Posted on 14. May, 2012 by admin in Books, Distant Greens
Distant Greens
Golf, Life and Surprising Serendipity on and Off the Fairways
Editions Didier Millet. Singapore. 2011
ISBN 9789814260695
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Description
Distant Greens explores crypto-golf — golf where it oughtn’t be — and travels to the highest golf course in the world, where breathless Tibetan precepts come face to face with the oxymoronic concept of Indian military intelligence. To a golf course in the Amazon jungle, near the source of rubber, which revolutionized the game. To the Middle Kingdom, to examine claims that that it was the Chinese, and not the Scots, who invented golf. And what’s happening at the active volcano of the home course of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, where his consort, the Mermaid Queen, ensures the rain never falls when he plays and that lava never damages the course?
Distant Greens also travels into the soul of golf, the rituals, the belief that a tetrachaidecohedron dimple pattern can make a difference. Why can throwing junkshop 4-irons provide an insight into the soul? What does a Zen priest in Japan hope to teach his acolyte golfers? Why do people cheat? And why is golf more important, to some folks, than sex?
And Distant Greens explores the eco-future of golf. Can golf and nature support each other? What can golfers do to ensure that their golf course is environmentally and socially responsible? And what happened when Jesus, Moses and Mohammed played a round?
Some of the 27 stories in Distant Greens have been published in the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure Golf and other publications.
Reviews
Rick Lipsey of Sports Illustrated: “Distant Greens is an intimate golfing tour that travels to all corners of the planet and brings us into the heart, mind and soul of the game that we all love.”
Steve Cohen, president of The Shivas Irons Society: “Distant Greens gets to the core of golf’s eco-spiritual essence with a collection of charming, insightful and often amusing stories, anecdotes and commentary that traverse the globe yet reside happily in the realm of ‘good heart.’”
Micah Woods, director, Asian Turfgrass Center: “Distant Greens reminds us why we play the game. These enthralling stories take us to some of the world’s strangest golf courses. They are more than travel stories; they are insightful, funny, and often touching human tales that provide new insights on why we play the game. Proves the adage that the quality of sports writing is inversely proportional to the size of the ball.”
Daniel Navid, president, International Golf and Life Foundation: “Travels to golf courses where they ‘oughtn’t be, visits with some of the most intriguing golfic characters the world over, and never strays far from the reader’s heart. A quirky, funny, layered, insightful, beautifully-written collection for golfers who ponder the meaning of this ever-fascinating, eternally-frustrating, always-satisfying game.”
Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist, IUCN-International Union for Conservation of Nature:
“Impressively links reportage on golf around the world with insights on the personal aspects of the game. But what makes Distant Greens so important, and a must-read, is how Sochaczewski addresses the role of golf in environmental destruction and, surprisingly for some, how golf can be a force for conservation. He offers new directions that golfers, and golf course owners and managers, should heed, for the good of the game and for the good of nature.”
Fred Shoemaker, coach, author and founder of Extraordinary Golf: “More than a golf travel book; more than a discourse on the spiritual nature of the game, this collection of insightful (and funny) essays and exceptional reportage explores new vistas about some of golf’s most interesting people and places, and gets to the heart of the very reason so many of us love this game.”
Ron Fream, golf architect, has designed golf courses in 65 countries: “Paul brings insight, awareness, vision and clarity to the unconventional and unsung parts of this historic game. His writing informs and illuminates while drawing attention to the importance of environment to the integrity and future of golf. Indeed, this is big writing.”
Sample chapter
STEPPES-TO-HEAVEN
“Natural golf” roams the range in Mongolia
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia
Once my taxi left the charmless capital of Mongolia, with its stolid Soviet-era apartment blocks and busy personality-challenged streets, the road seemed to abruptly head towards the steppes. Put another way, the road headed nowhere – I got the distinct impression, true as it turned out, that if we kept driving we would become as lost and aimless as the Flying Dutchman of Wagner’s opera.
I wanted to play golf at the Ulaanbaatar Resort Golf Club, a rather grand name for a remarkably modest course. The tees were beat-up Astroturf, the fairways were as ragged as Yassar Arafat’s three-day-old stubble, the greens were sand mixed with oil.
The handful of golf courses in Mongolia are so natural that at first glance they seem to be an extension of the endless steppes that characterize this big sky country. These broad, mostly-barren, somewhat-flat vistas, generally set against a deep-blue sky, sometimes dotted with camels, horses and goats, rarely perturbed by roads or towns, give me a bizarre feeling. It is agoraphobia, the antithesis of claustrophobia. There is so much emptiness that my urbanized eye doesn’t know where to focus. I long for landmarks. There is too much nothing.
* * * * *
Of course one man’s nothing is another creature’s home-on-the-range. Mongolia’s grassland steppes, so similar to the golf course I was playing on, are home to some of the world’s rarest and most endangered wildlife. The Mongolian wild ass, the golden eagle, the two-humped Bactrian camel. The Mongolian gazelle, gray wolf, wild reindeer. Siberian marmot and saiga antelope. Six species of cranes (half the world’s species of these iconic birds). And, in the distant hills, amidst the rocks and caverns and waterfalls of the omnipresent wilderness, lives the snow leopard.
I was in Mongolia at the request of WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature, to help them develop a communications plan and train their staff to tell a story without being boring. I flew west across the country to the provincial town of Khovd, flying for three hours over terrain that was bereft of roads. It would have been a tedious four-to-five day drive.
A few hours outside of Khovd I encountered a deep-throat, steppe-based, conservation-oriented spy story.
* * * * *
The taxi dropped me off at a small building half an hour outside Ulaanbaatar. Inside the modest clubhouse I said hello to a group of three Japanese golfers who had just completed their round.
“How was it?” I asked.
They gave me hearty, conspiratorial laughs. “Wait til you see the bunkers,” one of the men said. “And the greens,” added another.
* * * * *
In the autumn of 2004 Gantulga Sharav, a park ranger who is head of a Mongolian anti-poaching unit, got a call on his mobile phone from a man I will call Mr. Z, who explained “there’s a story going around that a guy in my village killed a snow leopard.”
“Mr Z.” is one of some 160 conservation spies in three western Mongolian provinces. Usually referred to in Mongolian by more politically-neutral descriptors like “volunteer ranger”, ”public conservationist” and “reporter”, these men provide information on poaching to conservation rangers. Even though it is unlikely that Mr. Z’s enemies will read this book, I agreed not to use his name to protect his cover.
Based on Mr. Z’s report, Gantulga and a policeman drove to the temporary camp in the mountains where the alleged poacher, Iriimed, was living for the summer season. Their conversation went something like this.
“We heard you killed a snow leopard,” the ranger said.
“Nope,” Iriimed replied.
“Well you won’t mind if we look around.”
And in the shed next to Iriimed’s ger they found a fresh snow leopard skin.
“Why did you do it?”
“The animal killed 20 of my sheep,” Iriimed complained.
Iriimed was unable to show any sheep carcasses or bones and finally admitted poachng the rare snow leopard, whose skin might have brought him $200 if sold underground in Khovd.
* * * * *
The leading proponent of Mongolian “natural golf”, or playing on golf courses which fit naturally into the landscape, is Andre Tolme, a civil engineer from New Hampshire who golfed across Mongolia.
Following a route that might have been traversed by Chinggis Khan almost a thousand years ago, Tolme hit 12,170 shots with his 3-iron, covering a distance of 1,985 kilometers in 90 days.
A few thoughts come to mind.
First, Tolme’s average shot was 163 meters using a 3-iron (now retired to his closet), a hard club to hit even on a manicured fairway. He plays off 15. Most of the time he played the ball off uneven terrain of patchy grass or packed gravel. After a summer rain the weeds and grasses jolted up overnight. Either way, dirt or weeds, that’s a lot of tough lies.
Second, he lost 509 balls, even though he said “I mark the line like a Labrador retriever and then count my steps.”
Third, by researching this story I learned that the gerbil originated in Mongolia.
* * * * *
The snow leopard has semi-mythological importance in Mongolia and is legally protected. It is one of the world’s most elusive, and endangered mammals. There are only 3,500-7,000 of the animals left in a 12-country swathe of mountainous Central Asia and the Himalaya, according to the International Snow Leopard Trust, with Mongolia home to some 800-1,200 of the big cats.
A 2003 report released by TRAFFIC, WWF and the International Snow Leopard Trust found a sharp rise in hunting in the 1990s to supply the black market. The leading threats to the animals, which are as endangered as tigers (an estimated 5,000-7,000 tigers are left in the wild) are trade in bones (used in Chinese traditional medicine), sale of the furs, and retaliatory killing by herders protecting their livestock.
As our two-car caravan criss-crossed the flat steppes of the Khar Us Nuur National Park, two things struck me. I was intrigued that this desolate landscape is relatively rich in rare wildlife — Altai mountain sheep, saiga antelope, Siberian ibex, snow leopard and other threatened species.
And I was reassured that in our crowded planet such a seemingly-empty vastness could exist. Mongolia, which is roughly three-times the size of France, has a population of less than three million people, giving it the lowest population density of any country in the world. It seemed a place without primary colors – where nature’s palette was limited to shades of grey and brown and ochre, with some faded purple late in the day. It reminded me of the harsh moonscapes of Ladakh – a place of sand and rock and gravel inhabited by hardy horse-riding, throat-singing nomads whose herds of sheep, goats and double-humped Bactrian camels send wisps of dust into the air.
* * * * *
Enkh Amgalan is general secretary of the Mongolian Golf Association. “Golf is in its early stages here,” he noted without a touch of irony. “We have maybe 100 to 150 Mongolian players, and about the same number of foreign golfers, mostly Koreans.”
* * * * *
My WWF friends and I camped by a stream of pure water, amidst a grove of willow trees just beginning to grow their spring leaves. We hiked up the river canyon to two waterfalls, a pathless climb over packed snow covering the stream, crossing rock fields, dancing on slippery boulders, gingerly sidestepping on vertiginous sandy patches where a slip would lead to a nasty tumble down to the river. My Mongolian colleagues, some of whom were wearing flip-flops, seemed to jitterbug across the natural obstacle course; wearing my hiking boots I opted for a more deliberate pace. It was the kind of scenery that I love – wild, having seen few visitors, with rushing water to cleanse the accumulated frustrations and stresses of living in Bangkok, my current home.
We passed carcasses of domestic sheep and goats. These dead animals were evidence of one of the main conservation problems that Mongolia faces — the competition for habitat between domestic livestock and other wild grazing animals.
Tseveenravdan Damdindorj, director of the WWF office in Khovd, explained the dilemma.
The hotter and drier climate resulting from global climate change results in less grass on the steppes, forcing the nomads to graze their sheep and goats in protected areas designed for wildlife. In addition, there is an over-population of livestock, up to twice the carrying capacity in some areas, which forces out the wild ibex and saiga antelope. In effect, by moving their herds into the mountains the nomadic herders provide a home-food-delivery service for the isolated snow leopards. The angry herders from the steppes then hunt the big cats which have eaten their domestic animals.
Nevertheless, Mongolia has taken some positive conservation steps. Some 11 percent of the country is designated as protected area, for example, with plans to protect 30 percent by 2030.
* * * * *
“Natural golf” is a minor buzzword among eco-adventurous golfers. I use the term to describe golf courses which fit naturally into the landscape. During his journey Andre Tolme faced some bothersome natural hazards – marmots carrying bubonic plague, four types of poisonous snakes (one of which coiled around his ball, protecting it as if it were an egg, and swarms of flies and mosquitoes, of which he said “I just ignore them no matter how many are covering my face, head, backpack or golf club.”
I have to admire Tolme, who said “I had never heard of anyone going on a long-distance golf adventure before. Nor had I heard of anyone who had trekked the entire width of Mongolia. So the expedition had the appeal of originality.”
And he was intrigued by the “ironic artistry” in the juxtapositions of the two-word phrase “Golf Mongolia.” “When you think of Mongolia, the words dry, remote, undeveloped, and unpretentious come to mind,” he said. “When you think of golf: verdant, lush, fanciful, pretentious.”
“But most important,” Tolme says, “I followed through on the expedition because of the consistent encouragement I received when suggesting the idea to friends, family, and strangers. Now I’ve learned that the encouragement was probably due to a subconscious strain of sadism that lies repressed in most people and surfaces occasionally to cajole others into performing random ridiculous acts in the name of human evolution.”
* * * * *
Golf is hardly booming in the country, but there are some developments.
According to Amardush Dorj, manager of marketing and sales at Sky Resort, the Ulaanbaatar Resort Golf Club where I played has closed.
Two courses, Chinggis Khan Golf Course and Zaan Terelj Golf Club, are located in the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, some 60 kilometers from the capital.
Tuul River Golf Club, some 20 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar, will open nine holes in the summer of 2011, with another nine holes planned.
And the most ambitious golf project is Sky Resort, a $30 million development funded by Mongolian and Hong Kong investors. The 18-hole course will have a soft opening in the summer of 2011 and a grand opening a year later. The complex, on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, includes a ski resort being built with French and Italian assistance. It too is located in a protected area (a questionable practice in most parts of the world), in this case the Bogd Khan Uul Strictly Protected Area, a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve. According to Amardush Dorj of Sky Resort, the Sky Resort project uses a Czech-designed state-of-the-art water recycling system to treat sewage; the treated water is used for irrigating the course in the summer and snow-making in the winter.
* * * * *
Part of the optimism about conservation in Mongolia is curiously related to the national admiration for Chinggis Khan, who lived between 1162–1227. Chinggis Khan conquered the world’s largest land empire, stretching from Hungary and Poland in the west, to Vietnam in the south, and to Korea in the east. In Mongolia today his name and image are omnipresent: he adorns the currency, a luxury hotel and a high-society pub. A popular beer is named after him, as is a vodka. The best golf course in Mongolia is named after him. His face, sculpted with stones on a barren hillside, gazes down on the capital Ulaanbaatar and is clearly visible from the downtown Eldorado Golf Driving Range.
Mongolians choose to downplay Chinggis Khan’s Western reputation as a mass murderer and instead position him as a visionary leader who promoted the rule of law, education (he is credited with developing a script for the Mongolian language), and freedom of religion. He is credited with developing the first international postal system. Above all, he was a Super-Steppeman, a fearless conqueror who made Mongolians proud of their rugged, independent culture, in which nature permeates the country’s music, legends, sports and self-image. The memory of Chinggis Khan (as well as the country’s Mahayana Buddhist faith and still-prevalent shamanism) reflects a collective pride in the empty and pristine steppes, frigid lakes and the idyllic, clear rivers. (In 2011 the eco-reputation of Chinggis Khan got a back-handed boost when the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Energy issued a study that concluded that by wiping out 40 million people Chinggis Khan may have scrubbed 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere – roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through global gasoline consumption. The decimation of entire civilizations by Mongol invaders during the 12th and 13th centuries meant that vast areas of farm land and pasture grew thick with trees through natural reforestation; these trees absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Genocide reduces climate change. An interesting proposition.)
“The Mongolian society’s unconscious evokes a form of oneness with nature,” explains Gantulga Sharav, the park ranger who chases snow leopard poachers. “That’s the reason why Mr Z works with us,” Sharav says, referring to the conservation informant. “Yes, Mr. Z earned money when the poacher was caught [some $150, which is 15 percent of the fine imposed by the courts], but money wasn’t the prime motive. He primarily did it because he loves nature.”
* * * * *
At the Ulaanbaatar Resort Golf Club I rent good Callaway clones. My caddie Uyanga, a sociable 18-year-old student who is learning Japanese at university, rakes the sand green, the only level space around. No need for her to tell me whether it breaks left or right.
The hole is permanently cemented into the center of the green. I miss the colorful instructions of Asian caddies: “Right one grip.” “Left lip, careful, slippery.” “Straight ok. But uphill, lah, don’t be chicken.”
* * * * *
Chinggis Khan may also be responsible for one of the world’s greatest genetic shifts. An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data has found that nearly eight percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry Y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. The study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, estimates that 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million people, carry Chinggis Khan’s genes.
In our world of platitudes and corporate jargon, where thousands of days of executive time are wasted in retreats to determine a collective (and generally wishy-washy) “mission statement”, Chinggis Khan was brutally frank.
Steven Dutch, professor of natural and applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, writes: “Some of the Mongol tribes were literate, so we have written collections of the history and traditions of the Mongols, as well as accounts by Persian and Chinese chroniclers. One of the most telling is Genghis Khan’s purported value statement. During a respite from his campaigns, he once asked some friends what the greatest pleasure was. After they variously answered hunting, falconry, or archery, Genghis is reputed to have said: ‘The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms.’”
I have no idea how this links to golf.
* * * * *
Andre Tolme played a form of zen golf. He tried to ignore the blisters, the incessant sun, the radiating pain in his shoulders, the upset stomach from drinking fermented mare’s milk and cheap vodka offered by the nomads.
“I am amazed at how easy it is to live very happily with very little, without gadgets and toys,” he wrote. “When I meet people living in a yurt, simple homes in the countryside, they laugh, they joke, they all know how to have fun.”
