St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland
The fairway on the first hole at the home of golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews, is shared with the 18th hole and is a comforting 129 yards wide. There’s plenty of space to put a first-time visitor at ease and to give leeway to take in the surroundings.
To your left is the 18th green, featuring slopes more extreme than you’d have imagined following years of watching the Open Championship on television. To your right, an unassuming practice green full of players in the following groups shaking off pre-round jitters one putt at a time.
Behind you is the looming facade of the famous clubhouse of the Royal & Ancient, the governing body of golf outside of North America. In front of you lays an open expanse of linksland containing not just the Old Course, but the New Course, the Jubilee, the Eden, the Strathyrum and the Balgove as well.
All around you are the echoes of history. Virtually every great player in the history of the game has stood at this spot with aim of winning the Open Championship at the home of golf.
The first tee itself was crowded with about 15 people prior to my opening Old Course shot June 2, shortly before 1 p.m. The players were joined by caddies, St. Andrews Links officials bearing reminders on the pace of play, along with friends and family of the four lucky players. The sun was shining, the wind was light and it was nearing 70 degrees.
So much for the array of sweaters and rain gear which I’d packed for the trip to Scotland.
This was the second of two full days in St. Andrews during the middle of a two-week vacation in the United Kingdom for my brother, Michael, and me. We began the journey with four days in London and started working our way north, with me driving a rental car on the wrong side of the road. We both enjoy exploring castles, cathedrals, museums and local pub fare, so the UK was a perfect place to spend a couple of weeks.
One thing we don’t share is golf; as we were growing up, despite my best efforts, Mike was never bitten by the golf bug. Nonetheless, I managed to barter for four rounds during the trip, and Mike even volunteered to walk around the Old Course with me as an amateur photographer. So …
Inhale.
Thankfully, the first tee shot is as simple as it gets. The ample fairway leads to a green just 360 yards away. With the hole playing downwind and the Swilcan Burn protecting the front of the green, I chose a 3-wood for the drive and then started praying to the ghost of Old Tom Morris to let me get this ball airborne.
After one last nervous practice swing, I stepped up and grooved one down the middle of the fairway.
And, exhale.
The road to a tee time on the Old Course is not always a smooth one. The St. Andrews Links Trust, which controls tee times on the Old, doesn’t allow single golfers to reserve a tee time in advance. Groups of two or more do have such an option — 12 to 18 months ahead of time, as a matter of fact — or by applying three days in advance for a lottery of last-minute slots.
Singles left without an Old Course tee time still can show up at the Old Pavilion, a clubhouse adjacent to the first tee, to wait in line for a chance to take an open spot on the tee sheet. Any openings are filled by waiting golfers.
Various sources say to arrive by 4 a.m. for your best chance. Just to be safe, I planned to be there by 3:30 a.m.
Try lining up at Augusta National Golf Club, famously designed as an homage to the Old Course by Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie in the early 1930s and home today to the Masters, at 3:30 in the morning hoping to play a round later that day. Good luck getting past the armed guards.
However, golf in Scotland is — with very few exceptions — a more public affair. With Mike still sound asleep back at our bed and breakfast, I pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the Old Course at around 3:20 a.m. that morning and soon found my arrival was only early enough to get the 19th place in line.
Old Tom was apparently smiling down. however; the welcoming gentleman working the counter in the clubhouse at around 6:05 a.m. informed me he couldn’t remember a day with so many open spots on the tee sheet.
Sure, I told him. Any time at all would be just fine.
Arriving in St. Andrews the day before, on June 1, I began my links golf experience with a round on the New Course while Mike went off exploring the town of St. Andrews. It’s a college town full of museums, history and plenty of pubs and restaurants, so there more than enough to do for the golf-disinclined.
Sitting on a strip of land immediately adjacent the Old Course, the New Course — designed by Old Tom Morris — opened in 1895 to ease congestion on the Old. The routing of the New is straightforward: The greens are mostly flat and the bunkers, although fewer in number than what would be found on the Old, were punishing.
It was a perfect warmup for what was to come the next day.
With a tee time at the Old Course reserved for the afternoon, Mike and I began June 2 with a visit to the ruins of both St. Andrews Castle and St. Andrews Cathedral. The Cathedral was the center of Roman Catholicism in Scotland prior to the Reformation in the 16th century and is now an impressive ghost of its former glory. As the centuries have passed, the Cathedral grounds have become a burial ground for local dignitaries. Mike spent the morning climbing up 169 steps to the top of St. Rule’s tower, a tower from a 13th century church on the same site, and exploring medieval siege tunnels used by invading forces back at the castle ruins.
I passed the time by paying my respects at the gravesites of both Old and Young Tom Morris.
Upon starting my Old Course round, it was clear this was more a study in extremes than what I’d seen the previous day on the New. More bunkers, wider fairways, more undulations around the greens. The Old is a puzzle waiting to be unraveled.
There are only 11 greens on the Old Course, seven of which are double greens serving as putting surfaces for a hole on each nine. Those 11 double greens average more than a half-acre in size, so you’d do well to hone your lag-putting skills before tackling these beasts.
The downwind, 515-yard par-5 fifth hole gave me an early taste for what the Old can dish out. I reached the putting surface in two shots with a driver and a 6-iron and was rewarded with an eagle putt from roughly 120 feet. The green, shared with the 13th hole, is just shy of 38,000 square feet in size. My caddie, a veteran going by the nickname of Flipper for his penchant for clapping as a reward for any good shot by his player, advised me to do no worse than three putts and take my par.
When my quadruple-breaking monster of an eagle putt came up 30 feet short, I obliged Flipper by lagging the birdie putt close and leaving the green happily with a 5.
The ninth hole, a short par-4 that pros can often drive, played back into the wind, and I left myself a 95-yard approach over countless humps and mounds to a pin tucked on the front of the green. Flipper advised me to putt with a reminder that all the locals would putt here without a second thought.
Having little experience putting from close to 300 feet away, I instead chose a 7-iron for the longest bump-and-run shot of my life. Watching that shot find the green and nestle to within birdie range will forever remain a highlight. The shot brought Flipper’s applause, but he went silent as my birdie putt slid past the hole. Alas.
Playing the inward nine back into a strengthening wind, the Old Course started to reveal considerable teeth. The wedge shot approaches to which I was accustomed going out morphed into a repeated barrage of hybrids and punch 5-irons.
Time passed by at lightning speed until we stepped onto the tee at the 17th, the famous Road Hole. The drive is blind over the corner of the Old Course hotel to the narrowest fairway on the course. The green on this par-4 of 450 yards is protected on the left by the deep and terrifying Road Hole bunker and on the right by a road. The pavement is in play, so don’t expect a free drop should your ball end up there. A deep ridge protects the front of the green, which also falls off steeply on the right toward the road.
A drive and a hybrid left me just short of the green, from where I managed a par after making a 20-foot putt following a pitch shot from short and right of the green. How many pros would gladly take that par on the 71st hole of the Open Championship the next time it comes to the Old Course in 2021? (I’ll be on my couch verbally admonishing any pro making bogey or worse, rest assured.)
After hitting drives on the 18th, the group took turns taking the requisite pictures on the Swilcan bridge. This bridge predates golf and was used as far back as the 13th century by shepherds herding sheep across Swilcan Burn.
My second shot to the home hole found the bottom of the Valley of Sin, a deep swale fashioned by Old Tom Morris in the 19th century to protect the front left side of the green. What looks like a simple ridge on television, easily navigable in front of a flat green, is actually a cavernous seven-foot cavity fronting a green with a massive amount of back-to-front, right-to-left slope. Following a first putt from the depths of despair with a bit too much pace on it, I drained the comebacker to find salvation with a round-closing, two-putt par.
After a few post-round handshakes with my playing partners, Mike and I loitered around the 18th green watching the following groups finish, letting the enormity of the day sink in. What a ride. All that was left now was to search out dinner and a few pints while we relived the day. Playing the Old Course was a dream come true for this golf nut, and to have my brother there for the walk made it all the better.
St. Andrews seized a piece of my soul long ago, but it had also enchanted Mike more than I’d expected. The combination of history and world-class golf in this small corner of Scotland made our two-plus days in the town seem wholly inadequate. We would travel six incredible days beyond St. Andrews, heading north to the Scottish Highlands before concluding back south in Edinburgh.
And we were both left with just one thought when it was all over:
When can we go back?
Bill Wilkinson, better known as Valley News Phone Guy, is a past participant in the Vermont Golf Association amateur championship. Which is a lot more than the rest of the sports staff can claim.