Weekend Wrap

We're back and refocused on our core business, yanno, making fun of Patrick Reed.  But first, some cursory thoughts on the weekend's golf.  Though, we'll lead with a non-action story:

Tom Weiskopf, RIP - Golf has lost one of its most intriguing characters:

Accomplished major champion, broadcaster and golf architect Tom Weiskopf died Saturday from pancreatic cancer. According to an Associated Press story, Weiskopf passed away peacefully at

his home in Big Sky, Montana and was working on design projects as recently as ten days ago. He was 79.

Weiskopf recorded 28 wins worldwide, including 16 on the PGA Tour. His major career was highlighted by wins in the 1973 Open Championship at Troon and the 1995 U.S. Senior Open over his longtime nemesis, friend and fellow Ohio State Buckeye, Jack Nicklaus.

Along with work in golf architecture and a memorable run as a broadcaster at the Masters, this would be the place where I reference to his World Golf Hall of Fame induction. But the Ohio native, known as “Terrible Tom” in his more temperamental years, was on the wrong side of someone important. I’m picturing a little man almost a foot shorter than him. Ironically, a strong case could be made that Weiskopf’s omission is a driving force in the Hall’s diminishing stature.

Given the moment in golf, my immediate reaction is to note the obvious parallels between Weiskopf and Mickelson, not least that goofy thumbs up.  At the midpoint of each, they'd be competing to be golf's greatest underachievers.

Interestingly to me, Phil achieved far more on the golf course than Tom, winning a gaggle of majors and performing well against his GOAT (Tiger).  Tom only won that one biggie at Troon and never did much against his GOAT (Jack), but I would argue that he matured more interestingly, making notable contributions behind the microphone in in golf course design.

But perhaps more telling, He was known as the Towering Inferno, versus Phil's FIGJAM.  But Tom was able to harness his anger (and got himself sober, as well), whereas Phil's seething rage has been on public display for the last year.  I know which model I prefer...

Geoff takes on the Hall of Fame exclusion angle, though also throws in an admission against interest:

It’s a mystery to many that he was so worth keeping out of the Hall despite such a rich life in the game. Especially as he could be delightful to interact with, was respected by his peers and, for whatever faults he had in his younger years and battles with the bottle, carved out a body of work that spoke to his talent, wisdom and respect for the sport.

As he told Matt Adams in one of his final interviews, Weiskopf felt he’d be remembered most for his fluid and fundamentally beautiful swing. Weiskopf believed it was important to play the game “correctly” but that he was a “bit misunderstood” because he “told it like it was”. He expressed just one major regret: skipping the 1977 Ryder Cup for his annual hunting trip.

To care about that you'd have to care about the Hall, though I'd like for him to have received that affirmation while alive.  Their failure to do so, and Tom is hardly the first, is why I can't bring myself to care about the Hall.  But while his playing career is marginal for enshrinement, those non-playing contributions are, you'd think, enough to tip the scale in his favor....  On the other hand, Tillinghast had been dead for seventy years before the Hall could find a place for him, so no hurry, guys.

That 1977 incident is hard for the kids of today to understand, because the Ryder Cup was still a sleepy exhibition.  That said, the man was capable of looking back at his actions and expressing genuine regrets, so there the parallels to Phil collapse in on themselves.

The Tour Confidential Panel had some thoughts, although none of them are likely old enough to know much more than the name:

5. Tom Weiskopf died Saturday at the age of 79, and he leaves behind a legacy as a major champion, course designer and announcer. How will you best remember him?

Sens: The beautiful swing. The close calls in majors. I didn’t get to watch him in his prime, but I interviewed him many times in his later years. He was smart and funny and frank. He had a reputation for orneriness, but by the time I met him, he seemed to have softened. He came off as a bit wistful about some of those near-misses. But also content with where he stood. And a terrific designer — with a special knack for short par-4s

Hirsh: Pardon my youth here, but I will remember Weiskopf most as the architect who brought us the venue for arguably the most electric atmosphere in golf, TPC Scottsdale. While he obviously didn’t erect the grandstands that would become the stadium hole, more people follow golf because of that event and it wouldn’t have been possible without Weiskopf.

Dethier: He loved golf. And he played the hell out of it, too. His run at the majors in the ‘70s — 18 top 10s, seven podiums and an Open Championship title — was incredibly impressive.

Piastowski: The swing. Fluid and effortless. And four Masters runners-up, which is damn impressive. And the lifetime in the game, from player to announcer to designer. So I guess a lot.

That first link includes links to a number of reads on Weiskopf for anyone that wants to dive deeper.  

R.I.P.

Walking The Walk -  They say it's not bragging when you back it up, but I did catch the last five holes of the highly-entertaining final round of the U.S. Amateur:

Sam Bennett had a lot to say at the U.S. Amateur, and he backed up every single word

Specifically, these words:

"A little bit at first, for sure," Bennett said when asked of his underdog mentality. "But I mean,

everybody knows who I am, I know who I am. I said I had something to prove, but I mean, in a way, not really. I mean, I guess, but here we are. I guess my comment, I backed it up."

The comment that Bennett is referring to, specifically, came after he had secured a spot in the semifinals on Friday. To that point, Bennett had beaten in order Nick Gabrelcik (ranked 13th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking), Fred Biondi (27th), David Puig (10th) and Stewart Hagestad (ninth). Bennett, who earned first team All-American honors with the Aggies in the spring, was asked what it said about his game that he was able to run through all of them with relative ease (only one of those matches reached the 18th hole). Without skipping a beat, he said "they're great players, but I'm a better player."

OK, FIGJAM!   

Bennett came within a whisker of blowing a 5-up lead, so that home stretch was quite entertaining, not least when Carr made a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 17 to send the match to the 36th hole.

There was a sequence on the 14th green, though, that had me jumping out of my chair.  Carr is 2-down at this point, yet agrees to a good-good with both guys facing short par putts (hard to judge on TV, but maybe 2 1/2 - 3 feet).  What was he thinking?  Yeah the guy's likely to make it, but you're quickly running out of holes, as two down with four is almost a death sentence.

But I haven't even mentioned the major reason that it was such a strange move....  Bennett had shown his first sign of nerves on the prior green missing a putt no longer than the one he had on No. 14.  Your opponent has just gagged on a shortie, and you concede the next one to him?  I'm sorry, I was under the misguided notion that you were trying to win...

Patty Ice, Redux - Yeah, I did actually turn it on for the last hole, but only because the final match in the U.S. Amateur had concluded:

Patrick Cantlay’s year had been fine — 10 top 10s, a victory at the team event with buddy Xander Schauffele — when Patty Ice appeared again. You remember him? He was the dude who froze

everyone at last year’s BMW Championship, then won the next week, at the Tour Championship, and here he was again, again at the BMW, stone cold, opening with rounds of 68, 68 and 65 and starting Sunday’s final round with a one-stroke lead.

All of which begs this question:

How does Patty Ice turn up — or is it turn down? — the thermostat?

“I think maybe in the bigger tournaments it’s easier to kind of narrow your focus, and I’ve done a good job of staying in the moment and trying to get in the right frame of mind and good attitude,” Cantlay said.

OK, but shouldn't one of us break the bad news to him that the last important tournament was in mid-July?

 I think about the only minimally interesting bit was that had his buddy Xander made that birdie putt on the finishing hole, that Cantlay, not Scheffler, would begin the Tour Championship with the lead.  Of course, that necessitates a brief respite from making fun of the LIV shotgun starts to remind ourselves that the FedEx Coda has a staggered start....

LIVing It Up - Kind of a surreal feeling to see the LIV stuff unfolding quickly, yet not blogging it.  We'll circle back I'm sure and catch up on the antitrust lawsuit and all that, but for today I'll just riff off the TC gang:

1. Both the Fire Pit Collective and Sports Illustrated reported Saturday some of the details of this week’s Tiger Woods-led players-only meeting that addressed LIV Golf’s threat to the PGA Tour. Among the reported items discussed were the creation of ‘a tour within a tour,’ where there would be 18 no-cut featuring 60 players playing for $20 million purses. Could this work?

Josh Sens: Sure. The super-rich get richer. That pretty much always works. Is it good for fans? Doesn’t sound exciting to me. If you want to fend off the kind of threat the Tour faces, why make it an economic arms race you can’t win? How about differentiating the product? Golfweek on Sunday reported plans for Tiger-and-Rory-led one-day events in non-green-grass arenas. Details to be revealed soon, apparently. It already sounds awful to me, but even as I type that, I can hear the kids saying, ‘OK, boomer.’ On the plus side, at least it’s different. My preference? Roll back the ball for some events and scrap the cookie-cutter bomb-and gouge courses in favor of more interesting designs. Make the players hit more creative shots. Enforce a shot clock. I know, it doesn’t involve trillion-dollar purses. But it would be more compelling than a lot of the same-old. And you might even turn a profit. Though I realize that several lifetimes of wealth isn’t enough for some.

Jack Hirsh: Sure, it could work, if the guys who are staying on the tour now aren’t jumping to LIV by 2024. But I also agree with Josh: Why basically copy LIV’s format (save for a three-round event). I’ll add to the suggestion of playing more alternate formats (but not the non-grass arena idea) like alternate shot or a team event with the LPGA. Players seem to love the Zurich Classic; why not have a mega-purse team event? All the limited-field stuff does is alienate the mid-level pro.

Dylan Dethier: I’d argue that by stealing some of the things that LIV got right, the PGA Tour is adopting some overdue changes — part of what made it vulnerable in the first place. I have slightly mixed feelings about the no-cut aspect, because we’ve seen some relatively lifeless WGC events over the years. But the fact that we as golf fans would know when we should be watching would be extremely helpful. And because the Tour has built-in advantages — TV deals, decades of history, Tiger Woods, etc. — it wins most tiebreakers.

Nick Piastowski: It works for the players’ bottom line ($$$) and the Tour’s (survival), which, like it or not, is the goal. But I have questions. It would create a tournament tier, and go ahead and laugh about the fate of some events, but they mean a lot to those cities and fans. It also creates a player tier. Can others move up to the big events? Or are you stuck with those 60 players, who, obviously, can slide over time? Which leads to my biggest question, and one that Tiger himself has mentioned — if the cash is guaranteed across now an entire season, is that incentive still great to dig it out of the dirt? Let’s hope this doesn’t trickle into the major

Seriously, haven't we suffered enough?  The LIV formula is a horrible model for golf, as proven over the years by the lifeless (relatively, Dylan?) WGCs.  The PGA Tour is better positioned here, as Nick did hit on a major weakness of LIV.  The Tour, because of its bevy of lesser events, as well as the entire tier of feeder tours, is far better positioned to accommodate the emergence of new talent (although those that are relegated out tend to be better known) .  

But Josh's comments are interesting as well, because the biggest impediment to making events actually more interesting is....wait for it, FedEx.   The Zurich almost didn't happen because the guys won't show up if they don't get FedEx Cup points, and they're harder the award in a team context.  That's contributed to the calcification of tour formats to a regrettable degree.

But, perhaps more importantly, they seem to be ignoring an important factor.  They presumably have to fight the awarding of OWGR points to LIV events, though they seem more focused on the 54 holes than the small field size, which to me is as big an issue.  But it undermines your legitimate objections when you imitate them, although I keep reminding folks that awarding OWGR points for Tiger's 18-player field was a really bad call...

To be continued....

2. A group of LIV golfers last week filed an antitrust suit against the Tour alleging that the Tour is unlawfully sanctioning them for signing on with the rival circuit, and this week, a handful of legal documents were unsealed, including player contracts. Having seen some of the details, what stood out to you?

Hirsh: For me, the limitations on media availability are the most shocking, considering Phil wanted the rights to his highlights. What he gains in that, he loses in freedom to communicate with the media. These players seemed like they wanted more freedom, but it’s fairly obvious that the price of the millions of dollars from LIV is their freedom to talk to the media. Also wasn’t that Bryson-Brooks feud staged to help them win the PIP? No more of that.

Sens: Agreed on the compromises on the media front. One clause that caught me was the prohibition against saying anything that might bring any person of note into ‘disrepute.’ How are we defining disrepute? What are the new boundaries of decorum? Will a lot of what used to be considered honest and acceptable talk become punishable?

Dethier: I was intrigued by the apparel talk! LIV guys are going to be wearing LIV gear like, all the time? At majors, even? It was interesting to read about LIV’s hold over players’ sponsorship decisions and displayed logos, which require approval for something as small as a coffee cup. These contracts are all different, so we don’t have a complete picture, but getting a little window into how LIV will exercise control was telling.

Piastowski: Dylan, why aren’t you wearing your GOLF shirts and hats? But yes, the apparel bit is great. As is this, which may cut into ‘family time.’ This is from Zephyr Melton’s story: “One of the stipulations indicates that players must ‘participate fully in up to 7 additional Service Days’ in 2022, with ‘12 additional Service Days in each following year.’ A Service Day is defined in the contract as ‘any day during which the Player is required to participate in and assist the League Operator and/or the Team Operator with meetings, negotiations and/or other activities with corporate sponsors or other business partners of the League.’”

And to think I had been reliably informed that they were jumping to LIV solely to spend more time with their families....

I do think that's a rich lode to mine in future posts, though I'm of course shocked, shocked I tell you, that Phil might have misled us on the media rights bit....

And this on my single favorite bit, to which I can assure you we will return:

3. In more court news, Patrick Reed has filed a defamation suit against Brandel Chamblee and Golf Channel, alleging they “have conspired as joint tortfeasors for and with the PGA Tour, its executives and its Commissioner Jay Monahan, to engage in a pattern and practice of defaming Mr. Reed.” The lawsuit uses quotes from Chamblee from his time on the air for Golf Channel and Sky Sports as well as on podcasts to allege damages in excess of $750 million. What are your takeaways to Reed’s move?

Sens: That pro golf is taking on a whiff of the Jerry Springer Show. Maybe the actual courts will see it differently, but in the court of public opinion, I think the verdict would be that any damage to Reed’s reputation has been largely self-inflicted.

Hirsh: No matter what becomes of all the other suits, I just can’t ever see Patrick Reed playing on Tour again after this. Should he win, and most seem to agree the lawsuit has very little legal merit, would that then mean no media person could critique a player? That’s part of sports. Interesting he chose not to tee it up in this week’s International Series event in South Korea, which he committed to a few weeks back.

Dethier: I think it’s a sham and a shame. Brandel Chamblee is polarizing, sure, but he does a ton of homework, tries to get it right and generally does. Imagine an athlete in any other sport suing an analyst for offering takes on television. LeBron James might not care for Skip Bayless, but he would never sue the guy. I’m not sure how far this will end up going, but I’m sure there would be some interesting documents that would come through if we reached the discovery phase…

Piastowski: Fan reaction is part of the game. Reed shouldn’t expect to be cheered. He has to earn that. I’ll leave it at that.

This might be the single funniest lawsuit ever, as I think discovery could be worthy of paid admission.  The model here might well be an ill-considered defamation lawsuit filed by John Daly, which unfortunately for him resulted in his PGA Tour disciplinary file becoming public.  Do we think PReed's file might have some comedy gold contained within?

But one issue I look forward to revisiting as this story continues to unfold, is the effect of the Tour's coddling of players, specifically their policy of omertà on disciplinary actions.  Most notably, in allowing DJ to hide a series of failed drug tests and concoct a fantasy jet-ski accident, but which seems to have failed to generate any loyalty in those whose reputations were so protected

Nurse Ratched, care for a mulligan on that policy?  How's about letting in a little sunlight and showing us those files?   

I'll need to leave you folks here, but we will be flooding the zone as we move forward.

The Load Out

It's a gloomy Thursday morning in the Kingdom of Fife, although the uncannily prescient Met Office indicates it will resolve into a perfectly fine day, one in which the bride and I have little planned.  Except of course, for a hearty breaky and helping our dear friends get on the road home.

We strolled the Craighead under a beautiful, cerulean sky and, given the relatively modest wind in which we played, a substantial amount of ammunition was left behind.  I certainly contributed more than my share, losing my tee ball on the first two holes.  That's the thing about the Craighead, on which Gil Hanse gives us plenty of room to spray our shots.  The kicker, though, is that when you miss, it's the death penalty, in this case long, thick stuff that are referred to as whins.  

It should be added that on rock-hard links turf one needs self-discipline in not complimenting a partner's shot until it comes to a rest, because they'll run forever.  John loved the Balcomie, which most visitors will feel features narrow playing corridors, because he felt there was little penalty for spraying the ball.  And both things are simultaneously true....

I've accumulated some open tabs, one of which relates to this point.  Mike Bamber wrote this fun "Postcards From" piece that's worth a moment, retracing many of his prior Scottish experiences captured in his engaging To The Linksland.  In one 'graph, Mike had this comment on the Old Course:

On that Sunday after Open Sunday, people were all over the course and on the beach and the beach paths. The Old Course is narrow and compact and parts of it run along St. Andrews Bay. Such a bland name. In my mind, it’s a sea.

But a bit later in the piece:

A week earlier the Old Course was open for business on a Sunday. A rarity. Her wide corridors were dotted with players, caddies, camera operators, officials and police officers.

Got it.  Narrow and compact, yet wide.... It might sound Orwellian in that "War is peace" kind of way, but Mike is correct in both cases, and the Balcomie shares many characteristics with the Old Course, including that one double green.  The flow of traffic is through narrow corridors, hence the 6-hour round in the Open, but because of the out-and-back routing the player has multiple fairways onto which he can spray his shots.

Though, of course, there's more luck involved here than at home, as what happens after ball meets turf has the widest array of possible outcomes.  I specifically remember that first round I played on the Balcomie a week ago today, where I was hitting it as well as I can, driving two Par-4's and reaching one Par-5 in two, yielding a nice number on a card.  And yet, as well I was hitting it, there were at least 3-4 shots that seemed destined for bunkers that miraculously avoided said pits, and therein lies the difference between joy and tragedy.

Our collective golf wasn't of the highest caliber, though that's admittedly at least partially a function of the longer, more difficult Craighead.  We played the Balcomie Tuesday at +/- 5,400 yards, which will strike the American reader as being from the Family tees, but the Craighead at 6,200 yards.  John had won Tuesday's comp with 44 Stableford points, and at one point I joked that the four of us might not post 44 points collectively.... 

The only time the camera came out of the bag was on the 11th hole, when Theresa and John positioned their drives just short of Dane's Dyke.  Theresa pulled off her shot without incident:

John, alas, had a different experience:

If you didn't know better, you'd be looking for the ball on the green.  Unfortunately it was headed north at this point, whereas the target was due south.  I can poke John on this one, because that worst-case scenario occurred, in which John's double-or-nothing bet paid off.  Harrumph!

He closed it out in style, one must begrudgingly concede, with a stylish par at the difficult finishing hole, although his bogey at the brutal Par-3 17th might have been more notable.  Cash was exchanged and tribute paid over dinner at the Dreel Tavern, and I can only hope that sound of gnashing teeth was inaudible.   

Theresa and I are grateful that we could show Elsie and John Crail, especially the Balcomie in light of the dire Tuesday weather forecast.  While Crail presented with some issues, it presented most favorably for our guests.  Pace-of-play on the Balcomie was quite acceptable, and both days included no noise pollution from the adjoining motor track.  A home run indeed, with the obvious exception of the competitive outcome, not that I'm bitter....

Sitting in the club's bar, John or Elsie suggested something unimaginable to your humble blogger, that we walk to the Dreel.  It's only in Anstruther, the next town over, but what a great idea on such a fine early evening, not least because the only thing wrong with the Dreel is the parking situation.  Off we trundled onto the Fife Coastal Path and onto that funky Anstruther Golf Club course, and this time I found their famous Par-3, The Rockies.

Well, technically it's wide enough to accommodate a golf ball, if only barely, so that single-digit player that recorded a 17 is making far more sense than it did from home.  Even the club's website acknowledges the obvious, to wit, that its reputation as the hardest Par-3 in Scotland is mostly a result of it being, in reality, a Par-4:

Rockies - 245 yards Par 3

Voted the toughest par 3 in the UK by Today's Golfer in September 2007 this is definitely a card wrecker. From the elevated tee you must hit the ball onto the small fairway which is guarded on the right by a steep gorse and rough covered bank and on the left by the firth of forth which is out of bounds.

The more adventurous golfer can go for the green but a knowe that obscures half of the green makes this an extremely difficult and high risk shot. Best results are achieved by playing it as a par 4.

We called a taxi for the trip home, not the easiest task we amusingly discovered.  First, we discovered that placing a phone call from within the old stone walls of the Dreel to be well nigh impossible.  Then the taxi operator whose card the Dreel gave us just happened to be on vacation this week, perhaps overworked during the Pittenweem Arts Festival.

Ultimately we found a cab to take us home, the driver of which imparted all sorts of amusing color en route.  A motorcyclist was right on our tail, and our driver of course knew exactly who it was, a 55-year old man that she described as having a Peter Pan, in the never grow up mode.  Amusing although, given our alcohol consumption, we might have been an easy audience.

We have just now hugged Elsie and John goodbye, and they are on their way back to Strathpeffer.  There are golf bags to be packed up, but all in good time.  I might do a notebook dump post of all the bits that I didn't get to, but that likely will have to await our arrival home.  And, with a full slate of weekend golf planned, there's also a possibility that I'll lose interest before an opportunity presents.  

But we've had a grand adventure, with incidents like Air Tag-gate and a certain hand injury seemingly from a past lifetime.  The itinerary couldn't have been more perfect, with the visits with Elsie and John (and Dace, Ross and, especially, Sebastian) opening and closing the trip so perfectly.  In trying to thank John for our wonderful stay at Nutwood Cottage, he responded along the lines of, "What are you talking about, we didn't do anything."  All the better if it felt like nothing, but it meant everything to us.

I'll catch up with you, Dear Reader, from the other side.

The Final Rota

A fun but hectic couple of days on the East Neuk.  Elsie and John arrived Monday afternoon, as did our nephew Ryan, who has spent a couple of months busking and offering his musical comedy stylings at a local club.  

We dragged Ryan along on one of our walks, this him eastbound towards Anstruther, where we soon found ourselves on that Nine-hole course that has been mentioned in these pages.  

Disappointingly, Theresa turned for home before I could find the Rockies, the award-winning (I kid) hole reputed to be the hardest Par-3 in Scotland.  But great views back towards Pittenweem:

As I had hinted several times, the weather has turned back to more typically Scottish weather, though still warmer than typical.  But in all the varied and sundry weather forecasts we scanned, Tuesday was always the worst of it, potential washout territory.  One washout in a long trip like ours?  You'd shake on that in a heartbeat, but I had already lost some golf and we did want to experience the Balcomie, in all its quirkiness, not least because of its similarities to their local Strathpeffer track.

We turned in Monday night expecting the worst, and awakening to a suspiciously bespoke Met Office forecast.  It called for rain through the morning, but had the rain departing in the 11:00 a.m. hourly block, with a five-hour dry spell that overlapped perfectly with our 11:00 tee time.  But, they lie, yanno!.

We committed to give it a go and, when asked about our prospects, David Snodgrass, Crail's head pro, confirmed we'd stay dry, since we could see all the way to Carnoustie.  Dry we stayed, with only a couple of rain plops, as they're sometimes called.

A couple of bits that amused your humble blogger.,  On the second hole, "Ower the Knowe", there's a massive directional stake provided, which looks sufficiently substantial to survive the zombie apocalypse.  I wouldn't have even thought it possible, but suddenly we look over and Elsie is rippling this ting out of the ground, as it was in her line of sight.  I did manage a quick photo, though I fail to receive the necessary clearances to share it with you.

You'll sense what's coming, because a rope-hooked drive of my own on the eighth ran out just short of a similar post, and I did my own "Elsie", but not exactly sure what I might have done had I not seen her.  That very second hole seemed especially curious to your humble blogger.  I had played from the back tees (white) last Thursday, from which it's a 491-yeard Par-5.  We played from the yellows, under which it's a 445-yard Par-4, a beast directly into the northerly wind we had yesterday.  

I had always thought that the purpose moving up to shorter tees was to make one's life (at least one's golf) easier, but all that seems to have happened in this case was to convert a manageable three-shotter into a, well, a beast that I couldn't have reached with my two best shots.  Admittedly, the direction of the wind was a factor, but still.

The second bit of amusement was that, on the eye-candy Par-3 14th, your humble blogger hit a cold shank that sent my ball onto the beach, from which John took of to retrieve it.  The thought occurred to me that, remembering Ross recovering my ball from the rocks off Dornoch's ninth hole, that my dispersion rate has been such that two generations of Couplands have venture off the property to fetch them.  I can only look forward to playing with Sebastian, though he'll need to be forewarned of my expectations....

One quasi-serious bit about the unjustness of our game, specifically the set-up of the course.  The Balcomie's most famous hole is No. 5, Hell's Hole:

Here's the club's description of that name:

Hole 5 – Hell’s Hole – Although this could easily describe the difficulty of the hole the name comes from the rocky area of the beach on the right of the hole. 

Brutally hard, it's a classic cape hole, where one has to choose carefully how much to bite off (the image above elides the fact that your carry is over an inlet of the North Sea).  John hits a perfectly good drive, and we see it land, but simultaneously we notice that the stakes that bend around that inlet are all white, so it's all Out-of-bounds, stroke and distance penalties applying.  

John indicates that they should perhaps be red, so that the player would be allowed to drop up there, though, as I think it through, I realize that's problematic because of where the ball crosses the hazard line.  But the kicker here is that we find John's ball and it is perfectly playable, so he's, yanno, carried the hazard, so why exactly is he being penalized so severely?  

A similar, yet substantively different, thing occurs to your humble blogger, and I do think that Mel Brooks said it best:

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

Sounds about right....

On the Par-5 15th last Thursday, I drove it pin-high (the hole is 264 yards from the tips, so very doable), and downwind yesterday I dialed back to my 3-wood, and hit a good one that John characterizes as just a bit eft of the pin.  Just enough left to run off the green and catch a slope heading towards the North Sea, but coming to rest in some longer grass, but completely playable.  Except, that this hazard sitting lateral to the hole and green, is again marked with white stakes.  My use of the word "lateral" above is obviously not random, this is the dictionary definition of a lateral hazard,... 

I pass David Snodgrass in the clubhouse after our post-round pint, and ask him about these course markings, which he attributes to pace-of-play considerations.  He does mention that, with the 2019 rules changes, perhaps these OB's are no longer needed, and I volunteer that our home course had red stakes everywhere for similar reasons.

But, like my hero George Costanza, it only occurs to me later (though politeness probably would have precluded the follow-up question), that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  Our Fairview red stakes obviously allow a player to drop where his ball entered the hazard, and avoid the walk of shame back to the tee.  But how does Ob help pace-of-play.  I discover my ball OB on No. 15 and, to post a legitimate score I would need to backtrack those 264 yards to the tee....

In playing with Elsie and John we compete in a Stableford, which admittedly is superior to other competitive formats with widely varying handicaps and mixed groups playing to different handicaps.  John played very well, notwithstanding the unfair situation on Hell's Hole, and ran the table.  Theresa and I have adapted ourselves to Elsie and John's protocols, as explained in this long-ago post, but we had a wee problem in that regard, as none of us possessed any coinage (as an aside, about the only thing I hate about Scotland is its coinage, and I had planned a wee rant on that subject that never happened).  Perhaps recognizing his collection issues, John has decided to let it ride, and we'll be playing for all the marbles today.

The camera stayed consistently in my golf bag, but I know you'll be wondering about that evening light:

It was grand....

We're on the Craighead today, on what promises to be a sunny but cool day.

It's the homestretch.....

East Neuk Notes

It's Monday morning in Pittenweem, and the times they are a changin'.... at least, the weather most certainly is.  I started drafting a bit on the new world handicap system. which I'll leave at the bottom of this post, and get to the more recent bits first.

Stormy Weather - Anyone coming to Scotland for the weather would have been, like Rick Blaine, misinformed.  That acknowledged, you won't hear too many complaints from us on that subject, as we've been unbelievably lucky over the years.  In fact, my bride refers to it as Scott Simpson weather, yanno, the stuff we enjoyed for the last ten days or so.

While they get more than their share of the wet stuff here, the one thing you don't see much is thunderstorms and electricity.  I've heard of it, of course, but last night was the first lightning I've ever seen in Scotland, a bit freaky if I may say.  Theresa had parked herself here to enjoy the view:

I actual thought I had taken a shot of her gazing out to the sea, but she was sitting on the wall and it began to rumble, then drizzle....then over this hill came a bolt of lightning:

That's our typical route for after-dinner walks, as just over that hill is the Pittenweem Tidal Pool, or at least it used to be.  Kidding, I'll explain in a sec.

Elsie and John are up in Northwest Fife with Ross, Dace and Sebastian, and they dodged the weather for their barbeque, but it got there later.  A funny bit from John in an e-mail:

Dace and I thought we heard thunder. But Ross said it was the neighbors putting out their wheelie bins..which it was...😱

So true!  It is exactly the same sound....

Elsie told us later that they had seven hours of thunder and lighting, which seems a decade worth to me.

The forecast?  Let's not go there just yet....

Ch-Ch-Changes - I know, at least at a conceptual level, that tides come in and out, and that the moon is somehow implicated in it all.  Beyond that, it's all a blur, but I would have assumed that changes in the tide would be incremental from day to day.  Yet, while our late afternoon and early evening strolls have featured an endless succession of low-tide imagery, yesterday afternoon featured a high tide:

With the tide in and it being a Sunday, everyone was taking advantage of it:

Visually more pleasing for sure, although those rock formations on the floor of the Firth are oddly entrancing.  I took a walk over to the St. Monans windmill in the afternoon:

As I made my way back to Pittenweem I encountered Theresa, wineglass in hand, about to park herself on our usual bench for her first nip of the day.

A Blogger's Obsessions Collide - If you've made it this far on our journey, you're familiar with the dark recesses of my mind, specifically my obsession with bales of hay, red BT phone boxes and the  localized meteorological phenomenon known as the haar.  I'm sure that someday I'll capture an image of the characteristically cylindrical bales of hay with a red phone box in the frame, or not, but as we made our way to the Bowhouse yesterday morning, I pulled over to capture this image, and I hope you'll agree that two out of three ain't bad:

Hay in a haar.... Amusingly, the image I really wanted was this, but with the St. Monans windmill in the background, and that entailed driving through a caravan park, though that image for some reason didn't come off quite as clearly:

As with Tessie's shot of the Sturgeon Moon, it's got a certain impressionistic charm to it all the same.

On my afternoon walk, I did capture some better images in far better light, but this was from the base of the lighthouse, so necessarily facing inland:

On the drive home from St. Andrews we stopped where the road was reduced to a single-lane due to construction, and did see one of these in the middle of nowhere:

No disrespect intended to the fine folks of Dunino.....

Tidal Being The Key Word - While the signage there just calls it an outdoor pool, on the map it's referred to as the Pittenweem Tidal Pool, not that there's ever been any doubt as to how it all works.  Nonetheless, as I ascended that hill and looked down, there was something that had changed:

There was a pool there yesterday!  

The Auld Grey Toon - As noted previously, we played Saturday instead of Sunday for a combination of reasons, including the weather forecast.  But, also, because of this charming idiosyncrasy:

Why is the old course closed on Sundays?

Slumber Sundays at the Old Course date back to the 16th century, with historians tracing the tradition to religious reasons. It is said that residents at St Andrews faithfully reserved the religious rule which forbid such activities on the day of rest.

Fast forward two centuries, and locals then lobbied for Old Tom Morris to reverse the rule in the late 1800s. Unfortunately for them, the legendary figure upheld the Sunday closure, maintaining that his iconic course needed the rest.

“If the golfer doesn’t need a rest, surely the course does,” he said.

Actually, these two golfers did certainly did require a rest....

We've thrown snake eyes thus far on the Daily Ballot and, though there's one more throw of the dice, it's pretty clear that it's not going to happen for us this trip.  But on a Sunday we're guranteed to be able to get on the Old Course, se we went for a little walk:

As you walk down Golf Place, having passed the Dunvegan and Auchterlonie's Golf  Shop, the reveal is always quite dramatic:

Care to revisit my favorite rant?

That "Where it all began"  signage is a bit rich, because that storefront began as Old Tom's shop, and if we're the kind of folks that honor our actual history.... Oh, but wait, there's a branding opportunity to vertically integrate our actualization strategy, so some MBA is sure it makes sense.  Anyone care to guess the name of the golf hole it abuts?  That would be Tom Morris, although I'm sure by the time The Open returns the hole will be renamed after Tenants lager or some such nonsense.

Just a few notes from our little stroll of the course.  The Road Hole has tormented golfers for centuries, featuring every known hazard to golfers, including plague and pestilence though, to the best of my knowledge, there's been no slaying of the first born.  Yet, that is...

This is the tee shot for mere mortals:

Your caddie will tell you to take it over the second "O" in Old Course Hotel, but you'll be bailing left for sure, for reasons I assume are quite obvious.  But this is where the big boys pegged it in the Open:

Which is, being just a wee bit technical, out of bounds.  Just sayin'...

The size of the seven double greens is hard to convey to those that haven't seen them, and pictures only partially capture it.  This is the green for the 2nd and 16th hole:

And for all the talk of how flat the terrain is:

I assure you that it's even more severe in three dimensions....

Perhaps not as severe as The Himalayas:

Again, the lens flattens everything out, but this is the iconic venue maintained by the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club, which dates back to 1867.

The cathedral and cemetery was strange, as there was metal fencing everywhere to protect visitors from.....well, falling gravestones:

Not exactly sure how a falling gravestone presents a risk to tourists, but I'm new in town.  It gave the cemetery quite the unkempt look:

As we always do, respect was paid:

That's Young Tom, and here's Dad:

This signage is from the New Golf Club, where Old Tom hung out in his later years:

Old Tom's life had this epic arc, encompassing the formative years of professional golf.  Yet, his own life was so epically sad, as he buried each and every member of his family, including his wife and all his children.  His later years must have been so lonely.... The R&A accorded him an honorary membership, but one doesn't need to be scholar of the early twentieth century life in Scotland to know that he would always be a caddie in their eyes.  

And I always find the grave of Allan Robertson, the forgotten man of golf, who gave Old Tom his start:

This is a little bit of inside baseball, but those had better be featheries:

Robertson's ball-making business was put asunder by the introduction of the gutta percha ball, and he fell out with Old Tom when he saw Tom testing out the new technology.  That led to Tom's banishment to Prestwick and his building of their links that hosted the original Opens.  So, that's actually where it all began....

Some random images I caught:

I mentioned Janetta's the other day, and apparently I'm not the only soul familiar with them:

I think Yogi put it best when he said, "no one goes there anymore, it's always too busy."

Morning Update - I am pleased to report that overnight the pool was returned to its prior location:

And the morning has featured the seals flopping about, and I was even able to capture them:

 That's two of the critters on the right, flopping about and making quite the racket.  

This is the bit I mentioned above, which of course doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the post:

Handicaps - Are you digging the new, unified worldwide handicap system?  Yeah, it's likely not even crossed your radar, though it did mine yesterday.

When the new handicap system was unveiled, I was lukewarm at best.  There wasn't (couldn't have been, really) anything objectionable in the concept, it just seemed like a make-work project for golf bureaucrats and gadflies, the Peter Dawsons of the world.  Mostly I thought that the re-rating of every little links to the required course rating and slope protocol was an unnecessary burden on them.

That said, after Saturday's dispiriting match a walk back of sorts is justified, as I have to concede that setting up the card for our match was child's play, just the typical scan of a matrix to convert our indexes to course handicaps, something the MGA or GHIN apps do for us overnight, and we quickly ascertained that the bride would get twelve strokes, whereas merely using our indexes yielded a delta of eleven.  Happily we can conclude that the system has been rendered increasingly progressive, with the patriarchy taking a deserved hit....

Of course, I still think my larger point holds up, to wit, that this is of little import.  Your average tour group of men and women will inevitably end up with the same differentials, it just solves a uniquely Scottish/Irish issue related to the ladies' tees and associated scorecards.  The clubs simply don't have the resources to build separate tee boxes for the ladies, so in most cases they put the gals on the front of the men's tee boxes and deem the appropriate holes to be Par-5's.  All well and good, though I used to give Theresa an additional stroke for each of said Par-5's, and she responded to such generosity of spirit by closing me out on the twelfth hole.... 

So, they've simplified our scorecard preparation, though lost in translation is the more substantive differences in handicap systems.  Under the ancien régime, GB&I used only competition scores for calculating handicaps, a very different thing for sure, about which I had never quite made up my mind.  Of course a competition score is a more accurate measure of how a player might perform with a scorecard and pencil in hand, but the offsetting factor is that handicaps would necessarily be subject to the laws of small sample sizes....

One other note from the Craighead, involving a precariously placed ball washer:

Unless your ball is seriously dirty, perhaps you might give it a miss.  We'd seen evidence that they're cutting back the gorse around the course, but they might want to give this one a trim.  

The Home Stretch - Elsie and John will be down later this afternoon, and our nephew Ryan, amusing himself in Edinburgh for a couple of month, will be joining us for tonight.  We hope to fire up the BBQ for this evenings meal, though the weather outlook will make that a game time decision.  

Nothing is cast in stone, but I wouldn't expect to blogging as regularly or as extensively, though the weather, at least for Tuesday, might prove more suitable to indoor pursuits.  Do check back, but we'll be happily engaged with our friends and family, so you'll understand.

Pittenweem Perambulations

When last we spoke, Employee No. 2 and I were headed to the Bowhouse Farmers Market, located a few miles west of us on the A917 in St, Monanas.  We'd been tipped to it by a few folks, and for good reason.

The old stone building is suitably impressive, no less from the inside:

This was at their opening at 10:00 a.m.  By the time we had done our shopping, it was wall-to-wall Fifers.... Actually, not all locals, as our friendly next-door neighbors (the ones in the house we had rented in 2020),  did a Bowhouse drive-by on their way home, although we never actually found out where home is for them.

In light of a late tee time, we had decided to do breakfast for dinner, don't judge us, and a sourdough loaf (second from the right below) resulted in toast that brought conversation to a close:

Well, not all conversation, because the bride took a bite of her bacon and avocado sandwich on sourdough, and informed that I would be headed back to the Bowhouse for more Sunday morning.  Having sampled my sourdough toast, I had figured that bit out on my own.

If it swims, they'll smoke it, a very good thing indeed:

File this under the education of a blogger because, if asked to name something viler than haggis, I'd have been stumped.  

Of course, there was that international incident in Strathpeffer a few years back, in which a certain dish was presented as "Scottish Sausage".... Good times!

Do you actually know what haggis is?  This Wikipedia entry has some funny bits:

Haggis (Scottish Gaelic: taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead.

Savory is a bit of a value judgement, no?  I had been reliably informed that one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter but, whatev.  But this was my favorite bit:

According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".

At least we've found some common ground.  I'll just note that the process by which sheep's pluck morphs into a savory concoction escapes your humble blogger, which we'll add to that lengthy list of personal failings...

Lots goin on at Bowhouse:

Those outdoor family tables could actually get some use, sheltered from the wind as they are.  Unless, of course, it functions as a wind tunnel...

We then gassed up the car, which proved harder than expected.  It was an unmanned gas station, and it leads into another mini-rant, to wit, for as long as I've been coming to Scotland and Ireland, their payment technology has been superior and far easier than our own.  At present, they just tap their cards, whereas our Chase Sapphire card requires a signature.... 

We did get our fuel, thanks to a Morgan Stanley debit card that our Morgan Stanley advisor reminded me could be used to avoid ATM and FX fees.  Though I wasn't even sure that I had ever actually set up the PIN, it worked like a charm....  It takes a village to get Scott and Tessie around Scotland....

Some golf was played, if you'll allow for the loosest possible definition of that term.  As I had noted, Tessie was talking the smack and clearly wanted a piece of your humble blogger, and this greeted us on the first tee of the Craighead:

Who told them?

I don't actually know what kind of competition was out ahead of us, but pity them,  The Craighead features greens that are small with severe undulations, and these pins were in some truly harsh locations.  I paced off one that was exactly two yards from the edge and a typical run-off, and at times it felt like their season-ending Superintendent's "Revenge" tourney....

Amusingly, our decision to play one of our characteristic matches had the immediate effect of causing us to lose our games and our minds, though the actual order remains obscured even in hindsight.  I hit an exact replica of Friday's first-tee smother hook, and was relived not to find it in the nest of bunkers that protect the inside of the dogleg left.  Correction, I was temporarily relived, because the ball was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding there being nowhere for it to have gone.

The weather was the most interesting aspect to the day, ultimately providing a very happy ending.  But for our early holes there was quite the glare, rendering us quite blind.  I had my sunglasses on and off several times, neither seeming adequate to the task.  But the tracking of golf balls was impossible in that light, inconvenient on a day with wider--than usual shot dispersion.  That's some fancy words to convey that we both sucked....

Hubris, it so happens, is not just a river in Greece.  Your formerly humble blogger had been quite full of himself in reaching Par-5's on both the Balcomie and Craighead, which in these baked-out conditions isn't exactly a bridge too far.  On the Par-5 sixth, the Course Guide instructs the player to keep his shot short of a section of the wall, though this guy didn't fly seven hours for the purpose of laying up.  For the second consecutive day I successfully threaded my drive between said wall and two fairway bunkers on the right, taking dead aim at the very reachable green.  

I hit some kind of skanky shot off the toe of my hybrid, which went dead right until it was mercifully lost in the haze.  Disturbingly, the bride immediately followed me OB, and the  hole was halved with net double bogeys, which will suffice as a proxy for our day.  Oh, there were a couple of moments, such as the bride rattling the pin with her third on the Par-5 eighth, one that could have just as easily gone in for a natural eagle.  

I actually heard her ball strike the pin with my back turned, looking for an ugly snap hook of my own.  In case you're not keeping a scorecard, that's two reachable Par-5's on which I placed my drive perfectly, only to never find my second shot....  This was a particularly nasty snapper, and Theresa helpfully told me it had reached the "wispy" stuff, quite the delicate term for knee-deep hay that a reaper would struggle with.

The more interesting bit was the mid-round haar.  This was the seventh green as it hit:

A little later it took on an eerie quality, although it's a big ask to expect the camera to do it justice:

It had the appearance of smoke swirling, whipped hither and yon by the wind.  

Not that it lasted very long, as we were soon basking yet again in sunshine:

So, some golf was played, and a couple of good images were captured:

This might be the photo of the trip, at least in the golf action shot division:

The late day light didn't disappoint:

In view of the weather forecast, we played Saturday instead of Sunday which, based on early evidence, might have been a good call (although, based upon the quality of play, might be considered an abject failure).  But this is Pittenweem on Sunday morning:

There's authentic Scottish weather inbound, its' the magnitude that remains in doubt.

And it's off to Bowhouse we go, then the Coop.  Catch you further on down the road.