A Day On The Old

And by a day, I really mean a DAY!.  In which your humble blogger will need to summon all his faculties to remain...., well, humble.

Interestingly, after an interclub match a few weeks back, I met a South African just back from Scotland, who was just back from a Grand Tour type of trip to Scotland.  After the usual "Wheredja play?", he offered the quite typical reaction that they were all great except for the cow pasture in St. Andrews.  It's hard to respond while keeping the party polite, because any defense of the old girl tends to sound like you're accusing them of not being astute enough to appreciate it.  I usually try to answer along the lines that, since the days of Bobby Jones, Americans have instinctively derided it initially, only to come around to revere it, as Jones did.

Underneath my tough-guy exterior, I'm a bit of a softie, and this always has my eyes tearing up:

1958

Bobby Jones returned to St Andrews in 1958, not to compete this time, but to receive a rare and grand honour: Freeman of the Town.

With the honour, Jones joined Benjamin Franklin as the only Americans to be bestowed with the honour at the time.

When leaving the ceremony in Younger Hall, Jones was serenaded with the tune of ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’ a famous Scots poem by Carolina Oliphant.

Like my South African acquaintance, it took time for the old girl's charms to win him over:

1921

They say that first impressions are everything. Not so for Bobby Jones of St Andrews, and not so for St Andrews of Bobby Jones.

What began in 1921 was a short, high spirited meeting of future friends. On Jones’ first playing of the course, he became entrapped by Hill bunker (not to be confused with Hell bunker) on the 11th hole. Like so many others before, and since, Jones’ futile attempts at escape resulted in him giving up. Pulling the ball from the bunker with his hand, and thus disqualifying himself from the Open altogether. Jones would play on, continuing to battle the old links for the remaining rounds, but firmly declared his dislike for the course.

The feeling was mutual. The quote ‘Master Bobby is just a boy, an ordinary boy at that’ summed up the feelings of St Andreans at the time.

The rancour wouldn’t last forever.

I also noted in that conversation that the Old is Tiger's favorite course in the world, but these conversations are more about revisiting our own opinions, hard to do when one is unsuccessful on the ballot for years at a time.  The obvious question is whether the Old Course is an engaging museum like Prestwick, or can it still be relevant, and for whom.

No one can deny that the history is a huge art of the appeal, for here is Theresa on the first tee, just as we saw Jones above:

To digress, the Women's Open Championship is on the Old Course on August 21-25, so we saw much of the buildout, grandstands blocking the views from Hamilton Hall and the like.  

We also had to work around some GUR's, spots where balls collect and leave divot fields, twice requiring awkward drops for me.  What you'll hear about the Old Course is that it's flat, uninteresting terrain, yanno, better suited to those cows.  But, if it's so dreadfully flat, why do we experience only eighteen flat lies in a round?

As always, I need to remind of the flattening effect of the camera lens, but you'll experience the widest array of humps, hollows, hillocks and other h-words I can't summon in the moment.  That of course affects the playing of the shot, but perhaps even more the result after the ball lands.  

That photo will also serve nicely as follow up to our left vs. right discussion.  To the right of Theresa are massive gorse bushes, which is why Mark W. advised to keep it left off the tee.  The other aspect that makes the Old unlike anything else are those seven double greens, massive in scale.  How big are they?

The greens on the Old Course are huge, seven of them are double greens with the 5th and 13th green measuring well over 37846 square feet (3515 m2). This green is over 90 metres long and 39 metres wide taking two men close to two hours to mow with pedestrian machines.

I always struggle for photos that convey the feel of them, this is the 2nd/16th:

White flags outbound, red coming home.  This is a characteristic moment, that's my caddie David surveying my birdie putt after I've hit a fine second shot in, but even in the two-dimensional photo you'll see that I have little to no chance on that putt, having to be content with a 7-8 footer after that mound dies its thing.

Combined with the short Par-4's, these double greens make pace of play a nightmare.  Even we amateurs are conscious of the other players and you can imagine what it's like in an Open, where the players worry about crowd reactions from others' play.  it takes 5 1/2 to six hours for them.

How big are these greens?  So big that there are sprinkler heads in the middle:

I said to David and he pointed out a second sprinkler head on the same green.

As noted above, the gods were kind and I showed up in full.  David gave me a line, and damned if I didn't hit it, though there was one curious moment.  I hit a so-so drive on the third, and heard my driver rattle as if I hadn't secured it when screwing the head back on.  I had done a golf bag clean-up that morning, knowing that a caddie would have to deal with the bag, including removing the very tool that I now needed.  David and the other caddies were great, using a dicot tool to screw it back on.  We had it secure, bounced it on the ground and heard that rattle, secured it again and, merciful Lord, it held up.  Obviously I'll need to check it again this morning, but visions of having to use my 3-wood, with whom I am barely on speaking terms, were thankfully not realized.

I made birdie off that drive on No. 3, hitting a seven-iron to six feet.  After a sloppy double at No. 5 (Ginger Beer, an homage to Da Anderson for those in the know), I made back-to-back birdies on Nos. 5 and 6, so now I had to hold things together and get to the clubhouse (well, the carpark, in any event).  

I absorbed the ultimate bad break on the famed No. 11, the Eden Hole (so named for the Eden Estuary behind it, High (In) on the card):

That's Strath bunker fronting the green on the right, a nasty piece of business for sure (I've visited previously).  The pin was right of it, but our play was to the left side of the green, between Hill and Strath bunkers.  I hit as pure a 5-iron as I can hit, but it needed six inches more, as it caught the top left of Strath, transited across the entire top thereof, the dropped out of sight.  The problem was, as David warned before we got there, there was no sand in the bottom of the bunker, so things there didn't end well.  As we watch the ladies in a few weeks, we'll see whether that condition has been remedied.

Let me again digress:

That green stone on the left (that's the 8th and tenth greens), is one of the famous March Stones:

They were in fact the boundary (or march) markers that defined the edges of the land that was purchased in 1821. The markers have a 'G' on the golf course side which was much narrower at the time. Old Tom Morris widened the golf course considerably meaning those markers now lie in the middle of the fairway.

One of the fun bits of the homeward nine is that features of the town, excuse me the Old Grey Too, are used as lines off the tee.  That church steeple most often:

 

Theresa's caddie Stephen took this photo in front of Hell Bunker.  he wanted us to get into the bunker to demonstrate the scale, but my bride wouldn't do that and add more work for the man.  

I had already heard the best words ever from David, "Ach, me lad, Hell Bunker isn't even in play.  It's only 140 yards to clear it."  Actually not sure I've ever cleared it on my second shot previously, a  result of my driving it quite well, but also a bit of an unusual wind I think.  The winds were as advertised (14mph, gusting to 24, though seemed more like a steady low 20's), though mostly crosswinds.  Left-to-right outbound, but the easier right-to-left on the difficult finish.

I had great fun holding my round together,  but it wasn't always pretty.  I recovered from my typical mid-round walkabout out at the Loop, playing 12-16 in one over.  Nos. 16 is a great hole, in particular one of the most difficult drives on the golf course.  Don't know if you can make out the three spectators on the right, but they were the line David gave me (and I told them that as we walked past);

Are you sure, I asked, because Jack once said that only fools and amateurs play right of the Principal's Nose bunkers.  "Which am I?", I asked the caddies, and answered "Both" before they had a chance.  I blew it past the (golfer's) right nostril, though this young man we played with hit it so far by me that he used putter for his second, though not an easy second shot nonetheless.

I had all sorts of adventures on the famed Road Hole, wasting a perfect drive over the second "O":

Second consecutive time that I've wasted a good drive, laying the sod over my second into the heavy stuff, out of which my third ended here:

Sorry, David, don't blame yourself.

So, everyone remembers this famous shot, but no one remembers how he got there.  His ball was right where mine finished, and he skulled it across the green in trying to pitch it softly onto it.

David really wanted me to putt it, but I couldn't resist the temptation to try the impossible shot, and hit a great pitch to the back of the green. off that rock hard lie, getting it to thirty feet is a great shot, and curling the thirty-footer into the cup at three o'clock should confirm for you that it was my day indeed.

I've been struggling mightily with my wedges, and I skulled a wedge into the deep hay behind the final green  Finished the day by landing a soft pitch right at David's spot on the fringe to kick-in range, which the (thinned out) crowd loved.

Theresa did her usual performance art on the obligatory Swilican Bridge photo op:

While I've been a bit wrapped up in my own game, Theresa got off to a slow start, but then started hitting the ball quite nicely, and putted especially well.  Actually, the entire group played well, keeping the four caddies content.

Here's one of the Himalayas, the putting course run by the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club:

I'm completely out of time, so I'll a bit curt in my wrap-up.  It was a magical day for all four players in our group, it's simply that kind of place.  Playing well certainly helps, but the answer to my framing question above is a resounding "Hell, yes!", it's still a great test of golf.  As for Opens, I still think the Old Course will test them, though there's no denying that if the wind isn't blowing, they will go quite low.  I do think the first sub-60 score in a major would most likely come here on a windless day with soft greens, but I still want to see the best players in the world on this very golf course, where they've been playing since at least 1400.

Off to the Balcomie.