With a blackberry.
I hope this will prove inyersting to a group who have all read expert golfers and travel writers on this subject. I am put in mind of Patric Dickinson who starts his review with the observation that there is nothing new to say about Shakespeare or the Old Course. My only excuse is that perhaps I have a slightly different perspective I'm here on a family holiday and golf as Ran would wish is only a part of it.13.days here an I'll be pleased if I manage half a dozen ronds of golf.
I should also add that seemingly unlike other writers on this experience, it's my first visit and I don't know anybody here, much less R+A members. That suits me fine I've always enjoyed turn up and see who you play with golf.
I have made no plans but I imagined getting up early on Monday and hanging out until I could join up with a group.We arrived last night and I picked up a leaflet saying there's an Old Course tour on Sunday mornings.Our house is only 400 yards from the first tee and I reasoned with my wife and daughter that the dog needed a walk after 2 days in the car!
It was a really enjoyAble 3 hours led by a local guy who looks like Ben Crenshaw called Bowie. He's been playing the course since 1947 and has a.nice way with an anecdote. Best ome was on the 14th tee. 'I would like to introduce you to the Elysian (sp?) Fields.I am told that if you visit Paris and walk up the Champs Elyse you will have shops selling the most luxurios goods on you right, the best restaurants in the world on your left and the famous Arc de Triomph ahead. In St Andresws we have out of bounds to the right, rough to the left all leading us to a bunker called HELL
First impressions. Of TOC.
Bewilderment. Ithink this is because despite reading lots about it, I still wasn't prepared for what I saw. I've seen at least 40 odd links courses and this one is different _ which of course is a good thing _ but it all adds up to somethingg that on first visit is hard to relate too.
The first thing most peiple see has to be the 18th green. Doesn't matter how much you've read about it the L-R slope (from behind) is more than you've imagined. It!s fun to watch people hit good drives and then clunk their second and third shots!
The first fairway looks like a billiard table. Truly the hazard of short grass
I'm well used to blind holes, my home course has 8 blind tee shots, but the nature of the (often semi) blindness and it's repetition on the early holes is strangely disquieting. Repetition can be a Key part of art used in the right way, I don't see it as a weakness but it is a feature that jars you to a surprising extent.
At least off the day tees the av. Par 4 seems mid length, but just looking with no club in hand, the approach shots are totally baffling? The course doesn't look difficult (hah) as long as you are both modest in ambition and reasonably accurate off the tee, but how do you score?
. Pimples, burns, swales, valleys, and slopes all lurk at the front of greens The gound game outside of the putter doesn't look like it's an option we'll see
In the negative is it possible that in order to keep it as an Open venue it becomes one dimensional? Hole after hole he pointed to the Open flag positions. They get stuck behind bunkers/pimples just.behind a downslope?
29 hrs since I arrived, lot's still to do and see. Cheers