Golf Heaven, Wrapped in Bacon

Sigh, it’s over. Almost.

Due to a WestJet snafu I find myself laid-over and facing extra night in Edinburgh. Patrick managed to get on the flight, but the golf clubs and I are at a downtown hotel for one more night of fun. What to do … scotch tasting? Castle tour? Hmmm. The day is still young.

Apologies if my writing dropped off a bit, the frantic pace of golf and pub nights caught up to me.

So when I left off, we had just played Prestwick. Since then, we played at:

• Trump Turnberry. Not to bring politics into my blog, but I am not exactly what you would call a fan of The Donald. I remember when I heard he had bought the legendary Turnberry golf club, the home of the Duel in the Sun between Nicklaus and Watson in ’77, it broke my heart. 

But damn, as much as I hate to admit it, this is the most beautiful golf course on the planet.

Turnberry has four holes along the Firth of Clyde, overlooking Ailsa Craig (the home of all curling stones) that are the best golf holes I have ever seen or played. I’m sure my photos don’t it justice. Yes the toilets are gold, but damn, the course is incredible. And it benefits from the best halfway house in all of golf: the Lighthouse. The place, in the background of the picture, where you order a hot dog and a scotch after nine holes.

• Carnoustie, or as it is known by golfers: Car-Nasty, lives up to its reputation. The fairways feel like they are 10 feet across, the rough is thick and mean and the burns seem to cross the fairways seemingly wherever my drives were ending up. It is a beautiful course, and a great challenge.

After our humbling at Carnoustie, it was off to the home of Golf: St Andrews.

If you are a lifelong golfer, St Andrews is like Disneyworld meets heaven, wrapped in bacon. The village of St Andrews is beautiful and quaint, despite a ridiculous amount of tourists—many of whom carrying their clubs.

The famous Old Course comes directly into the centre of town, with the tee-off on 1 and the Green on 18 tucked right up at street level. It is truly unique.

The Old Course in difficult to get on, and almost impossible to book ahead. Because they want to keep the course accessible to the general public, they use a lottery system for the privilege of playing there. So we entered the lottery as we arrived in town, and prayed to the golf gods. It would seem they were listening (although they seemed to ignore me on many putts this week), and we got a 6:50 a.m. tee time on the Old Course on Thursday morning.

We played the “New” Course on Wednesday as a warmup. One of the other five courses on site, is referred to as “new” even though it was built in 1895. Only in St Andrews is something dated 1895 considered “new.” It is beautiful and challenging, but it felt like an appetizer knowing we would be playing the famous Old Course the next morning.

We showed up excited and early. I actually had to forge a fake handicap card for Patrick the night before (an approved and valid handicap of 36 or less is required to play the Old Course, and they check). With our payment and approval, we were ready, and we teed up our Titleists on the most famous first tee in golf. We both hit decent drives despite the pressure (amazingly there are still tourists watching before 7:00 a.m.) and walked down the fairway with the morning sun peeking through the clouds. I get goosebumps just remembering.

The course itself is not as beautiful as Turnberry (or Kingsbarns, which I will talk about later) and it’s not as difficult as Carnoustie nor as quirky as Prestwick. But it is St Andrews. It oozes history out of every bunker, and there are many of those.

St Andrews summons emotions on every green. People come from all over the world to play here because of it. One of our playing partners that day was from Argentina. His father had played amateur golf against Roberto Di Vicenzo (a famous Argentinian golfer who won the 1967 British Open), and had earned a trip to play at St Andrews over 50 years ago. I saw him tearing up as he putted out on 18.

The golf or your score does not matter at St Andrews; it was not our best round of the week nor the worst. We played some holes well, others not so well. I had a few bunker lies that had the caddy wondering what I had done to offend the aforementioned golf gods. But it is an experience. For Patrick, he seemed to play in a state of disbelief as to where he was. He has played the course over 100 times already, on XBox Tiger Woods 2014. But he just kept looking around saying “I can’t believe we’re playing HERE.”

I’ve heard it said that the Old Course has a spirituality to it. I’m usually not subject to that kind of language when talking about a game, but in this case, I think it’s right. You don’t just play the Old Course, you feel it. It is indescribable, yet tangible with every shot.

After our experience in the morning, we still had one more round to play. We were booked at Kingsbarns, about 15 minutes from St Andrews. This was a memorable round and Kingsbarns is simply majestic. Most describe it as the most beautiful course in Scotland (although I would argue for Turnberry). I will leave it at that. I think we were too drained from the morning to fully enjoy the experience, but it was simply stunning. We walked around in a daze. The last few holes I spent fighting back tears, as I knew my trip of a lifetime was coming to an end.

I can’t help but feel grateful for the past few days. Not all time we spend with our loved ones is created equal, and the past days are memories that will last a lifetime. I expect I will feel a warm glow the next time I watch the Open at St Andrews or Carnoustie (or maybe at Trump Turnberry if the Royal and Ancient Golf Society can get past the golden toilets), and I am sure Patrick will feel the same. The trip made me remember golf with my Dad, and the experiences we shared on golf courses together.

Our only snafu was on our flight home. Word of warning, when an airline lets you know the night before that your flight is delayed by three hours, apparently they still need you to show up five hours before boarding to check in your luggage! So they told us we could either abandon our golf clubs and luggage, or miss the flight. Thanks for that, WestJet. I sent Patrick home alone with his carry-on, and I am spending a final night pubbing in Edinburgh. Not an ideal end to our trip, but there are worse tragedies.

For those among you that love golf, do this trip once in your lifetime. There is simply no equal.

A couple of words of thanks:

• Thanks to Allan from Foxglide Curling (based out of Troon, Scotland) for meeting up and for the unique souvenirs, and I hope your teeth are better!

• Thanks to George Karrys at The Curling News for letting me use this space—usually reserved for curling talk—as a travel blog.

• Thanks again to my friends at Golf Away Tours for putting this magical trip together. I only wish you guys were in charge of WestJet!

Finally, thanks to you curling fans for reading. I promise to get back to the Roaring Game once I am home in Canada.