Alright, so this ‘*’ thing you’re curious about. It wasn’t some grand plan, you know? It kinda just… happened. I had a bit of unexpected time on my hands a while back – long story, involves a project that went south and suddenly everyone was “too busy” to return calls. Sound familiar? Anyway, I found myself with hours to fill, and my mind, well, it wanders.
The Initial Spark
I was rummaging through some old digital notes, a real mess of half-baked ideas and bookmarks. One file was just labeled ‘*’. No idea why I named it that originally. Maybe it was late. But it got me thinking. Not about spooky stuff, but about the stories, you know? The golfers who aren’t around anymore but left some kind of mark, big or small.
So, I started digging. Just simple searches at first. Who were these guys? What were their stories? It wasn’t about stats or championships, not really. I was more interested in the human side of it. The oddballs, the legends, the forgotten ones.
Going Down the Rabbit Hole
Pretty soon, I was hooked. It became a bit of a personal project. My “practice,” if you want to call it that, was trying to compile these stories. Not like a proper historian, mind you. More like collecting curios. I’d read a snippet here, find an old article there. It was a bit all over the place.
You’d get characters like that Maurice Flitcroft. What a story, right? A crane driver, never played a proper round, and then just waltzes into the Open. Scores a 121, the worst ever! The bigwigs banned him for life, but he kept trying to sneak back in under daft disguises. You gotta admire the nerve, even if it was a bit bonkers. He wasn’t “good” in the traditional sense, but he was memorable. Definitely a ‘*’ who left a legend.
Then you have the other end of the spectrum. Someone like Old Tom Morris. Born in St. Andrews, son of a weaver, practically grew up with a golf club in his hand. Became a champion, a real pillar of the game. His story is more… foundational. It’s the kind of tale people tell with a sort of reverence.
The Messy Process
My “system” was, frankly, a shambles.
- I’d jot down notes in a text file.
- Sometimes I’d save web pages, then lose track of them.
- I even thought about making a little website, just a simple thing, to put these stories up.
But then you get into the weeds of it. Verifying facts, finding decent (and free) images, trying to write something coherent when you’re just pulling threads from all over. It’s harder than it looks, especially when it’s just you, poking around in your spare time.
I didn’t have a fancy database or a research assistant. It was just me, a search engine, and a growing collection of digital odds and ends. Sometimes I’d spend an evening chasing down one tiny detail about a golfer hardly anyone remembers, and you think, “What am I even doing?” But then you find a little nugget, a forgotten anecdote, and it feels like a small win.
What Came of It
So, what was the grand result of this ‘*’ exploration? No best-selling book, no viral website. It’s still mostly a collection of notes and thoughts, a bit more organized now, maybe. But the practice itself, that was the thing. It was a way to spend time, to learn something new, to connect with these human stories that often get buried under the official histories and record books.
It reminded me that behind every name, there’s a life, full of weird choices, lucky breaks, and a fair bit of struggle. Just like with anything else, really. You scratch the surface, and it’s always more complicated, and usually more interesting, than you first thought. And yeah, I still keep an eye out for those stories. You never know what you’ll find.
