On the Great Field of Flags, Where a Champion Struck the Ball Twice and Was Twice Praised For It

By my troth, I have this day witnessed a tourney the like of which no reeve nor priest in my village would credit, and I set it down honest, though I understood perhaps one part in ten of what my eyes beheld.

I was bid to watch the golfing, which the wise men of this age tell me is a contest of striking a small white stone into a hole in the ground with a bent stick, and of doing this fewer times than your rivals, which strikes me as a poor sort of victory to boast of — where I come from, a man who does a thing the fewest times is called lazy, and the miller docks his flour for it. Yet here they crowned a man for it, and crowned him not once but twice, and called the second crowning a Fedex Cup, which I took at first for a saint's relic, some cup blessed by a bishop named Fedex, until I saw it was in truth silver and held no wine at all, only more silver.

The champion is called Scheffler, and he is said to be first among all golfing men in the whole world, which is a mighty claim, for the world is very large and I myself have only seen the one shire and this field. He is young and fair-spoken in the manner of a lord's son, and he struck the stone many times across many days and it went, each time, roughly where he wished it, which the crowd took as a marvel and I confess I did too, for I have thrown turnips at crows all my life and never once hit the crow.

The field itself is not a field as God made fields. It is trimmed shorter than a monk's tonsure and green as a fairy ring, and it rolls on for such a distance that a man cannot see the hole he aims for, only a little flag stuck in the ground like a lance left standing in a dead man's shield, save no one has died, praise God, only struck the stone toward it. I asked a fellow beside me how far the flag stood and he said "four hundred yards" as though this were an ordinary thing to know, and I nearly wept, for I have walked four hundred yards to the well and called it a journey worth telling my wife about.

Now here is the wonder I must set down chief of all: the men do not walk this great field. They are borne upon little carts, white and gleaming, that move of their own accord with no ox before them and no man pushing, and they glide across the green silent as a spirit, and no one remarks on it at all, as though sorcery were now so common a thing that only a stranger like myself would trouble to note it. I watched these carts a full hour, I confess it, more than I watched the striking of the stone, for the stone-striking, once seen, is much like the last, but the carts — the carts I could not account for, and twice I crossed myself.

There was also a tent, vast and white, wherein men sold a drink they called a "cocktail," and another fellow roasted meats on a little smoking cart of his own, and I spent some good while among these tents watching the trade of coin for meat and drink, for this at least I understood, having done such trade myself at the harvest fair, save here the meat was cut thin and laid upon bread with no crust and called, absurdly, a "sandwich," after some lord I have not heard of. I marked the price and near fainted, for it would have bought three hens in my shire, and here it bought a portion no bigger than a communion wafer, though I own it tasted finer than any wafer I have known.

The leaderboard I have saved for last, for it troubled my soul the most. It is a great tapestry of light, taller than a church wall, and upon it numbers change by themselves, red and white, rising and falling like the tally of a battle no man is fighting, and I am told this is worked by machines and not by clerks with quills, which if true means the clerks of this age have been put entirely out of honest work, and I grieved for them a moment before recalling I did not know their names nor whether they lived.

As to the contest proper: this Scheffler struck the stone fewer times than any other knight upon the field, and for this the crowd did not throw down their caps and cheer as I expected, but rather clapped politely, as though at a sermon well delivered, and I own I had expected more blood in a championship, having heard the word "major" bandied about all week as though this were some great crusade. There was no blood. There was not even much shouting. A man in a checked coat handed Scheffler the silver cup, and Scheffler smiled the smile of a man who has done a difficult thing and knows it, and the crowd, and I with them, applauded him for striking a stone fewer times than his neighbors, which when I write it plain here upon the page still strikes me as a strange thing to build a whole day's pageantry around, and yet I confess I was moved near to tears at the moment of the crowning, for a man who works hard and is seen to succeed at his working is a fine thing to witness in any age, be it mine or this one, and I do not think the years between us have changed that truth one grain.

I did ask a boy near me what manner of stick the champion used, thinking to bring the knowledge home to my own lord, who is fond of implements, and the boy said "driver," and I confess I understood this not at all, for in my village the driver is the man who drives the cart, and here it seemed the stick itself did the driving, which returns me again to the sorcery of the carts, and I begin to suspect this whole field runs on a magic I was not schooled to name, and that the priests of this age — if priests they have — must be kept very busy indeed blessing it all so it does not turn upon them.

The sun sank low behind the great tapestry of light as I made these notes, and the crowd began to file out toward more of the self-moving carts, this time larger ones that I am told need no horse either, and I could watch no more of it, for the light was going and my own field — a true field, of true dirt, waiting on me in whatever year I am to wake in again — does not tend itself, sorcery or no. I set down my quill here, champion crowned, cup awarded, stone struck fewer times than by any other man on the green, and go now to whatever labor calls a man back across four hundred years of not understanding a single moment of it, faithfully.

God keep the champion, and God keep the man who sells the thin meat in the crustless bread, for he alone among them I understood entire.

— Hodge o' the Field, who saw it, and set it down true, and knew it not