Tuesday Tastings - Open Week Edition

One must take time to know the Old Course in all its moods. One must study the subtleties of its terrain and its curiously shifting winds. One must find its hidden snares and one must approach it without preconceptions of what a golf course should be. To be down the middle may mean nothing there; that may be quite the wrong place. To be long may mean nothing in less length is shrewdly used. To be able to play a few shots perfectly is not always enough; one must at times have the full repertoire. ROBERT HUNTER

Lots to cover and never quite enough time. So, enough with the pleasantries....

Scenes From St. Andrews - Ran Morrissett attempts to put into words that which most of us intrinsically sense:

Why we love the Old Course: The world’s most celebrated links stirs the spirit at every turn

Ran has quite the lede:

Can a course be ranked No. 1 and still be underrated? In the case of the Old Course at St. Andrews, which doubles as Open host this week and top dog on GOLF’s inaugural list of the Top 100 Courses in the British Isles, yes. Ironically, no course of the Old’s pedigree on the planet during the last half of the last century was as ignored. Thank goodness we have started to come to our senses.

Another good image of the "flat" turf of the Old Course.

 Remind me of when it was ignored?

When it comes to the Old Course, past is prologue. You can see it in the way modern architects have begun, again, to take cues from her, like in places such as Tom Doak’s St. Patrick’s Links (No. 13 on our UK and Ireland list) and Ohoopee Match Club, Gil Hanse’s match-play gem in rural Georgia. What our panel deems the “best of the new” includes a commitment to short, fast grass, playing angles and hazards unsullied by overzealous shapers — the heart of St. Andrews.

Here, an hour north of Edinburgh, sits a relatively flat (though lusciously crumpled) strip of land, giving birth to golf played “on the ground.” The Old’s legendary greenkeepers throughout time have imbued its turf with a near mystical firmness. Couple that with the acreage 30 yards and in — where fescue fairways meld into fescue putting surfaces — and you have a design unmatched in its elasticity and playability. Every shot is within every golfer’s grasp, regardless of age and ability. Literally, it’s a course for the ages.

Oh, designers have always taken cues from the old girl, just look at that Mackenzie-Jones collaboration in Georgia in the 1930's.  Always, that is, except perhaps for the dreadful Trent Jones era, but we're past that now, thank God.

But, while we appreciate Ran's effort, it doesn't really threaten the heart of the matter, does it?  But it's been a mere 600 years of playing golf on this site so perhaps, as is said about the French Revolution, it's simply too early to know.

But one of it's charms is certainly the quirkiness of it all, partially captured by this:

Open Championship 2022: What's it like to play the Old Course backward? Have a look for yourself

In 2019, the St. Andrews Links flipped the Old Course for one day and allowed a select few golfers to play the famed links in reverse. We were invited to take part in the novel activity.

Truth be told, it’s not quite as novel as it might seem. The “clockwise" routing was actually the original direction the course played in the 1800s, before Old Tom Morris created the course we know now. Up until the 1970s, the St. Andrews Links used the routing for two or three weeks a year. The tradition faded over time, although there is talk of bringing it back on occasion in the future.

I actually thought they do that every April 1st. 

There's a video of their play that I've not yet watched, but this is more than a historical curiosity.  For instance, some hole scan be played from behind the green, none more so than the Road Hole, only somewhat dependent on pin position.  Makes sense when you consider that for hundreds of years that's how the green was approached.

The Auld Grey Toon is similarly far more than a museum, though it's history has quite the dark side:

No matter the direction one looks in this ancient, gray seaside town on Scotland’s east coast, which was founded in the 12th century on the legend that the bones of the Christian apostle St.

Andrew were brought here, the eyes explode with lasting reminders from centuries past.

The ruins of St. Andrews Castle, built around 1200 A.D. and rebuilt several times during the Wars of Scottish Independence, still stand proud. The remains of St. Andrews Cathedral, established in 1158, continue to successfully battle harsh elements off the North Sea. The University of St. Andrews which was founded in 1413 continues to be a force in education.

There are markings on cobblestones scattered throughout the city indicating where executions took place. On the pleasant outskirts of the city by the massive beach is where Witch Hill resided, the unpleasant local where accused witches in the 16th and 17th centuries were taken down to the water and, with their thumb tied to the opposite toe, were submerged. If they drowned, they were deemed as witches. If they survived, they were deemed as witches and dragged to Witch Hill and burned at the stake (the odds were not in their favor).

Witch Hill is now Martyrs’ Hill, where the imposing Martyrs’ Monument commemorates the Protestant martyrs who were burned at the stake for purported heresy between 1520 and 1560.

Heresy seems spot on for the current moment in our game, so perhaps the Shark did well be be among the uninvited.

The article gets less interesting as it incorporates golf, mostly because it's so familiar at this point, including the important personages in the local cemetary:

The journey into the past reveals history has a mighty ally to form the fabric of the Auld Grey

Toon – golf. Just a few stones’ throws from Martyrs’ Hill is the headquarters of the Royal & Ancient, which was established in 1754 and lays down the rules of golf for all the world except in the USA and Mexico. In a small corner of the ancient ruins of the Cathedral of St. Andrews, golf royalty Old Tom Morris and his son, Young Tom, lay side by side in rest.

 More than 30 golf shops are scattered across this town of roughly 20,000 year-round residents. There are seven public golf courses controlled by St. Andrews Links, including the New Course next to the Old Course. The New Course, incidentally, opened in 1895. Numerous pubs speak to the game with historic golf paraphernalia, vast collections which can be found at places such as The Dunvegan and Number 1 Golf Place.

A couple of points that might make this familiar ground a bit more interesting.  The Morris graves are of obvious interest to golf lovers, but Old Tom sadly buried everyone in his family, including all of his children, and that interestingly included two sons named after himself.  Not uncommon in that era, but extremely confusing....Great success and acclaim, but Old Tom lived a life that also included great tragedy and sadness.

Secondly, a grave that should be of equal interest to golf fans is just out of the photo frame above, that of Alan Robertson, the man that gave Old Tom his start making featheries (actually hired because of his playing skills, he became Robertson's partner in challenge matches) and the falling out led to Tom's move to Prestwick.  It was Robertson's death that spurred the creation of the Open Championship, a challenge to determine his successor as the greatest player of the era.

That the New Course was built in 1895 is its own crazy factoid, but people also forget that there was no "Old Course" until Old Tom built the New Course.  In the scheme of things St. Andrews, it's a relatively recent moniker, barely 127 years old.

The Showcase - It's all well and good to trot out the old timers, but your humble blogger needs to pace himself early in the week.  Not that there weren't fun photo ops:

I'll admit tyo being a tad put off by the inclusivity fetish, as we're no longer allowed to celebrate these elite players without checking off every single aggrieved minority.  And yet, for some reason they found it important to include Mark O'Meara and Ian Baker-Finch.... who won Opens, but not here.

Jack will be the recipient of an honor sparingly awarded:

Jack Nicklaus will receive the same status in St Andrews as Benjamin Franklin and Bobby Jones Tuesday, but Monday he dropped by the media center to talk. The three-time Open Champion was in good form but this answer about how the Old Course forces the greats to take risks, no matter the equipment.

Jones was Jack's golfing God, so it's perfect in that sense.  On the other hand, Jones' award in  1958 is one of the most poignant moments in the history of our game, with the locals breaking into the old Scottish ballad, "Will Ye No Come Back Again? and bringing this observer quickly to tears.

The other dilemma for Jack is how to match this bit of oratory:

“I could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St. Andrews, and I would still have had a rich and full life.”

It's a big ask.

Meanwhile, On Planet LIV -  Just when we thought it couldn't get messier.... remember back a few months ago when we were cramming on antitrust law?  Your humble blogger didn't think that LIV would get much joy from a decades long antitrust action, and I hadn't contemplated the players voluntarily resigning their PGA Tour memberships.  But one possibility that I didn't foresee was government involvement:

Word broke on Monday that the Department of Justice is investigating whether the PGA Tour is engaged in anti-competitive practices as it seeks to thwart a challenge from Saudi-backed LIV

Golf. The news, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was confirmed by a Tour spokesperson in an email to GOLF.com.

The investigation points toward a polarizing question at the heart of the fight over professional golf’s future: Does the PGA Tour have the legal right to sanction players who compete on a rival circuit?

The Tour has long maintained that it does and has acted accordingly.

Well, it's not as if this Justice Department has been highly politicized or anything, though it's nice to see that they can take time out from their core obligations of releasing violent rioters from 2020.

But, let me see if I have this right?  Just as Joe Biden is begging the Saudis to pump more oil his Justice Department decides to do the Saudis bidding?  Nothing to see here...

The issue are indeed interesting, but if the Tour is precluded from supporting its own sponsors and events, there simply won't be much of a Tour.  So, stay tuned.

I'll leave you here and we'll reconvene later in the week.