I've always called the Balcomie the Old Course's Mini-Me, so fun to play it right after the old girl. Of course, everything regresses to the mean, which can be downright mean. Though it took a bit before my own regression kicked in, but when it did it had a bite to it.
The first amusing bit is that the first time I turned on my camera, it powered up but immediately shut down, displaying a message that said, "Battery Exhausted." Big deal, I thought, who isn't by this point in the trip....
After finishing late on the Old on Saturday, Sunday was a day we could have let go for golf, if not for a fairly bad Monday weather forecast. So we ventured out, Theresa actually leaving her book in the car, lest I choose to soldier on solo.
I'll just post some images I grabbed on my phone, first the bride rolling her rock on the second green:
And this to complement a photo from last week:
The green behind Theresa is the seventh. I had posted a photo of her playing from the top of the hill, but the camera obscured the downhill aspect. This isn't all that much better, but you can get the sense of it, plus it also shows the berm that can get in one's way.
And the obligatory phot of the green on Hell's Hole:
The cows must be lying down, and we all know what that means...
And this first effort to photograph one of the ladies playing their second on the diabolic 13th. We've covered that hole in prior years, but there's really no way for the ladies to play it (it's a great but brutal one-shotter for the men).
My strong play from the prior day continued, at least until it didn't. The high point was playing Nos. 7-9 in -3, courtesy of a chip-in eagle on the ninth off a drive maybe 15 yards short of the green. The amusing bit, though, was that when my pact with the devil lapse, it was abrupt and severe, finding myself suddenly unable to put the clubface on the ball.
Of far great import, Elsie and John arrived late afternoon, and we fired up the BBQ. Of course, we're still in Scotland, so a soft rain started, the good news being that I finally got a payoff for lugging my waterproofs to Scotland (as if anyone has ever complained about not needing their rain gear);
We had my fave, but Elsie thoughtfully also made a sticky toffee pudding for Theresa:
John, in reading the blog, had noticed the absence of references to matches, and had assumed that meant that Employee No. 2 was having her way with me. On the contrary, we just hadn't felt competitive. We started one match, but the first four holes went in one direction (don't assume which), and we both quickly lost interest. But the trash talk began over dinner Sunday, as John has a particular affinity for the Balcomie, where he has played quite well in the past.
But stop me if you've heard this one before, it so ensued (a little inside joke there, because "ensue" was the Wordl of the day, and we compare Wordl results with Elsie) that a Scottish weather forecast was faulty. As we arose Monday, we faced a peak rain probability of 30% in the 11:00 hourly block, which meant we were a resounding go.
Given the intensity of the smack, I imposed on one of the gents in the group behind us to take a photo of the fourball while we were still on speaking terms.
I caught this of Theresa trundling down the first fairway with her trolley, which ties to that photo of the thirteenth above. To her right is the wall of fescue that the tee shot needs to carry on No. 13, which shows in the course guide as a 139 yard carry (I think it's more like 115-120, but is substantially higher than the two dimensional camera lens can convey), and you'll not find many balls in that long hay.
It was a day of strong play all around, this being Johns approach to the second:
As you might have discerned, that camera was fully functional after its day off. Inexplicable that it wouldn't have been charged, for the simple reason that it had been left connected overnight after off-loading all the Old Course photos.
I had been struggling to capture the golf ball leaving the clubface earlier in the trip, but I seem to have it working with John at least (this is his tee shot on the Par-3 third):
The great thing about the Balcomie is that even the throwaway photos are eye candy:
And how about this far better shot of Theresa playing up to the thirteenth green. Typically they are so blind on the shot that I go up top first and give her the line.
With John and I already on the green on the 14th, Theresa put hers well inside us:
Not a bad spot, eh? Not so shabby on the green as well:
As you can tell from the selection of photos, we had a day of variable skies, some heavy cloud cover giving way to sunshine (I even put my sunglasses on a couple of times), all the more enjoyable for that dire weather forecast. The golf was actually quite good, with the ladies perhaps taking a bit too long to get it going.
We've blogged the competitive differences between a Stableford and match play over the years. While strongly preferring the latter, I can't deny that for mixed groups (and it gets pretty mixed on the Balcomie, given that the ladies play a Par 72 golf course, whereas John and I were on the yellows, Par 67) and widely varying handicaps, the Stableford solves all the inherent problems. John and Elsie just instinctively know how to score a Stableford, so we let them handle the paperwork, though amusingly there were many corrections as they went hole-by-hole in the bar overlooking the North Sea. Given the large number of irregularities, perhaps a forensic accountant was required, but I'll not protest the protest the results in the interest of U.S. - Scottish relations.
Fact is that I played well, though I certainly could have gotten more assistance from the flat stick (greens were quite shaggy and all four of use were leaving them short). I drove the fifteenth green, one of the short Par-4's, and after my two-putt birdie John and I were likely tied. Amusingly, I thought that was my second birdie of the day, but that situation in the scoring tent revealed that the 11th hole is actually a Par-4 from the yellow tees (it's a fiver from the longer whites), so no joy for your humble blogger. And while I didn't hit a poor shot over those last three challenging holes, I also didn't convert any of those fine shots into actual pars.
I really knew it was tough climb when I heard John score four points on a hole, probably by making a natural par on a hole where he got two strokes. By way of comparison, my only four-pointer this trip likely was the chip-in eagle noted above. I ended the day with 36 points, a magic number in Stablefordistan, indicating that you've shot your handicap exactly, something we don't do too often (it used to be 25% of the time, but it's likely even less with the latest changes to the handicap system).
But John got me by two, which is strong play indeed. He was in virtually every hole, failing to score (meaning he made a net double or worse) only on the twelfth hole, where he lost a ball in the identical spot where I lost my Old Course ball the previous day. He matched my bogeys on those final holes, and scored appropriately better, which was the margin of victory.
We had a low key dinner at our house, which features this lovely dining area (this photo is actually from Saturday night):
Amusingly, a soft rain started as we were winding the meal down, but it was so warm that no one wanted to go indoors. So we just moved our chairs under the eave:
Tuesday is a much-needed day off from golf, in which we'll walk through the Auld Grey Toon, pay our respects to Old and Young Tom, and otherwise amuse ourselves on what promises to be a fine day.
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.
Just a quick note to inform readers that we' have settled in St. Andrews, though still getting our bearings.
Lucky Loches.
A few final Pittenweem memories, beginning with a walk to Anstruther:
And their famous Rockies hole, the hardest Par-3 Par-5 in Scotland:
On the way home we saw this gent play quite the brilliant shot from an unfortunate spot:
After the golf course, the Coastal Path turns inland, which it does through many of the towns and villages. But this spot, just past the Dreel Tavern, always amuses, because they seemingly ran out of room for the sidewalk:
Obviously you could cross the street, but hugging the Firth-side requires a wee peak around the building before stepping out.
And from a final walk to the tidal pool:
That family on the beach had quite the get-up, including a sideboard of sorts with a gas (presumably) range to make themselves a cuppa.... Well prepared.
We were so loaded that, on a Coop driveby Theresa suggested I not purchase more bottled water, for the simple reason that we had to spare cubic inches in the car. Good call, that.
A first few pics from our evening in St. Andrews:
My after-dinner snack came from here:
If you know, you know.
Reader Mark W. is a longstanding friend of the blog (the blog likely wouldn't exist absent Mark's encouragement of my early writings), and writes with a couple of thoughts, first this:
Scott, you and Theresa will have to go and find Hamish. He was a fixture in St Andrews.
Here's the skinny from Wikipedia:
Hamish McHamish (1999 – 11 September 2014) was a ginger cat who lived in the town of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He came to national and international prominence after the publication of a book entitled Hamish McHamish of St Andrews: Cool Cat About Town.[1][2]
Hamish built up a following on social media, with a dedicated Facebook page[3] and Twitter account set up by fans.[4]
Many of you will know that Employee No.2 and I are quite partial to gingers....
And Mark had some useful thoughts for the afternoon:
Enjoy your round on the Old. Don’t forget, left is good, right is death
Why is everyone over here telling me to keep left? The joke there is that on a long ago Ireland trip the courtesy bus driver told us to "Keep left, look right", and Theresa says those exact words each time we pull out onto the road. But Mark is quite right, though the more nuanced point is that the right side invariably provides the best angle into the green, but that is where the worst of those penal pot bunkers are to be found. Risk-reward is what they're going for....
Weather forecast is unchanged (except for a 50% possibility of rain in the middle of our round). So far, it's sunny with a proper breeze. We've done our marketing, as Elsie and John arrive tomorrow, and we can relax for a bit before our late afternoon appointment on the Old. I'll let you know how we get on....
Good Morning from Pittenweem. The last morning on which we will awaken in beloved Pittenweem, though that's a rather sudden development.
Bifurcation is a term of art in our game lately, so we scheduled a bifurcated vacation, with a week in St. Andrews as a means of mixing it up a bit. The odd thing was that the first house had a Saturday check-in, with the St. Andrews house available Friday afternoon. That obviously limits our two weeks to thirteen nights, but provided additional flexibility for the move North (given the six-hour gap between check-out and check-in times).
The plan, as of 4:09 Thursday was as follows:
Golf Friday on the Craighead;
Spend Friday night in Pittenweem;
Use Saturday for a leisurely move to St. Andrews, and;
Play Sunday on the Balcomie.
Then at 4:10 p.m. this arrives:
ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR ST ANDREWS LINKS EXPERIENCE?
Lead Golfer:
Scott Simpson
Date of play:
03/08/2024
Old Course tee time:
14:50
Booking reference:
B060C3C
Congratulations on securing your upcoming Old Course tee time via the ballot! We look forward to welcoming you to the Home of Golf and hope you enjoy following in the footsteps of the greats.
Ummmm, well, if you insist..... Technically, I've been ready since 2019, but that's not important now.
In rapid succession, Friday golf was cancelled and we will use today for said leisurely move, so that will arise tomorrow morning in St. Andrews. The mid-afternoon time would have allowed us to maintain those existing plans, but it would have been four straight days of golf for your humble blogger, and the body was already revolting during the second straight round yesterday.
I wish I had the count of our ballot entries submitted from 2022 through the present, because it was quite the losing streak, especially after hearing several anecdotes of hitting it on the second go. The tee time isn't optimal, for sure, though the photographer in me thinks that the late afternoon light as we finish might be of interest. As is the weather forecast, mid-60's temps, but 14mph winds gusting to 24 mph.....Hmmmmm, better score well on that outbound nine.
We've been hearing some chatter of folks gaming the Daily Ballot, and the results page certainly lends credence thereto. All those R&A, New Club, St. Andrews GC and St. Regulus Ladies Club are organizations that have tee times allocated as per longstanding arrangements, yet they seem to be glomming so many of the spots available to civilians. That said, we've got a time, so go ahead and close the gate behind us.
The weather has been spectacular, but the one negative to be found lands squarely on Monday, when we're scheduled to play the Balcomie with Elsie and John. We'll just have to keep our eyes on it, especially since a scheduled off-day on Tuesday might offer options.
I played Craighead yesterday with Ross, notable for the fact that the camera never left the golf bag. We've spoken at length about pace-of-play issues on the Balcomie, but Wednesday's quick-moving progress on the Balcomie was followed by the slowest day ever on the Craighead, one in which had way too much time to exchange pleasantries with the groups ahead and behind us. The golf wasn't brilliant from either of us, though there were those moments, including two late birdies from Ross.
Pittenweem is mobilizing for their Arts Festival, our sign to get the heck out of Dodge. Presumably in connection, this showed up on the promenade:
Oh, those crazy artists, ignoring for the moment that I married one of them.
That brings the curtain down on our Pittenweem blogging. See you from St. Andrews.
Some more of that microblogging.... I won't keep you long, just a few quick notes and photos.
We were back on the Balcomie, and to mix things up I decided to play from their back tees, well, backish, in any event, as their Tiger tees stretch us to a daunting 5,867 yards. At times it almost seems easier from the back tees, not least on the second hole, Over the Knowe, on which a 491-yard Par-5 seems the easier test than a 445-yard Par-4, or at least it did until the angle of the back tee box caused a seemingly fine drive to find a perfectly-placed fairway bunker. Damn you, Old Tom!
I should also note that the back tees are white, the members' tees yellow and the forward tees (never to call them ladies' tees, heaven forfend). The color blue seems unused here, amusing to this observer because, when we returned to Fairview in the Spring, we found that a second set of blue tees had been added, admitted more of a sky or baby blue, but still an odd choice. The other point to note is that some of these white tee boxes are awkward to use, not least on the short ninth hole, where one needs to play across the eighth fairway from the whites, much closer to the intended line of play of the group behind.
The weather continues to dazzle but, interestingly, yesterday's wind was from a different quarter entirely. It's been mostly out of the West (maybe SW or even SSW), but yesterday it was off the North Sea, call it out of the East. Most of you will know that that's when it gets interesting in these parts, very much changing the way the course will play.
As we waited to tee off, the starter placed a green tracking device on my golf bag:
As Ben explained, they are tracking progress on the golf course in the hopes of further understanding and improving pace of play on the Balcomie. Of course, what I wanted to say was, "I can help you there, there isn't any." But, irony, alert, they wouldn't have learned much from that tracker yesterday, since we were treated to the chillest day ever, Balcomie Edition.
Obviously my mind goes down strange paths, it reminded me of a story from a friend playing in Hawaii. Obama shows up to play and the Secret Service keeps two holes ahead of him and two behind cleared of golfers, and such was our yesterday. We played an unhurried round in about 3:40, never waiting in the usual spots like the seventh tee, the only delays being the typical congestion issues the course presents.
Theresa has been getting off the tee well all trip:
That's off the second tee, and this from the Par-3 third led to her first birdie of the trip:
I had told you yesterday of driving the Par-4 seventh green, but that was from the 292-yard yellow tees, with that wind out the west helping. Yesterday, from 54 yards back and playing directly towards the North Sea, it was a different matter entirely, a good drive barely getting to the top of the hill. Theresa was there as well, though it's hard to tell from the photos:
You wouldn't know it from the two-dimensional camera lens, but the shot is straight downhill.
Later Theresa caught this fine bunker shot from your humble blogger:
A fine shot for sure, although it would have been finer yet had it been my first attempt....
I include this from the eye-candy 14th tee for the sole purpose of pointing out the whitecaps on the North Sea:
The wind was so hard left-to-right that I joked that my start line was Carnoustie (OK, maybe local humor doesn't translate, but it's out there to the right on the distant coastline).
It was about this juncture when I realized that, with the wind out of the East, I might actually be able to find my tee ball on the 13th hole....of the Craighead. I'm thinking I won't be so lucky today when I play the Craighead with Ross.
I had meant to post this from Sunday's round on the Balcomie, one where the photographer might not have picked up on all that was going on:
Do you think it's me, or is Madam sending some sort of subliminal message?
A few years ago, one of my ski buddy Lee told me of their trip to Scotland, specifically their love of two particular pubs. I don't remember the second, but we certainly know the Dreel:
After a wonderful dinner, we went over to St, Monans, where we stayed in 2019, to revisit their beautiful church and cemetery:
There will likely be no blogging Friday, as we have an earlier tee time, and Saturday is moving day. But we'll catch up as time permits.
