An Ode to Riviera, an 18-Hole Work of Art That Deserves Its Place Among World's Best Golf Courses
I found myself a bit sad today, watching TV coverage of the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, a lob wedge Northwest of the Los Angeles city border. Because I'm being careful around COVID, this was the second year in the last 30 that I didn't attend in person. In addition to covering the event, I’ve played Riviera many times with friends. Each time I found myself marveling more deeply at the sheer artistic beauty of the place. While it’s true that comparisons can be odious, it’s my opinion that Riviera’s layout, with no two holes alike and all flickering greenly in the hazy off-shore breezes from the Pacific Ocean, represent the finest collection of 18 holes in the world.
It’s not surprising that PGA Tour players for decades have listed Riviera among their favorite venues. Just last week, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas raved about the place. Riviera is unquestionably telegenic and holds up to the best, including Pebble Beach, Augusta National and St. Andrews -- this still is Hollywood, after all. So, sitting on the couch and watching the action on TV from my home in Pasadena offers a kind of aesthetic consolation prize of its own, I suppose.
Indeed, a golf course is truly a work of art, but to appreciate them as such we have to first discover and feel the rhythms of the course, then look into the meaning of these rhythms as we would while gazing at the masterpieces in the Louvre.
I’m working on a collection of golf poems that tries to explore the many emotions this game has stimulated in me during my -- let me put it this way -- somewhat "advanced point in the round" of my playing it. The poems also try to mine the myriad and often surprising array of feelings that I believe are inherent in the game itself.
That’s where the idea of the golf course as a work of art fits in to my collection of poems. With this in mind, I’d like to share with you my poem from my manuscript simply called “Riviera Country Club.” Hopefully next year I’ll get back out there again, press credential lariat strung around my neck as before, in a world that God willing will be a healthier place for golfers and non-golfers alike.
Riviera Country Club
It’s time to golf our way
across the sky
whose bright daylight obliterates
L.A.’s movie stars.
For what other than golf,
as the ball flies up,
brings us back
to earth
then bites it
like a five iron digging through
the kikuya grass of Riviera
right down to the soul of
California, whose
Indians played
ball and stick games
in the paradisal
breezes that massaged their minds
with the loving fingertips
of the Pacific Ocean.
The fist tee is an eagle’s perch,
a lookout point,
a skyscraper of hope,
the vaulted
peak of divine blue.
And below
like a burly grandfather with his arms outstretched
an expanse of fairway accepts
the myth of the West
on through the heart of the course
where the fairways pitch and roll
like a ship in a storm.
Here golf becoming an act of
piracy,
whose goal is
to steal the gold of a well-
struck shot
and deposit it in our
memory slot,
that it may soothe our
burnt egos,
which is how this game goes,
and nobody plays
unscathed.