Perspective from the 19th Hole 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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
To this day, I remember what it was like to tee off on hole #1 at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
There I was a few years ago, standing only about 20 feet in front of a huge window at the Royal & Ancient (R & A) headquarters in St. Andrews, waiting to tee off. I thought many eyes would be trained on me as I tried to hit a tee ball. Mistaken, of course. No one was there who cared about how I played. Except me.
Still, for all, it is a foreboding tee shot.
So much so that excellent golf writer George Peper said that he and others thought about throwing up as they prepared to hit off tee #1.
That was true for our daughter, Lissy, when we got a chance to play together at the Old Course a few years ago. She said she was shaking as we went to the 1st tee, but, then, she hit a great shot down the fairway to the applause of so many behind her – well, only two.
Still, a great memory.
I have had the privilege to play the Old Course on three trips to Scotland and, while it is not necessarily the best course in the St. Andrews Links Trust, which consists of eight courses close to each other, it is the most famous, benefitting from a lot of TV exposure in The Open.
One of my favorite golf magazines, Links, showed up last week with a story under this headline: “7 Things I Didn’t Know About the Old Course Until My First Round.”
Here is a summary of the 7, some of which I did not know either, preceded by this introduction from reporter Al Lunsford:
“Playing the Old Course at St. Andrews for the first time is surely one of golf’s most greatly anticipated days. There’s the bucket-list factor, which for me came in the form of playing alongside my dad and brother-in-law, something that nearly brings me to tears just writing this sentence. The build-up also presents a blend of preparation and research into the history, the routing, and the town with the anxiety of facing a few of the most pressure-packed shots of your life that only the Home of Golf can present.”
Here are the 7 unknowns:
- “Always 18” on Double Greens
This is one fun fact I’m sure I’d heard at some point but was reminded of once we stepped onto the green at the 2nd hole, the first of the seven gargantuan shared putting surfaces at the Old Course. “Which hole is the other flag from?” I inquired. “16—they always add up to 18,” replied my caddy, almost before I could finish my question. His point: If you’re ever curious about the holes that share a green, do the math: The two hole numbers combine to equal 18. Which means the 3rd hole shares its green with the 15th, the 4th with the 14th, and so on.
- White Out, Red In (With One Exception)
Given the number of greens with two flagsticks, it only makes sense that there be some distinction that exists between hole locations, so players understand the correct flag to play toward. The solution was laid out on the Old Course in 1857, when dual flags were first introduced on the double greens to create a proper 18-hole layout. As written in the Fifeshire Journal that year, “On each green, with the exception of the first and return, two holes have been placed; the one is played to by parties going outwards, the other in the in-coming. To prevent mistakes, the outgoing hole is supplied with a white flag, and its neighbor sports a red one, that being the color for all the return holes.”
- Carved in Stone
As we strolled down the Old Course’s fairways, we came across a few odd-looking bumps in the ground concealed in green artificial turf. One of our caddies lifted the mysterious veil to explain: Underneath the protective cover are the stones that once marked the boundary line between the golf course and the “common land.”
- “Mushroom soup, please”
The 4th hole at St. Andrews is named “Ginger Beer” after what is thought to be golf’s oldest halfway house. In the 1850s, David “Auld Da” Anderson would position a cart full of Ginger Beer behind the 4th green for golfers to refresh themselves during their rounds. Today, the Old Course has a permanent halfway house building between the 9th green and the 10th tee, with a menu that includes visitor favorites such as the Pork and Haggis Sausage Roll and the Macaroni Pie. But apparently, you shouldn’t sleep on the Soup of the Day, especially if it’s mushroom—which all of our caddies ordered expertly in a coffee cup for efficient consumption.
- The Depths of Hell
During the Open Championship’s regular return to St. Andrews, viewers are refamiliarized with the most notorious of the Old Course’s 112 bunkers. Outside of perhaps the Road bunker on the penultimate hole, none is more well-known (or feared) than Hell. The 300-square-foot, horseshoe-shaped hole in the ground commands your attention as you decide what to do in the middle section of the “Long” par-five 14th. My take? Avoid it at all costs.
- Green Means Go at the Road Hole
There’s nothing that compares to the tee shot on hole #17 at St. Andrews, where players aim over the corner of the Old Course Hotel and walk with anticipation to see where their ball settled on the other side. Naturally, I thought about this moment, but didn’t consider how we might know when the coast was clear to hit until waiting on the tee. The caddies in front of us were out of sight, so I looked around for a mirror, or perhaps a camera feed, but found the solution off in the distance. Positioned at the edge of the boundary is an attendant holding two colored flags: Red for hold, green for go. A simple system, and one I thought was perfectly appropriate for the Old Course. There you have it. Often unknown facts about the Old Course. I may not be
Perspective from the 19th Hole 