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.
Those who know me know that I love golf in Scotland.
In some cases, Scotland is called “the home of golf,” though it could be contended that a forerunner of golf, something in the Dutch language called “kolf” started in the Netherlands, then made its way to Scotland where it became popular with a new name, “golf.”
I have gone to Scotland five times to play golf, loving the experience every time, both on famous courses like the “Old Course” in St. Andrews, but also on lesser-known tracks in every city, big and small.
In Scotland, you don’t check the weather report before you play. You just go play regardless of conditions. Which is why a wee dram of Scottish whiskey warms the body and soul after a wet, windy round.
On Scotland trips, I have been accompanied – or should I say “led” — by my wife whose parents emigrated to the U.S. after being born in Scotland. So, I am a Scot of sorts.
I read two great stories this week on golf in Scotland, one in the Washington Post and one in Links Magazine. They were so good I decided to devote two full blogs to reprinting them, word-for-word.
This is Part 1, a story by Al Lunsford in Links Magazine that appeared under this headline: 7 Things I Didn’t Know About the Old Course Until My First Round.
He is right; I didn’t know all of them, just a few.
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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 buildup 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. For months, I debated between which of two specific clubs (4-iron or 3-hybrid?) I would use on the opening tee shot, only to choose neither.
Yet no matter how much reading and YouTubeing you do, there are still some things you don’t know, don’t learn, or don’t fully understand about this one-of-a-kind golf course until stepping foot on those hallowed grounds. Here are some discoveries I made during my first loop around the Old Course.
No Insult Added to Injury
For those curious, I chose a 3-wood off the first tee at the recommendation of my caddie, Tom, who in a gravelly and seasoned tone gave me a line straight at Swilcan Bridge and a maximum of 260 yards to work with into a medium breeze on a perfect summer morning. Maybe it was the shock of choosing a club I hadn’t previously considered, or the absence of expectations with no time to hit balls before our 7:40am tee time, but I felt strangely calm over a shot that I’d been told unanimously I would be shaking over. (I was much more nervous over the tee ball on 18, with the vehicles and buildings looming closer on the right and a decent score going.)
I caught a good one with my first swing, perhaps too good—watching the ball bounce and roll out on the firm turf, I wasn’t totally sure I hadn’t run one into the only real water hazard I could find on the course. As I approached and sighed with relief upon seeing my Bridgestone safely dry (with about 15 yards to spare before the burn), I learned something new. Whether or not you hit one into Swilcan Burn out of the gate, you’ll notice in passing that there are a few ball retrievers poking out of the stream. (I found this was commonplace across all my rounds in Scotland where burns were in play.) This means that while many players will lose strokes on the approach into the first green, few will walk to the second tee without the ball they began the round with.
“Always 18” on Double Greens
This is one fun fact I’m sure I’d heard at some point but was reminded of by Tom 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 Tom, almost before I could finish my question (far from his first rodeo). 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. Told you it was fun! To save you a Google, the Old Course has just four holes with single greens at the 1st, 9th, 17th, and 18th.
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.”
So, on the first nine, aim for the white flags. On the second nine, the red flags are the play, with one exception. The Old Course’s closer, “Tom Morris,” is backdropped by the famous Hamilton Grand; as the story goes, the 18th hole uses a white flag instead of red because it’s easier to see against the apartment building’s iconic red façade. I clearly wasn’t paying close attention, as I didn’t realize this discrepancy until my post round visit to the gift shop, where I found it curious that the collectible pin flag for the 18th wasn’t available in red.
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.” The indicators are clear, as one side is engraved “G” and the other “C.” Though these are hiding in plain sight, they’re hard to miss in the middle of the 5th and 7th fairways, in particular; seasoned visitors and pros during the Open Championship have been known to use them as an aiming point off the tee on those two holes.
“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. It smelled tempting, but fresh off a birdie and still full after a hearty pre-round breakfast at the Fairmont St. Andrews (and having reached my personal lifetime haggis quota—once was plenty), I left without sampling the soup or the other local delicacies this go around. You have to have a reason to come back, eh?
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. If you’re questioning whether or not you can clear it, don’t even try; there’s plenty of room left in the 5th fairway to stay far, far away.
I’d heard the tale of Jack Nicklaus’s trouble exorcising himself out of this sand pit on the way to a 10 in the 1995 Open, but it’s hard to fathom its depths until you’re standing next to it (and hopefully not in it). The Hell bunker is 10 feet deep in spots, causing me to wonder if dunking a basketball would be easier than clearing the lip. Pro-tip: Take a picture sitting on top to give your social media feed a life-size perspective.
Green Means Go at the Road Hole
One of golf’s most thrilling tee shots, there’s nothing that compares to 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.
It’s said that when the wind flips, the Old Course can morph between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with bunkers that were an afterthought in one round suddenly swallowing golf balls in the next. I didn’t get a second crack this trip, and I’ll be impatiently waiting for the next opportunity to unearth more of the Home of Golf’s secrets sooner than later.
