Postcard from St Andrews
With the 2011 British Open at Royal St George’s looming large on the horizon (Thursday week to be precise), my thoughts have frequently drifted away from the Canberra winter and back to the northern summer of last year – specifically, to six wonderful days spent wandering The Old Course at St Andrews as the 2010 British Open unfolded before my eyes. Here is how the best week of my life (spent at my favourite place on earth) went down.
Tuesday
4.30PM
I arrive in St Andrews via a London to Leuchars train and a ten-minute taxi ride from Leuchars to St Andrews. After checking in at the university dorm room I’ll be crashing in of an evening (a nostalgic throwback to old college days, and also the only place I could get a room – St Andrews has a population of 15,000, and a lot more visitors than that come Open week), it is time to head for the course.
The first view of the course comes from a footpath set well above course level, with the 17th hole opening out in front of me, complete with an engulfing wave of happiness. There is a scene in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ where Andy Dufresne does the taxes of the warden in exchange for beers for his jail buddies, as he sits there looking into the distance and grinning like an idiot. That’s me right now – looking into the distance and grinning like an idiot. I would hold that facial expression for the next five and a half days – needless to say, a new personal record.
Camera in tow, pass through the security gates, turn right at the 17th green to walk alongside the 18th fairway, just in time to see Arnold Palmer being helped over the railing by three people, with approximately 250 more ready to lend a hand if needed. It is easy to get help at the Open Championship if you happen to be the king of golf. Palmer then chats to 1985 champion Sandy Lyle before the 1991 champion Ian Baker-Finch saunters by – he of course was plenty tall enough to hop over the railing with ease. Darren Clarke goes past wearing a horrendous leather jacket. I have been here less than 15 minutes and the photo count is motoring along already. Life is great.
9.00PM
One of the very few (and minor) downsides of the week was that there were very few peoplein the pubs of an evening under the age of 50. I spoke to a guy on Sunday who had come up from London for the week to work as a guard and he made two salient points as to why this occurred:
(1) Almost all the young people there for the whole week were working long hours and therefore less inclined to go out; and
(2) They all knew the pubs would be inundated with middle-aged men, so chose to do their drinking at private get-togethers.
This all made perfect sense in hindsight, but meant the pub experience was less exciting than originally hoped.
Nonetheless, I did meet two guys around my age from Aberdeen (we’ll come back to this city later) who were having a couple of quiet pints with their stunning girlfriends, whom sadly I was not introduced to. They had come down for the Tuesday practice day and were coming back to watch the Thursday and Friday tournament play, but on Wednesday were headed south to see Rod Stewart perform at Edinburgh Castle. There were no parents or oldies in tow. Just four people around my age going to a concert put on by a man who would have been around our age when golf was invented – only in Scotland.
Wednesday
10.00AM
Weather wise this was clearly the worst day of week, with heavy rain threatening to descend into hail on multiple occasions without ever quite getting there. Nonetheless, with cameras prohibited during the tournament proper, this was the last chance to get some happy snaps of the course.With only a few hardy (foolhardy?) souls on the course, the marshals gave me plenty of help with the best spots to take photos from on each hole. The photos still didn’t do the place justice though, primarily because they don't highlight just big some of the slopes on greens and around bunkers really are.
Ricky Barnes hit the course with Matt Kuchar and Jason Dufner, but by the 4th hole had skipped across to join Rory McIlroy on the 16th and presumably get out of the rain ASAP. I wrote him off as a contender for the week there and then (incorrectly, as he finished well inside the top-20) – Open Championships do not take kindly to soft behaviour. Dufner doesn’t last much longer, but Kuchar is working around the back nine a couple of hours later, signing autographs for the handful of kids braving the elements to watch him. I like the guy and mark him in my list of contenders for the week.
4.00PM
The rain was so bad that the four-hole tournament of champions sadly had to be cancelled and the course was shut by 4pm- an opportune time to duck across the road from the back of the 18th green (literally) and visit the British Golf Museum.
Of course, it is nirvana for golf nerds – a stream of old clubs and balls from centuries gone by right through to modern technology. Screens with footage of old championships (in particular, the Open Championship) are littered throughout the room.
My favourite wrinkle through was the number of old clubs, balls, cloves and scorecards from British Open champions. Greg Norman’s wedge from his 1986 Open triumph is on display. So is Lee Trevino’s wedge from 1971. The paraphernalia of one Tiger Woods from his 2000 victory at the Old Course is even more extensive, while Tom Watson’s 1977 ‘Duel In the Sun’ score card (where he shot 65 on the final day at Turnberry to defeat Jack Nicklaus by one stroke) was another highlight. Despite being waterlogged, I enjoyed myself immensely.
7.30PM
One of the more amusing stories of the week involved a guard who didn't recognise Vijay Singh. I was chatting to this guard on Wednesday evening and he had refused "Vijay Singha" entry earlier in the day because he had forgotten his players’ badge. The story goes that Vijay kept saying to the guard "Don't you know who I am?" and the guard said he hated golf, only knew Tiger Woods and that if "Vijay Singha" wanted to be instantly recognisable, he should become a better golfer. Not bad for a rather tall and recognisable Fijian who knocked Tiger out of the world number one spot in 2004 and again in 2005.
Thursday
6.30AM
You know how there are a handful of seemingly insignificant moments from your life that manage to cling on in your memory bank and become more meaningful over time? I feel like “On the tee, Paul Lawrie” will stick with me – he was the first competitor to tee off in the Open, as I stood in the gallery to the front right of the tee box. Sometimes little moments grow a life of their own in your psyche – remembering those five words will always make me smile.
8.30AM:
I’m following the Nick Watney/ Robert Allenby/ Oliver Wilson game on Thursday morning and had some brief small talk with Watney's fiancée and her friend after he made a gem of a par save on the second hole, quickly gaining the impression that there were no Rhodes scholars in the mix. That was confirmed when they were both talking as Nick hit his tee shot on the fourth. I have no idea why the marshals weren't telling them to shut up, nor how they were so oblivious in the first place. Wearing designer clothes clearly not conducive to walking around for four hours and rather liberal in her application of make-up, the fiancée gets the wooden spoon for golfing partners. Time for a quick tangent:
The best of golfing partners
Honourable mentions: The partners of Charl Schwartzel and Hunter Mahan. There seemed to be an infinite number of women who look they came straight off the golf pro partner production line (blonde, fake tan, designer gear etc.), and in some respects these two ladies fell into the same category. However, they pulled it off with a bit more class, and seemed invested in how their man was playing – more than could be said for many others.
Joint winners: The partners of Sean O'Hair and Matt Kuchar. Both broke the usual mould here – brunette, no fake tan, some freckles on their faces, outfits well suited for traipsing around a golf course (whilst presumably still being mainly designer gear – I don’t know fashion), genuinely gave a crap about how Sean and Matt respectively were playing. Both of them were all the more attractive for these reasons. Top marks to both of them.
9.00AM
Still following Watney/ Allenby/ Wilson, and a guy with a Scottish accent asks me where Robert's approach to the 5th green has finished, as he didn't see it land. I point to the right rough and he tut-tuts Robert and starts getting stuck into him about the bad second shot. Yet despite the unflattering remarks, he seems totally oblivious to what the other guys in the group are doing. I eventually look down at the name tag on his pass and it's Don Allenby, Robert's dad. He does most of the talking about Robert's game for the next couple of holes, and never seems overly impressed. To bring a 'That 70s Show' analogy into play, he's like the Red Forman of golf dads. I loved his work. No wonder Robert is such a surly bugger.
Friday
7.00AM
Australian golfer Peter Senior is off in the first group on Friday morning, with about 15 or 20 people are following his group early on. He nails one down the middle of the third fairway, and I have a similar exchange with Peter to the one that my mate Andrew Bommy had with Craig Parry at St Andrews in a Dunhill Cup match going back a few years – "Shot Peter, good luck today." "Thanks mate."
8.00AM
Having followed my new best mate Peter around to the seventh green, I decide to sit in the grandstand there and watch a few groups come through.
It's raining and my section of the grandstand is empty bar a marshal from Aberdeen who is maybe 60 years old and a couple from New Jersey two rows behind me, probably aged 40 or thereabouts. We're chatting away about the golf in between groups coming through and everything is very pleasant. The wife is also rather attractive. After a while, it dawns on me that each time I swing around to rejoin the conversation, she seems the happiest of all three to hear from me.
An old Scottish guy (he may have been 150 years old – every step he took made me nervous) comes through next to me and I'm chatting to him for a few mins regarding Melbourne golfer Marc Leishmann, who has just come past us. He moves on, and I swing back around to chat to the couple and marshal again. The wife looks semi-giddy and I haven't even opened my mouth yet, but the husband sees the look on his wife's face and from then on, even though I'm innocently talking golf to all of them, his thoughts get more curt and far less cheerful, just as she starts to join in the conversation with me a bit more. Within 15 minutes, they were gone.
The marshal has a big grin on his face, wandering down to the front row and saying "I think she fancied you a bit and her husband was none too pleased about it." To which I responded, "Well who wouldn't love a younger man with an Aussie accent?" For the record, had she been on her own rather than with her husband, I absolutely would have shuffled back to the third row of the stand and tried to chat her up. After all, how many people have picked up on a wet Friday morning watching live golf? Surely that would have been groundbreaking territory?
11.30AM
I have a real problem with people complaining about the weather. Yes, it threw down all day on Wednesday, rained for a solid three hours on Friday morning and was windy the whole week. So what! It's Scotland, and you should get over yourself. A guy walking in front of me up the 15th late was complaining to his friend and saying that he was having a terrible time. He nearly got a punch in the back of the head for his troubles – just an awful idea to badmouth anything about this week within my earshot.
4.30PM
Canadian golfer Mike Weir had two fans following him around in matching Canadian hockey jerseys with ‘Weir’ written on the back. This prompted an English guy behind me to say to his friends: "I see Weir's supporters in their usual get-up…. typical Kiwis". The comedic highpoint of Friday afternoon.
9.45PM
After a delay due to gale force winds (poor old Rory McIlory got stuck in the worst of the conditions on Friday afternoon and shot an 80 which may have cost him the tournament), not every group will finish their second round tonight and some will have to come back in the morning. Tiger is on the 17th green and 60-year old Tom Watson in the group behind. Tom's going to miss the cut, and these might be his last two holes of British Open play, an event he's won five times.
As soon as Tiger hits the green on 17, I head up to the 18th green to get a good view of this short par-4 where the pros can pretty much drive it onto the green. Pin is cut in the front right of the green, about ten metres from the out of bounds fence, which I'm standing just on the other side of. Most guys are taking the safer route over to the left a bit, but Tigers's tee shot on 18 is a tracer bullet going right at the flag. It bounces twice just short of the green, barely missing the hole (maybe six inches to the right) on its way to pulling up 20 feet past the hole, to the delight of the gallery.
Before his group putts, they let Tom's group tee off to ensure that he can finish tonight. Tiger lips out his eagle putt and taps in for birdie as Tom kisses the Swilican Bridge for the photographers at probably his last ever hole at the British Open.
Tom then hits his chip shot to within two inches of the hole. There is a massive roar and high-fives being dished out on all sides in the crowd. He wanders up to tap it in, asking the crowd first if they think it's a gimme (complete with a second massive roar) before tapping it in (and getting a third roar for his troubles). That 20-minute stretch paid for the week in itself – the other 60-odd hours spent at the course was a bonus.
Saturday
11:00AM
St Andrews is a learning experience. You might think you know how to play the course after a couple of goes, but the intricacies keep revealing themselves round after round after round. Peel back one layer and another one sits in wait.
Watching American golfer Rickie Fowler this week has made for a fascinating case study. I watched much of his opening round 79 and came to the views that (a) his game wasn’t yet ready for links golf and (b) it may never be well suited. Side note: he wouldn’t be alone on that front by the way – for a player of such calibre and standing in the game, Phil Mickelson’s record at the British Open leaves much to be desired.
So it was to my surprise that Fowler roared back on the Friday with a 67 to make the halfway cut. He kept progressing over the course of the weekend and whilst never threatening the leaders, put in a very impressive display.
I followed his group for a couple of hours on both Saturday and Sunday and the most impressive aspect was his mental application. You could see the cogs turning in his head… I don’t really have a links-style shot for this situation, so what shot do I have that is the next best thing…. as he plotted a way around the course in a much more polished fashion. It seemed as though he matured a great deal over the last three rounds, and while he has not yet threatened at major championship level, his time may yet be coming.
3:00PM
The learning experience at St Andrews isn’t confined to the players either – it can just as easily be applied to those outside the ropes. On the Thursday I had assumed that the best vantage points when following a group (therefore excluding seats up in the various grandstands) would be right up against the ropes at the front of the crowd.
This was incorrect. The savvy spectators were using the natural terrain of the land to their advantage, standing back from the masses on small mounds and slopes which gave a view over the heads of other patrons, often exposing otherwise hidden swales and valleys on the course and making it easier to follow the trajectory of shots. A terrific example of taking one step backward in order to take three steps forward, and yet another subtle layer of this course to be uncovered.
Sunday
2:00 PM
The 9th green and 10th tee constitute what is basically the far end of the course at St Andrews – the course runs out in one direction for six holes, does a little criss-crossing between the 7th and 11th and finally heads back to the starting point over the last seven holes. The criss-cross had made following a single group around the middle stretch difficult, and thus I had spent little time at this end of the course over the past three days.
Yet when the sun is out and the wind (in relative terms) quiet, it is an idyllic setting. People park blankets and fold-up chairs to the front left of the 10th tee, perhaps 50 metres to the right of the flat and inviting 9th green, wiling away the time between groups with plenty of chatter – a tranquil setting in the middle of a major championship venue.
This area of the course also seemed to be the meeting place for many a person from Aberdeen, a city which provided the vast majority of friendly and cheerful Scots I met during the week. I’ve never been to Aberdeen and cannot vouch for the place itself, but the people are top rate.
Speaking of friendly (or perhaps the antithesis to it), here comes Tiger. He shot 67 on the Thursday and loomed large in the frame, but for three days since appears to have had a gearbox full of neutrals, to coin a Formula One phrase. This has done nothing for his disposition, which is well to the wrong side of surly as he makes his way around the turn. Jason Sobel wrote a thought-provoking piece for ESPN suggesting that Tiger might not enjoy the game of golf anymore – from what I saw in person, it was a difficult hypothesis to argue against.
4:30PM
Decision time – the final group (including Louis Oosthuizen) has fallen well behind the other groups, so do I wait at the 9th/ 10th for his arrival or press ahead a couple of holes to watch the chasing pack of Casey, Westwood et al?
I push ahead to the 12th, missing Oosthuizen drain a lengthy eagle putt at the 9th to extend his lead, but catching a calamitous triple bogey on the 12th hole for Casey that put the Open Championship all but in the South African’s keeping with two hours of play left to go. For such a fantastic week, the Sunday afternoon battle for the tournament was anti-climactic and lacked a compelling story line.
Nonetheless, congratulations must go to Oosthuizen. He may have been a beneficiary of the changing weather conditions on the Friday (where his round was completed prior to noon, before the winds wreaked havoc with afternoon groups), but his stellar weekend play was worthy of a major champion.
7:30 PM
As the trophy presentation was being held on the 18th green, the crowd was allowed onto the course further down the 18th fairway. I stood on both the 1st green and 18th tee, as well as the spot where Angel Cabrera chipped in for par at the opening hole on Thursday after knocking his second shot into the Swillican Burn.
The most daunting spot to be was standing in the Road Hole Bunker. Despite being almost 6-foot-2 in the old, my eye line was barely above the top lip of the bunker – little wonder that it is an ‘avoid at all costs’ style of hazard.
This is not to say that an approach shot beyond the green is any bargain either – with an extremely steep slope behind the green, followed by road, a small patch of grass and finally a stone wall, it is anything but. I chatted to a Scottish guy about how we'd play a shot off the road at the back of the green if we had to, eventually agreeing that you'd just hit a hard slap-shot with a putter and hope it got the right bounces going up the rough slope onto the green. Only darkness drove me off the course in the end, a familiar story by the Sunday evening.
On the way back to the uni dorm, a car drove past me with Journey blaring out the speakers. In a week where a ‘no-name’ South African kept it ploughing ahead all weekend when many (myself included) expected him to fold like a deck chair, and two young guns in McIlroy and Fowler each put a heinous round behind them to stamp themselves as future megastars, "Don't stop believin' " seemed a fitting summation of the week.
As for yours truly, I believe I will be back in 2015 for the next Open Championship to be held at this fabled venue. Farewell St Andrews, my newest (and in some senses, oldest) friend – we will meet again someday.
I don’t have thank anyone for the picture this week, because it’s my picture – taken from the approximate spot where my patented weak, high block would finish on the 17th hole. Suffice to say, a bogey from this spot would be a good outcome.
