appetite of lovers of both golf and good writing. (Also, what a stache and cap on BD!)

https://t.co/qfUATtQDep

[Travis Hill @travismhill]

Takeaway from this pod and story: Darwin is top 10, possibly top-5 all time golf lives

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@travismhill That's a great way to frame it.

[The Golfer's Journal @GolfersJournal]

You've heard of Bernard Darwin, but do you really know him? @PhilosophyGolf does.

In a new pod, he and @coynewriter examine how the errant grandson of Britain's famed naturalist became our game's greatest scribe...and an impromptu Walker Cup participant: https://t.co/ofC4WrhrSy

[Tom Coyne @coynewriter]

Talking Bernardo with @PhilosophyGolf @GolfersJournal
https://t.co/ivscqp8ZUa

[Fairway Philosophy @PhilosophyGolf]

@brianrussell149 @coynewriter @GolfersJournal That was a great day. Had a lot of fun playing with you, Brian!

[Front Porch Republic @FrontPorchRepub]

Matthew Chominski on bourbon, memory, and Wright Thompson's Pappyland: "while we can’t forever capture in amber all that passes through time, what we can do is hope for the Resurrection and leave mementos of ourselves for those that follow."
https://t.co/vM2mrPs96g