I was on a Tour (Turnberry, Western Gailes, North Berwick, Castle, etc.) and we had a three-day pass for St. Andrews. So we played the Castle the one day (a travel day), played the New and Jubilee the next day, and stopped in to the shop to enter the lottery instead of doing so online like we had the previous two days. Whether the lottery is truly random or whether we sweet talked the woman a bit, I'll never know, but I suspect it's a bit of the latter. Three of us were set to go off the next day. And our fourth was a guy celebrating his birthday!
I remember looking at the temperature the night before and realizing that the difference between every 3° or so was about a layer of clothing. It was windy the whole day, and I changed the number of layers I had on about eight times. We were staying a few hundred feet from the first tee, and my balcony looked out over the R&A building.
On the first tee, the caddie(s) kept moving my bag forward a set of markers. I kept putting it back, and told my caddie "I'm a PGA guy, if after a few holes you don't think I can play from back there I'll move up." I didn't have to move up. I hit hybrid off the first, followed by a 7I. It took a few holes for my caddie to realize I didn't want what he called "The American yardage" (to the hole), after I had asked "If I fly it just over that bump there, 50 yards short of the green, will it run up the right way?" The only wedges I hit the whole time in Scotland were from some bunkers or an occasional greenside rough type shot.
Walking off the first tee, a woman caddie (I'd later see her carrying for one of the pros in the Dunhill a few weeks later), a gruff lassie, asked me where I was from. I said "Erie, PA" and she started naming a bunch of older guys I know! "Aye, (names here), terrible tippers, throw clubs, curse a lot. We call them the Erie Mafia." Uhhh… yeah, okay. Turns out she winters as a caddie at a club in FL where those guys all tend to spend a month during the winter, too. Sheesh.
The wind was left to right going out and stayed that direction coming in. On the 11th, from 170 or so, I played a 4I about 50 yards left of the green with a high soft cut that came in nearly sideways. The caddies on the forward tee waited back after their players hit to tell me what a great shot I'd hit. It was, even though it finished at 35 feet or so. I took that as a really nice sign, because they were not exactly flowing with their compliments.
Walking off the 12th (I think), I asked about a bunker 40 yards off the tee, IIRC. I said "who hits it in that?" My caddie said "you'd be surprised." I said "Isn't there a handicap limit?" He said "the only handicap limit is the greens fee." and that he'd "caddied for people who said 'this is my first time on a real golf course.'" and they didn't mean "real" as in "well-known" or "famous" or anything. They meant not a simulator or a range.
On the 17th I had to aim over the O in HOTEL because of the wind, but hit a good drive. I had 180 left, a perfect 6I yardage for me… so I hit the same type of shot I'd hit all week: a 6I that flew about 95 yards and rolled the other 85. We had enough time while the ball appeared, disappeared, and re-appeared ten feet right or left to have the quick conversation after I had handed my club back to my caddie "I think that's going to get there." "I think it will be just short." "I don't know, it's still scurrying. I think it'll climb." Climb it did, to about 18 or 20 feet. I made the putt for birdie, and am a lifetime of 1-under on the Road Hole. My caddie said he sees one or two of those a year.
I finished with a putt from about 40 yards out on the home hole to about six or seven feet (and then listened to my caddie's read on the birdie putt, which I shouldn't have as it missed just low), and tipped well (my caddie made fun of the other caddies and what they'd gotten, which didn't make anyone feel good about anything at all).
Ended up with 74, which I'll take. I kept trying to read a bit too much wind into my putts early on.
That's too long, but I enjoyed typing it out and re-living it a little bit.