Dear Harvey,
It’s Fit as a Fiddle Friday, the first day of November 2024. Let’s discuss the ‘it’ factor from the perspective of the great Gary Player, but first, I want to share a bit about the weather. That is what we Brits do, right?
The clocks have ‘fallen backwards’ in the UK, which feels good. I’ve told you often that moving to England, at this stage of my life (‘the third act’), has been a remarkable blessing. Returning to a similar ‘maritime’ climate to the one I grew up in, southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, just feels good.
The magic of changing seasons.
- Leaves that change colours and drop off trees. (Hello, ‘leaf rule’.)
- Later morning sun.
- Darkness at 4:30 PM.
- Layering up to go outside.
- It all feels so good!
This time of year and this climate teaches me to slow down. Tap the breaks on this type-A personality. Relax. Enjoy family and friends and upcoming holidays. Move slower, like the giant snail we discovered in our back garden during last night’s Halloween celebration.
We did not expect this when we moved, but what a wonderful surprise.
Our good friend Jim Hopke (jHop), the Master of the Games, as I call him, sent over a beautiful description of this transition as it relates to golf. It’s a short essay about the transition from summer to autumn in the United Kingdom: to play or not to play, to get out the thermals and the hand warmers, or just stay inside and cosy up to a warm fire and a good whiskey.
Before experiencing the delights of next year’s spring and summer, one must endure the perils of cold and rain, frost, snow and wind.
In “An Entirely Different World,” a glorious essay about the President’s Putter competition, held at Rye Golf Club each January among members of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, Herbert Warren Wind noted that a competitor once wore three pairs of socks, underwear, pyjamas, a pair of rain trousers over his regular trousers, a heavy shirt, six sweaters, two scarves, two pairs of gloves, a woollen hat and the kind of face-protecting hood called a balaclava.
I thought you and our golf friends in Austin, TX, would get a kick out of this and likely say, ‘No thanks, I’ll take our perfect November golf weather any day over trudging through wind, rain, and slop!’
I also wanted to share something from the great (and always fit) Gary Player about the ‘it’ factor. I love this Instagram post from Player and how he describes the difference between ‘players’ and ‘scorers’—featuring current Texas star Scottie Scheffler in the same vein as Michael Jordan and Mohammed Ali!
The bank manager never said to me, ‘How are you swinging?’ . . . he said, ‘How much are you depositing!’
Here’s to Fit as a Fiddle Friday and finding a little more ‘it’ factor in all we do!
Your pal,
gPage
“Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a sports classic that became the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet, beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright — all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.” – Kevin Robbins, author of Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf.
