The Waggle #8- On the Fringes: Part II

North Haven Golf Club- North Haven Island, Maine

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There is something essential about the idea of dashing off—about separating ourselves from what confounds us daily—that is quite agreeable to me. I very much prefer a last-second sprint towards a rising sun than a preciously constructed (and guarded) itinerary. To go on an adventure of sorts. During such moments, I am liable to hone in on spontaneity- what I might argue is a spark of genius often unappreciated- and am equally likely to minimize the importance of critical details that may get in the way. A delicate balance must exist between these two ideals, and disasters (a relative term, to be sure) occur from time to time. We are taught to believe there are lessons in such moments, and some of us remember better than others.

This is, in part, how I find myself at a bar in Downeast Maine, unable to answer some fairly basic questions about the direction of this current trip: Are you playing golf tomorrow? Do you know when the ferry leaves? Can we take the car on any of the ferries?

A beat passes. I am grinning and shaking my head. I don’t know.

We have a beer. Maybe two. We are making other plans now, the unanswered questions feeling too heavy after a nearly perfect, sunny September day on the Atlantic Ocean. We have options. There is plenty of golf to be found in Downeast Maine. Good golf. Old golf courses from famous architects with interesting histories are set in small Maine towns alongside the sea. If that doesn’t interest you, you might stop reading here.

My phone notifies me that I have an email. I have received a response to a message I sent to the North Haven Golf Club three or four days earlier. NHGC is the nine-hole Wayne Stiles golf course built on North Haven Island in 1916, about an hour's ride into the ocean. It’s the kind of place that you don’t find by accident. Stiles's work is ubiquitous and respected in New England, and I have enough knowledge to know that North Haven is not the refined centerpieces found at Taconic, Hooper, or Prouts Neck, and that its not easy to get to. I read the message, and something about the tone and spirit of the email grabs my attention. It hints at everything I like about golf in just a few words.

“No need for tee times. Just come out and play.”

The next morning, we walk aboard the ferry; no car is needed today, and it’s a beautiful day to be on the Gulf of Maine. After an hour or so, we arrive and walk past the crowd on the dock and then through the small village and begin to head to the course. The road slowly winds away from the waterfront and heads gently uphill through the woods. The course, hidden in the trees initially, comes slowly into view, and a dog runs up to greet us as we walk through the parking lot to the pro shop. I didn’t expect this and am trying hard to think of a time when getting to the course was this memorable: and the only thing that comes to mind, at the moment, is slipping through the quiet, pre-dawn medieval streets of St. Andrews with clubs on my back. I think about this question for days afterward and nothing, even now, has diminished the novelty of any of it.

The manager/superintendent begins to explain- it sounds like it’s almost an apology- to me: “It’s a little dry out there right now; we only water the greens and tees….” He’s speaking beautiful music to me, and I don’t hear the rest of his words, distracted by the landscape I see behind him through the window. Stepping outside, we see the course is mostly brown, with yellow flowers dotted throughout the bramble. If I close my eyes for a moment, the ground will tell me I am in Kintyre and not in Maine, and you can feel the connection between the two. This is golf from a different age, and it’s ….wild.

I block my opening tee shot twenty-five yards right of where it should be, and the ball takes a giant bound to the left, accelerates when it hits the ground, and rolls out at least eighty yards farther down the fairway. I have my bag on and am walking before it stops, and from behind me, I hear:

“I’ve never heard you giggle like that before.”

North Haven Golf Club

The ocean comes into view on the second hole, and you see it regularly throughout the rest of the round. North Haven is firm and fast, plays off the sides of a central hill on the property, and the conditions ask a different- an older- question than you are used to. It was pure fun, and it is so rare to play and visit a place that so effortlessly and naturally replicates my favorite parts of Scotland or Ireland. It’s old seaside golf with a distinctly New England twist, and you walk through the woods to find secret tees placed under and on top of boulders and tucked deep into the treelines. You can explore. There is a par three where you hit over a cove on the ocean, and it’s maybe only the third-best hole on the course. This is golf as it was meant to be, and only our own misunderstanding of the modern game creates a ‘rampart against the wind and the tide and the stars’. We are worse off for that. The people who built these places in the Golden Age, Wayne Stiles included, had a more intimate relationship and connection to nature than most of us do today. They were artists and businessmen and engineers and golfers, but they were still very much ‘of the land.’ And they came to places like this and left their mark. In every sense of the word, North Haven is a classic and one built on what feels like the edge of the world. And to be fair, maybe it is. You should go see for yourself.

The round finishes altogether too quickly, and before we know it, we say our goodbyes and reverse our path back to the ferry. There is a brewery, a beer garden, and an hour to wait for our evening boat back to Rockland. The right decisions are made, and we sit and look at photos and feel the first hint of fall come down from Nova Scotia and wonder what we have learned. The world is momentarily calm and there is nothing for us to do but wait. At least for a moment, until we are off again.

This is Part II of an ongoing series that highlights golf on the fringes. Check out Part I here.

All photo credit and editing: Crystal Vinyard Martin. It’s probably time she got a website set up, right?