Kind of a funny moment for your humble blogger, as out of the corner of my eye I'm watching an ESPN Livecast of the Yankees in extra innings in Anaheim, not that the outcome isn't inevitable. It's just that I'm not usually watching baseball at, checking watch, 6:04 a.m. Twice in the last couple of days I've seen two locals in NYY swag, a common occurence here. In both cases I had a chance to inform the parties that, in New York in the summer of our discontent, no one is wearing their Yankee swag. Too triggering, as the kids like to say..
When last we visited, Employee No. 2 and I were en route to the Craighead for our first round at Crail, on Gil Hanse's Craighead Links. Our dueling weather forecasts were undecided on precipitation, though both made clear that it would be howling out there.... The flags were billowing as we arrived:
But that sky doesn't seem so threatening, eh?
The waterproofs stayed in the bag, as skies were pretty much like that all day. A good thing for your humble blogger, as my sunglasses are much preferable in heavy winds, as it's hard enough playing the required shots, now give it a go with your eyes teared up from the wind :
The whitecaps still in evidence on the Firth:
The theme of the day was the wind. Projected to be in the mid-20's with gusts up into the mid 30's, I can only say that it felt like a gale. On my second shot on the first hole, a gust at the top of my backswing rocked me back on my heels, whereas on a subsequent tee box the billowing of my pants created a little strobe-like effect.
I try not to bore you with too many details of my own golf, but this was a fun day as long as expectations remained reasonable. I've long said that on each links the pro should post a sign with that day's par based upon conditions, on this day bogeys were very much pars. And that's exactly how I got around on the first nine, all well-earned bogeys with the exception of two pars on the three-shotters. The first of these was downwind, so no issue, but the par on No. 8, which was directly into the fan, was quite satisfyingly.
That worked quite well right up until when it didn't, but fortunately comedy ensued.... Well, fortunate for my readers, in any event. We make our way to the 13th, a nice little Par-3 tucked in against the cliff overlook the Firth of Forth (though it's essentially the North Sea here). Here's what it looked like:
You can see the effects of the wind on my pants, but it's howling directly right-to-left. Those of you that are familiar with my game know that I typically draw the ball, and I'll even add for Bobby D.'s amusement that this tee box is no more level than our own 15th tee, box, in this case the ball being above my feet. If you can pick out the ball in the photo, it appears to be on a perfect line right of the bunker, yet ended up in the Firth (and it wasn't particularly close). As did the next one....
After we stopped laughing, I tried to discern how I could play the hole in a medal competition, and didn't come up with much. I think I'd have to play a nine-iron (I hit seven) out towards that ball washer on the 14th hole tee box, though the second shot would be one of those terrifying links shots, a soft pitch off the rock hard turf (though conditions are softer than usual) over the bunker and good luck holding the green straight downwind....
The 14th wasn't a whole lot easier... This is an unlinksy shot, where Hanse tries to suck the player into a forced carry. One can use the contours, but straight into that wind it's a tough slog:
Pace of play wasn't great (in that wind its' to be expected), though we enjoyed the twosome in front of us, a father with his young son that had a swing to die for. When I complimented the father on his son's game, he responded that the youngster had never been out in anything like that day's wind..... We were pretty knackered by that point, Theresa had been struggling all day and, since I had just obviously hit the wall, we walked in.... partly because it allowed us to catch the last three sets of the Wimbledon final.
I took some short videos to try to show you the wind:
The pins here are far wider and more substantial than at home, for the obvious reason....
Monday we headed to the Balcomie Links, again with an uncertain weather forecast. It was pretty clear that we would get wet at some point, that point being on the first tee:
The bucket hats have gotten more use already this trip than in our five prior trips combined.....By way of contrast, notice how much greener it is than last year, which looked like this:
Quite the dramatic difference in how it plays....
The young man in the golf shop thought we'd stay dry, though the starter correctly intuited that we'd be dealing with squalls all day, one strategically timed as we'll see below. But Theresa wasn't the only one digging out her rain hat:
That's a bunker guarding the first green, where I unfortunately dumped my wedge. A good effort from the bunker, though I missed the ensuing twelve-footer.
The Balcomie is funky little track, it tops out under 6,000 yards and plays to a men's par of 67-69. It's one of the weirdest scorecards I've dealt with, as let me use the second hole as an example. In general, the white tees are usually the back tees, and there are yellow tees for the men and green tees, used for the ladies but also men who want a shorter course. The second, called Over the Knowe (which I think is a hill), features the North Sea on the right side, is a 493-yard Par-five from those back white tees, but a 451/440 yard Par-4 from the yellow and green tees.
Very confusing, to me at least, because it obviously plays easier in relation to par from those back tees, though that back tee box has quite awkward angle to the fairway. Just quite the muddle scorecard to me, but I'll also add that some of those back tee boxes are awkward to get to, given how jammed in everything is. On the short Par-4 4th, I'd have had to allow the group behind to play to the Par-3 third, then gone to other side of the green to find the white tees. I took the path of least resistance and played from the yellows, put my wedge in to 5-feet and made the birdie, only to have the bride express her profound sadness that said birdie would be disallowed by the Committee. Yup, tough crowd....
Things I like about the Balcomie include its similarity to a more famous track just up the road. It features similar narrow corridors in places, and I also love these marvelously rumpled fairways:
That's the third green, and here's Theresa hitting off that fourth tee:
On the right you can see a portion of the third green... The white tees are on the side closest to the North Sea, so hopefully you can appreciate how hard it would be to actually play from there.
More eye candy:
One challenge for me this year is how to keep this interesting, given that I blogged so extensively on last year's trip. You'd be well with your rights to ask, why start now?, though that would be hurtful.... I thought might be fun to explore individual hole, several of which are quite curious, especially on the notoriously quirky Balcomie.
Alas, we're now approaching 9:00 a.m. here, so I'm going to ask you to hold this thought here, and I'll pick up the thread of our day on the Balcomie tomorrow.
I'll just leave you with some additional imagery. First, from over the weekend, a morning dove we met on the Fife Coastal Path:
Obviously he didn't want to hang with the foreigners....and really, who can blame him?
Lastly, the evening light is still a thing:
Have a great day and I'll hope to pick up our coverage tomorrow from the 5th hole of the Balcomie.
No comments:
Post a Comment