Not all Backstage Passes come with unfettered access. Believe me, "Guests on the List" who get to come backstage in certain areas and somebody with a "Go wherever the fuck you want, just don't cause ANY issues, no matter what" are two different things.
Trust me on this, civilians on our movie sets are an absolute nuisance, if not a serious liability. Ain't no different, backstage on the corner of Post & Steiner.
The point of the thread is to pick at our scabs and ask for the story behind our worst golfing scars. Really, the ones that haunt you - insignificant in the context of a long life - but nonetheless nag - living with the fact you picked the wrong door for Monty Hall and suffered the indignity of Carol Merrill pointing to your brand new booby prize.
You wanna know something freaky? Like no bullshit? The one moment I most wish a mulligan was my maiden voyage on the Road Hole in 1995. I didn't stink back then - and had grown up with my father telling me stories of playing 72 holes on TOC in one 24 hour period.
Far from an exaggerations, that was the last straw as Mom - already not terribly fond of blustery mist, blowing cold, straight from Dundee - informed my father (after putting out victoriously beneath Huntley's corner observation window) that upon their arrival back in the states, Mom and her best friend (husband who also marched 72 holes and bigger golf whore than even the legendary Tom Huckaby) would be headed to a fabulous spa for a week - and he'd have to figure out a way cook something aside from scrambled eggs and Fritos chips.
Could I make that up? Yeah, but I didn't. Really and truly. I taught my Dad how to cook, not the other way around. Then again, I learned everything else in life from him, so we'll call it even.
But there I am on the Road Hole tee - having not hit a full-swing cut since the Nixon administration, with ball flight that makes Lee Trevino look like Nicklaus - but even-par for the day and determined not to reprise the Sands of Nakajima.
My excellent Caddy, of identical age and handicap - who had shepherded me around the Auld Sod with nary a blip - pulled the cover off my driver as if unsheathing Excalibur and handed it to me like a tartan Lady of the Lake.
I’d already decided to sneak a 3-wood over the corner and play for bogey when he insisted the shed was not as high as it seemed - although I was certain my ball would likely ricochet off the wall and hit me right between the eyes.
The ball got into the air, but trying to get under it I pushed my tee shot 30 yards right of where I was aiming.
“Perfect” he said, not noticing I was fishing another pellet out of my pocket for an O.B. re-tee . . . . .
My ball could not have cleared the other end of the fence by more than a foot, but my ball sat safely there, on the downward side of a hump, with an open invitation to the right side of the green.
Tartan handed me a 3-iron, but for the first and only time, I overruled him because of the downhillish lie and hit the 4. I figured better to be short and putt up the swale than yank a 3-iron into you-know-where.
“Keep you spine angle” he offered, as I eyed the gaping vagina of death, already feeling a “change your mind in the middle of the backswing and bail out because you’re a big chicken” semi-whiff - since my butt-cheeks were so tight if you’d put a penny up there, a BB would drop out of my undies.
By some miracle, I made contact, right on the Hogan spot of the clubface - and watched in shock as the ball chased the last 20 yards onto the green, about eight feet from the pin.
If I’d had an international cell phone, I’d have taken a picture and sent it to Dad, but decided to wait until my birdie dropped - on the first try on the Road Hole - since it was an achievement equal in difficulty to climbing the face of Half Dome . . . naked in the winter. Even more than playing 72 holes on the Old Course in one day like Dad.
My lifelong buddy David, literally playing the round of his life, had pulled his 2nd shot and faced a delicate little pitch over the pit of perdition. The pin was on the right side of the green, so I reminded him a roll with his putter in front and two putts up the swale would be a fine bogey - given he was 8 shots better than his average day - and #18 did not seem an insurmountable par for a neat 75.
Before the fall first cometh hubris and then greed. What the fuck he was doing trying to clip a 60 degree off a tight lie is beyond me, but his Caddy - already a little tipsy from the flask in his back pocket - egged on David with the “no guts, no glory” bullshit.
You know what happened next of course. David’s 4th-7th shots were bloodier than Omaha Beach and after pounding his sand-iron into the face of the Road Bunker, picked up his ball and helicoptered his bat OVER the wall onto Old Station Road.
A kindly Scottish woman, walking her Schnauzer, was nice enough to pass back the club, but the handful of Monday afternoon gallery were unimpressed with our group - although one cheekily remarked I’d hit a "good shot for an American.”
As this was going on, I’d lined up that birdie putt as if a million dollars were riding on it. David was already on the 18th tee - in a snit that lasted until the next morning at Gleneagles.
I got over my putt and heard a loud whapp - David had blasted a tee shot into the teeth of the breeze and was already marching over the Swilcan Bridge, in a cobalt blue streak of profanity that would make a sailor blush.
Satisfied I knew the line, I put the best stroke of my life on that putt and watched as it rolled perfectly, end over end, right at the center of the cup . . . . . where it stopped on the front lip, literally hanging over the edge.
One of the old Scots shook his head sadly and said “Ah what a pity.”
All us old guys remember that Longhurst line from 1972.
To this very moment, every time somebody mentions TOC, 26 years later, my first thought is not the majestic sight of the R&A or the Chariots of Fire beach, no. It is the fact I only needed to hit that putt one more millimeter for the story of a lifetime.
I staggered to the 18th tee with my heart in my throat, but had to wait for David, already down the fairway in a fit of rage. He chunked the sod over his 7-iron approach shot - it didn’t go any further than Constantino Rocca’s near whiff - and literally stepped into a 2nd try without even looking up, to see his 3rd shot stop no more than three inches from the hole.
My birdie putt at the last didn't come close - and despite an excellent round with a scorecard that made Dad proud, to this day, I still feel like a wardrobe-challenged Doug Sanders, with mournful Henry Longhurst making the call.