Two stories –
1. St. Andrew’s 2001 – my first trip across the pond. We are having dinner in a bar about a knock down wedge from TOC 1st tee. We had an Old Course tee time the next morning. It would be our first and only time (so far) playing TOC and we were beside ourselves with excitement. But we were carrying very heavy hearts as it was 12 days after 9/11. We showed up in St. Andrew’s without a place to stay, walked into the Old Course hotel asking for a room. The woman at the desk smiled when she saw our ragged faces and said, “I have just the room for you.” I had no idea what she meant, but the room ended up being on the Road Hole tee box. We were awakened the next morning (long night in the pubs) to the sound of tee balls on the 17th. Now, back to dinner the night before….we sit down to our table, order our pints and meals and a man sits down at the bar next to us. We look over and it is Prince William. My best friend, and complete redneck, sits down next to him and says, “Heya Prince, can I buy you a drink……” They go on to talk for several minutes about the 9/11 attacks. I still have a hard time believing it.
2. 2005 – Traveled to Orlando with my wife for her work. While she worked, I enjoyed 3 days of golf at the resort. On the second day, I matched up with an Irish lad who was quite the stick and a blast to play with. We played again the next day.
2006 – Traveled to NYC to play Bethpage. For the sake of doing it once, we stayed in our cars showing up about 1 in the morning and barely getting in line in time to get our tee time that day. As we are standing around the clubhouse early in the morning waiting for our numbers to be called – here comes the IRISH LAD walking by me attempting the same thing. He looked at me and we just started laughing.
2006 – NEXT DAY – My friends and I decided to spend a day exploring NYC. We travel to the 9/11 site, then to Wall Street. As we are grabbing a bite to eat near Wall Street – bam – IRISH LAD walks by us. Are you kidding me?
2007 – I fly to Chicago to caddy for my old college roommate who had qualified for the US Publinks at Cantigny. After awhile on the range, we head over to the practice green. He is hitting putts near the practice bunker. I look in the practice bunker, and who is it – THE IRISH LAD. He thought he had seen a ghost when he saw me. He made quite the headlines that week as his wife had a baby 2 days before the tourney and he was able to make it to the tourney anyways.
I haven’t run into him again since, but I have no doubt I will eventually.