[PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was a reporter for the Daily Astorian (in Astoria, Oregon) and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as an Oregon state government manager and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing pubic policy – to what I write. If you are reading this, thanks for doing so and please don’t hesitate to respond so we can engage in a dialogue, not just a monologue.]
As professional golfers (and perhaps an amateur or two) head to the home of golf for the British Open – the Old Course at St. Andrews – it seems to be a good time to share some of my personal memories of this special place.
It was the golf icon Bobby Jones who uttered this sentence: “If I were to set down to play on one golf course for the remainder of my life, I should choose the Old Course at St. Andrews.”
Agreed.
St. Andrews – both the seven golf courses there that are part of the St. Andrews Links Trust and the town itself, with its center, St. Andrews University – took my breath away when I arrived there the first time with my wife, Nancy, on a visit to the homeland of her parents, Scotland.
We arrived on a Sunday and the Old Course is closed on such days, becoming a park for residents and tourists alike, lying, as it does, astride the North Sea. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, as we strode around the course and stopped, of course, to take the obligatory photos at the Swilcan Bridge near the 1st and 18th holes.
After that first visit, we took a few other trips to Scotland, none of which included a return visit to the Old Course. So, in 2012, we ventured back there with my daughter, Lissy, her husband, Tim, and two grandchildren, Mason and Kate. Again, we arrived on a Sunday and walked around the Old Course as a park. The Swilcan Bridge beckoned us again.
That bridge is a golf icon. Many golfers remember a few years ago when the best golfer of all time, Jack Nicklaus, bid farewell to all of his appearances at the Old Course on a solitary walk across the Swilcan Bridge. He lingered on the top for a few moments, not to accept all of the applause, but, apparently, to savor the moment one last time. He then went on to the 18th hole and, fittingly, sunk a birdie putt for his last official golf hole in a tournament he won several times.
On our family’s walk that Sunday, we saw hundreds of tourists and residents alike, plus one horse and a few dogs, who enjoyed “the walk in the park” as much as we did. It strikes me as a master stroke – pardon the play on words – for the owners of the Old Course to make it into a park one day a week. Everyone seems to relish the trek around the course, which often includes a walk over to the adjacent North Sea beach.
As our family arrived in St. Andrews, we took steps to do what every golfer wants to do on the Old Course, which is to play. To put it mildly, it’s difficult to get a tee time. We were not able to do in advance, so as nearly everyone does, we signed up for what’s called the “ballot.”
It’s essentially a lottery and, if your card is chosen, then you get to play the course.
On Monday, my daughter, my son-in-law and I set off on what’s called “The New Course,” which, despite its name, dates to the 1860s. During that round, my wife got the call we had hoped for: We would be playing the Old Course on the next day!
Our glee was followed by a foreboding reality – we would have to tee it up on the 1st tee in front of all sorts of bystanders who would be there, not to see us, but to watch anyone play on the Old Course.
Rather than provide my own description, let me quote from one of my favorite books – Two Years in St. Andrews — by one of my favorite golf authors, George Peper, now the editor of Links Magazine. Here is what he wrote:
“No matter who you are, to stand for the first time on the 1st tee of the Old Course is to experience the greatest natural laxative in golf. So intimidating is the opening that Dwight Eisenhower, a five-star general who once held the fate of the free world in his hands, couldn’t handle the pressure. He slinked to the second hole.
“There you are, barely a dozen steps from the front porch of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, the full weight of its four-storied grayness upon you. Thirty-two clubhouse windows face that tee, and you can feel eyes piercing from everyone one of them, especially from the Big Room – front and center on the ground floor – where the blue-blazered members sip their gin and tonics and peer imperiously through graduated bi-focals.
“You feel their eyes, lasered into your temples. You feel the eyes of every golfer in your group, every golfer waiting to play, every lurking caddy, raking greenkeeper, and passing motorist, every shopkeeper, dog walker, street cleaner, beachcomber, and windsurfer, every gull, snipe, and pigeon, every fisherman on every trawler in the North Sea. Most of all you feel the eyes of Old Tom Morris and Harry Vardon, of Henry Cotton and Bobby Jones – of every great player, live or dead, who has ever walked these fabled links. And you don’t want to disappoint them.”
That was exactly how we felt as we prepared for the inevitable tee time.
My daughter, Lissy, put it well when she said that, when her tee time came, she was afraid she would be sick. But good news here – to Lissy’s relief, she piped a great drive straight down the middle, as did her husband, Tim. Mine was okay, too, and so off we went on what would be an experience of a lifetime – a family trip around the Old Course.
Our score didn’t matter, as is often the case in Scotland. We just relished the place and loved reliving history.
No doubt these memories will come flooding back as I watch the British Open early next month. Pardon me, to all in Europe it is “The Open,” which, of course, is designed to separate it from what is deemed to be its lesser counterpart, the U.S. Open.
So, yes, let’s relish the memories and make new ones on the Old Course for “The Open.”
Perspective from the 19th Hole 
I too have walked The Old Course and have a hat from the gift shop, you’ll be surprised to learn. And while I don’t know the answer, is it possible that “The Open” is now so named less for its European flair, and more to not offend the Scottish hosts, who might find the British getting naming rights objectionable? It’s an interesting time for that confederacy. (I’m just trying to give your post a political bent, even though you think golf trumps all things politics.)
Happy Independence Day on this side of the pond!
You are right — for me, golf often trumps politics. And, I might add, with good reason, given the state of the legislature in Salem. Think of it this way: The state’s three top political leaders failed this session — Brown to push the transportation package across the finish line, Kotek to get the minimum wage increase she wanted, and Courtney to get the next dose of Capitol Renovation funding. All three would have been possible had the three “leaders” started earlier, been predisposed to find middle ground, not just advocate for what they wanted, and found followers. From my remote location, I would give all of them a failing grade, though I could be persuaded that Kate started with a deficit from which it would be tough to recover.
The final self-inflicted “salt in the wounds” will be if the House adjourns today and the Senate slogs through the weekend to finish its work. I think this paragraph from Steve Duin’s eulogy for the transportation package rings pretty true:
“That commitment proved unsettling to both the well-oiled fraternity of fossil fuels — which pumped almost $2 million into the 2014 election cycle — and the body politic. Republicans are unnerved by change, Democrats by leadership. GOP leadership launched torpedoes at the listing transportation package. Senate President Peter Courtney responded with what he does best, launching another sentimental ode to the dignity of the Legislature.”
But, it ain’t over until you know what.
Agreed. But I also remember one the points Fred Miller made to me when I worked for him at the Executive Department. He said the easiest thing to do is to be cynical about the legislative process. In the past, that has given me some pause, but, from my remote location, I fault this legislature for its failure to show leadership, not by allowing Democrats to run rough-shod over everyone else, but for failing to find the smart middle ground. Neither Kotek nor Courtney are good at that. Plus, on Capitol Renovation where we had a client in play, Peter thought he could drive the result across the finish line without any help from anyone else — and he was wrong. What he and his chief of staff, Betsy Imholt, should have done was call a group of lobbyists together at the state of the session and ask for help while staying in touch with Peter as the prime advocate. On his watch, what has happened as that the initial investment of $35 million now goes down the drain. I saw Jim Green last night and he, of course, told me that it was good that Capitol Renovation died so K-12 could get bonding authority to retrofit schools. Yes, but Courtney could have done both had he been smarter about the tactics and strategy.