A Sunday Morning in St. Andrews

[John Morrissett]

Last week I was happy to find myself with a free Sunday morning in St. Andrews.  On an unusually warm and calm day, I excitedly grabbed my camera and walked the Old Course (which is closed on Sundays).  What a thrill!  It was a treat being able to walk the fairways without fear of being struck by an errant shot from another hole and to spend as much or little time as one would like studying the features.After some thought, I can't help but wonder if Peter Thomson is right: that the Old Course is supreme and everything else is just a mere copy or variation thereof.Condsider that the argument could be made that it features the game's best (1) opening hole, (2) par three,(3) par four, (4) par five, (5) nine holes, (6) finishing hole, (7) short par four, and ( green complexes.  I don't subscribe to all of the above (perhaps half of them), but that is an awful lot for one course.

[Tom Naccarato]

John,When it comes to the Old Course, I have no questions, nor doubts of it's greatness.It breaks all of the rules and yet we have many architects today who just seem to overlook all of it's features, or at least give credit where credit is due.  The Old Course inspires all.When I hear people say, "It's so ugly and brown," I go out of my way to explain the error of their judgment from photographs.  To hear one who has experience the Old Course and "not get it" I can only say that they are not the most intellegent of people.I'm proud to say, "I get it."Has anyone felt that when they play the Old Course that it seems to be alive in a sense?  I fel that there is just this certain entity controling every shot, or at least something watching over them?  Scott Hoch is an idiot.

[Ran Morrissett]

John,Did any hole impress you less than you had recalled? Sean Connery had told me he was going to be there last week. Did you see 007?I still don't think people appreciate how hard she can be. We played both there and Carnoustie in a four club wind and St. Andrews absolutely destroyed me, my swing, and my life on that day. Carnoustie much less so.

[John Morrissett]

Ran--I'm not sure I want to know how you knew Sean Connery was going to be in St. Andrews . . . but he was.  I saw him tee off in a match one morning at about 7:45 and then he joined a group of us at a reception hosted by the R&A Captain that evening.  I must say he has quite a presence and an effect on women!  I agree that the Old Course is very, very difficult.  No other course is as frustrating at simply getting the ball into the hole.No hole came even close to impressing me less.  The 3rd and particularly the 7th shot up in my book.

[Mike Hendren]

A blast from the past and a glimpse of the formative years of GCA.

Hey Emperor. This one's for you

I would strongly recommend including Sunday at St. Andrews on anyone's agenda.  I was dog tired upon arrival, but struck out with camera in hand to wander aimlessly.  Was so inspired that I got in a quick 18 on The Eden to boot.  

Mike

[Bob_Huntley]

John,

Was he able to get a caddie?

Bob

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Thanks Mike.

The old posts like these are proof to me that my love has never changed--That I'm completely monogamous. (To this golf course)

How does one define this love for a place which I haven't been in 8 long years? I know I haven't been back since but that's because of all of the parameters associated with life--however, I still no where my bread is buttered so-to-speak.

And I can't wait for the day I am able to return.

[THuckaby2]

Can I just say I am way more interested in an answer to Bob's question?  The implications in it are delicious...  

Anyone who doesn't love St. Andrews likely hates their mother.  To me it's a given.

TH

[peter_p]

John,
I was able to do the same thing before the 2000 Open, getting up before sunrise of what turned out to be a sunny  morning. It is everything you say. Another aim was to walk the reverse course, which is quite daunting, and requiring more of an aerial attack mode. As Tommy will attest, the
early morning is superb for photography.
 

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Peter,
Not sure if John is listening since this post was originally in 1999, but yes, you are correct. The morning is the best time for photographing the details of movement in the Old Course, but as far as dramatics of the shot, the evening is not too bad either! Especially the outward holes.

Hopefully Tom D. or Brad K. will chime-in.

[Tom_Doak]

I've probably walked The Old Course on Sunday about a dozen times now.  I schedule it into any itinerary in Scotland.  I'd just as soon walk it on Sunday as play it.

I walked it with my son in the summer of 2000, just two weeks before the Open.  Michael is not much of a golfer, so he had to be coaxed a bit to get him to walk ... all I had to do is tell him we were going out to see Hell bunker.

That, followed by a round on the Ladies' Putting Green, is my idea of a perfect Sunday.

[Steve Lang]

 

We did a Sunday at St. Andrews in Sept 1996 and I must concur with everyone that it was magical.. only outdone by playing it the next day, mentally prepared..

Also, don't forget to take a good study/look at the topo map in the museum too.  It made me realize how much field work/viewing decisions likely bring to a course's architecture... i can only imagine the architect with the best eye to a variety of ball flights, rolls, and bounces really makes the best decisions..  at TOC I assume this took many of its early years to get reconciled.

[Bob_Huntley]

Is there any place in the golfing world, where, as a hacker, you can sclaff one up the fairway to the Wynd, then skull one onto the green at the eighteenth and have the assembled cognoscenti of the St. Andrews townsfolk applaud your skilfull shot as the apogee of the ground game. (Phew, what an ongoing sentence.)

There is golf and then there is golf at St.Andrews. I wish that we here at GCA could have a get together there, it would be a blast.

[Bill_McBride]

To hell with no golf on Sunday -- I'm off to Crail for 36.  Craighead 9 am, see what reminds me of Rustic Canyon, then lunch, then the ancient Balcomie at 2:30.  What a day!  GCA's Robert LaSeur is joining us for the first 18.  Anybody else in the area is certainly welcome to join the second round.

[GeoffreyC]

Bill

Make sure to speak with Graham Lennie (head pro) at Crail and Craighead. He is a wonderful guy and he should let you play the medal tees.

Sunday morning at St. Andrews is a great treat and I agree its the best way to study the golf course.  

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I agree that sunday morning at TOC is an enchanting time. I find the course to be a magical place to wander as one thinks of shots that could be played there.

[John_Cullum]

In 1972, when I was 13, the family took a trip to Scotland and Ireland. Not a golf trip, and only 4 or 5 days in Scotland. It was decided we would go over to St. Andrews to play, but no advance arrangements were made. things weren't so crowded back then. I was about to bust with excitement. We went on a Sunday, and found the Old Course closed. We played the New Course instead.

That gnawed at me for decades, that I had gotten so close, but never played the Old Course.

Four years ago my partner had a Scotland golf trip planned with some friends, Troon, Prestwick, Old Course, North Berwick, Turnberry, and some others. 24 hours before they were leaving, one of the group had to cancel. My partner asked me if I wanted to go. It had already been paid for. All I had to do was find a way to get there. That last minute overseas flight was expensive, but I didn't even wince.

Any time I get a little down, I remember that trip and the fortuitous way it came about. I must be one of the luckiest people alive.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I left for the "Old Country" on Thursday, June 22, 1996 @ 3:30pm and arrived in Edinburgh on Friday the next day, around 4:00pm.

I was too fickle to be so bold as to go play The Old Course on the first day I got there. I was too shy, embarrased, not good or deserved enough. It was a holy experience for me. But, I was up and the first one down there at 4:30 in the morning when the sun was shining bright,taking pictures of the Road Hole bunker and just generally having to slap myself several times to make myself realize I wasn't in a dream. I was in fact there.

You see, St. Andrews is still to this day the center of my universe.

It was only later in the day that I would put my traning wheels on and go play my first true experience of Links golf at the New Course.  Later that day, only after walking out and looking at eh holes of the Old Course, I would get to realize some of the most under-rated greens in Golf at the Eden. On Sunday morning, I was back down to the Old Course to go for a full walking tour, and when I got there, there was a film crew on the 18th, filming an American astronaut in full moon walking attire walking down the 18th. It turned out to be a commercial with Buzz Aldrin for the Cunard Cruise Lines and later on, my friend Bernie Barrett sent me one of the new yardage books of The Old Course, and lo and behold in the back cover was a shot from that beautiful, bright warm Scottish day of the Astronaut walking on 18 with the R&A in the background.

I was fortunate to spend two Sundays in St. Andrews, I even went to Mass on both of them. And I swear I'll be back for more!