I was of course thrilled to see our names listed in the ballot reults, and a civilized 12:10 tee time makes planning an entire day in the Auld Grey Toon quite easy.
Shouldn't that be Hermalayas? - We park over by the relatively new visitors clubhouse, and therefore start the competitive portion of the day on The Himalayas, the famed putting green of the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club.
On line to pay our greens fee, we see this sweet young lass with a friend. I ask if the dog is hers and she answers no. I then suggest she give it a name to assert her ownership bona fides, and the gent behind me suggests Seve. Ahhhh, 1984 seems like it was just yesterday.
The rules seem quite sensible, though a few of the groups out before us could well use a buggy.
Because of the logjam, we jumped onto the ninth hole and played in. I'm afraid I crushed the girl, broke her spirit and all...
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| I did rather like this punchbowl green, though how my tee shot stayed out I'll never know. |
The Pre-Match - In checking in with the starter and paying our greens fees, I identified a rather obvious problem, to with that the distaff set play The Old as a Par 76. Since Wednesday Madam has had a case of the Balcomie Blues, continually revisiting the scorecard for what I like to think of as The Comeuppance at Crail.
In an attempt to head off the issue I asked the attendant in the Old Course Pavilion (just a snack bar really) as well as the starter, and the latter referred me to Keith who maintains order on the teeing ground.
Keith, pictured above, was adamant that m'Lady would only get her ten shots, and he was also the first man in Scotland prepared to say that to her face. Alas, the matter was not quite put to bed, and the caddies were to have their say. In the photo above that's Theresa's caddie Colin immediately to Keith's right, and here is my man Rich...he's been on my bag for all of 90 seconds, yet he seems to have already learned to tune out the frequency of Theresa's voice:
Now On The Tee... - The obligatory photos for posterity:
Yes, the blaspheme is wearing shorts on The Old. As an insufferable purist I believe players should be required to wear musty old tweed on such an occasion, but I'm reliable informed that it is the 21st century.
Theresa also gets away well:
That white building in the background will factor in later, so stay tuned.
The Ruy Lopez Opening - Theresa's caddie Colin was adamant that the rules of golf require her to be given an additional stroke on the holes that play as fives for the lady, plus her full handicap. At one point on the first tee the baby was split and I agreed to give her twelve, an agreement binding on all relevant parties. Binding, that is, until my twenty-foot birdie dropped on the first.
The second was one that the ladies play as a fiver, and by the time I walked off the green with a routine par (Theresa also made a good par, a five for her) I suggested that I would just write in the gross scores and we'd submit it to the R & A after the round. Nae said Colin, Rich and I will tell you where you stand.
On the third (Cartgate Out), I pulled my drive and have one of those delicate pitches over Cartgate Bunker. I pinched it perfectly and had it withing five feet, and Colin was chirping up a storm when I pulled my putt wide. A missed opportunity no doubt, but on a day when there would be others
A couple of quick digressions before we resume our regularly scheduled programming. First, as a sophisticated consumer of golf writing, you're no doubt aware of the double greens at The Old, seven of them. Only the 1st, 9th, 17th and 18th do not share a green, and the hole combinations always add to eighteen. Still, no verbal description, even one as acute as is found at this site, can prepare you for them, as they are simply enormous. I tried to get pictures, but this (which may or may not be the 4th and 14th):
They are so large as to allow groups of players to be on both halves without being on top of one another, as per the photo below. Though as I was waiting to putt on the 15th I did take incoming from those playing the third.
The match remained tight in the early holes, even as Theresa extricated her ownself from the heather.
Creme, Rising - Golf historians will look back at the middle of the outbound nine as critical to the outcome of this highly-anticipated struggle. We had the prevailing Old Course wind, helping with some left-to-right in it for this stretch of holes. Because we'd be fighting it coming home, I knew that Theresa's best chances were on this very stretch.
When one plays The Old Course, one doesn't choose the appropriate tees, but rather one is informed of what tees one will be playing (that would be part of Keith's job). In my case it would be the yellow tees, a course of some 6,387 yards on the card. What it was on the ground remains a matter of speculation, but the ensuing narrative might lead an astute observer to conclude that we played something less than that.
The fifth hole, the only three-shotter heading out, has always been the easiest hole on the golf course. Playing downwind it was there to be had, and Rich bestowed the first of many "we've got her now" smiles on me as I smoked a drive right on his line. As we approached my ball I noticed a sprinkler head with 119 on it ( a reminder that in linksville yardages are invariably to the front of the green, as that is often as far as you'll want to hit it).
I asked Rich if I was really going to be hitting a gap wedge fro my second into a Par-5 and he responded in a manner you'll not hear much at home, "Not quite, Scott, as the pin is 67 on." He did guess that my drive traveled some 310 yards and it was a smooth 8-iron in, but some yards went missing from the 514 the hole is listed at on the card. My eagle putt looked good for q while, but broke hard at the cup and slid over the low edge of the cup.
In many ways The Old Course is a modest affair, built a sit were by the hand of God and some assorted sheep. Tee boxes are far from grand, simply stuck in the ground virtually next to the prior hole's green, a reminder of the days when caddies would grab a handful of sand from the hole and use it to build a tee for the ensuing shot. On the TV coverage of The Open I noticed these green "boxes" in play, and we saw a few of them as we made our way out. Rich helpfully explained that they were old stone markers of the holes, the "G" helpfully meaning golf (or perhaps gowf).
On the sixth, a 4-par of 360 alleged yards, I bombed another and played my second with my putter through a gully fronting the green for a routine par. When Theresa played an uncharacteristically sloppy hole, we had ourselves a lead. I gave her one back on the 7th with my only loose shot of the nine, partially caused by rushing to get out of the way of the group playing to No. 11. I got it back on the short eighth and we halved with pars on the ninth (another near miss for me after a good chip up).
I had gone out in 35, my card marred only by the bogey on No. 7. Colin was speaking at this point of the greatest comeback ever seen, but I put a damper on his bravado by driving the tenth green. OK, in hyper-technical terms my ball was just on the fringe, but when your caddie hands you your putter on the tee of a Par-4, one is allowed to be a wee bit full of oneself. The putt was a left-to-right sweeper and ended its passage hanging provocatively over the hole, but refused to fall. Another agonizing two-putt birdie...
Homeward Bound - The 11th hole completes the famed loop, and also happens to be one of the more famous Par-3's on the planet. It's actual name is High-In (they wanted to name it after Bobby Jones, but he demurred having famously picked up his ball in Strath Bunker in 1921, so they named No. 10 after him instead. It's more commonly known as the Eden Hole for the Eden Estuary that forms the backdrop, and it's ruined many a scorecard over the years,
That's Theresa's ball above, in the worst possible position just short of the Strath. I was curious as to whether, needing to make something happen, she might try the dangerous pitch over Strath, but Colin had her sensibly putt the ball to the left of the bunker and she made quite the remarkable four.
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| Our gaggle of caddies on the Eden Green. |
Theresa and Colin fought hard but couldn't close the gap. We were all amused at the scene on the thirteenth tee box below, where Theresa was away (one of those that plays as a Par-5 for the ladies).
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| They were still removing the last of the grandstands from last month's Open Championship. |
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| Theresa played quite well, here lashing her drive on No. 14 (I think). |
Theresa and Colin competed with great heart, and weren't above using every trick in the book. Most notably challenging my manhood when I took the sensible route around Hell Bunker on the Long Hole.
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| Hell Bunker - wherever did they come up with that name? |
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| The views back to town are quite spectacular as the player makes his way home. |
I put the bride out of her misery by closing things out on the fifteenth hole, allowing us to relax and enjoy the famous finishing stretch. Though even with the match over, a boy's gonna do what a boy's
gonna do, and you know the shot below is going left.
During the Open we saw most of the players bailing on this drive and ending up in the 2nd fairway, so in my defense I was only making like Jordan and Zach. From a nasty downhill lie I made a workingman's par, putting my third in the hollow short of the green and making an eight-foot slider for five. The joke being that it's actually a....errr, you know well what the joke is.
I punched a gap wedge with perfect weight to just clear the Valley of Sin (fun fact, Old Tom in locating the green in this spot has them digging a bunker there when they came across an ancient burial site, so they ceased digging and left it as we play it to this day). That's my ball just to the left of the pin and boy did I want that last birdie.... the putt looks like it has to slide to the right and Rich confirmed that read but, yanno, it's a dead straight putt. In any event, I came home on the far tougher nine in 38 for a 73, and at any yardage that's a fine day for this old guy.
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| Colin and Rich were good fun and, delightfully, it was not the last we would see of Rich. |
There are always decisions to be made when traveling, and the relevant one at this juncture has bedeviled golfers since time immemorial: The Dunvegan or the Jigger? Admittedly that's a choice without a bad answer, but we opted for The Jigger, which is at the Old Course Hotel along the 17th fairway:
In addition to slaking one's thirst, the Jigger is also the go-to source for the local weather forecast:
We found ourselves at quite a nice table with a view that didn't suck:
We had quite the fun moment as we saw a player's ball dive into the rough as we enjoyed our adult beverages. He began his earnest search too soon, and was quickly confused by the inconsistent calls from within the Jigger, so to simplify I started yelling that he was getting warmer or colder as appropriate. It took a while but when he finally saw his ball he gave us a nod, then proceeded to immediately foot-wedge it back to the fairway, earning quite the ovation from the gallery.
We might have questioned our decision later, when driving through town for dinner Theresa espied Rich sitting at one of the outdoor tables at the Dunvegan, but we remedied that the following evening.
We had a lovely dinner at the Central (pictured above) courtesy of Jewelle and Glenn's recommendation of their meat pies. We can only add that the chicken pie is equally notable.
We did, however, go rogue for after-dinner ice cream, opting for Janetta's Gelateria (Four Generations - One Passion) over their suggestion of Luvian's, but subsequent field testing reveals that, like the Dunvegan vs, the Jigger, one can't go wrong.
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