A Wee Bit of Scotland

“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration…

William Wordsworth

You may be wondering (at least those of you with a bent for literature) why I would choose a passage from an English poet when writing about my experience in Scotland. There may be no answer good enough for a Scotsman (who dislike the English to the extreme), but suffice it to say that Wordsworth’s thoughts truly represent the way I feel about my visit there. For what is it that we gather from our exploits other than memories, experiences to cherish for a lifetime? Memories are exactly what Wordsworth is talking about when he describes “this moment [with] life and food for future years.”

If someone asked you to write a three thousand word essay that would sum up your life to this point what do you think you would write? For myself, and I think that most people would feel the same, I would think of the things that meant the most to me. Certainly significant space would be devoted to the people with whom I was closest, namely my family, both as a child and after I was married and had children, and the friends that I shared experiences with. Since life is essentially a chronology of events it stands to reason that the items you would write about would be the most memorable ones. In most cases memories occur randomly: life seems to flow on, and much of the daily passage of time is particularly unmemorable. It would be unlikely that you would include in your essay that you went to work 5 or 6 days a week for months at a time to earn enough money to pay the bills. That is certainly part of your life, but it does not stand out enough to merit special consideration. If you had a car accident, or won the lottery, or discovered that your wife was cheating on you, each would be memorable, and as you considered the amount of space you had in which to write and the relative importance of the events you might include some or all of these moments in your essay.

As we grow older we gain the ability to create our own memories. It usually takes money, both in the actual cost of the excursion and in the opportunity cost of taking off from work, and it is often difficult to justify the expense and the time away from home. I have been playing and teaching golf for 37 years, and it wasn’t until two years ago that I took my first true golfing vacation (one without a tournament attached to it), a week in the Southwest of Ireland in October of 2003. I found the experience to be one of the most memorable things I have done in my golfing life, and I will be eternally grateful to my wife Jennifer for encouraging me to go. “You have to do these things while you have the chance”, she told me, “otherwise time will pass you by and you will never get there”. The opportunity presented itself in a pro-am organized by the Middle Atlantic Section and run by the Jerry Quinlan tour group, and it was an amazing 7 days. I wanted to visit Northern Ireland the following year, but scheduling conflicts torched that trip. Another opportunity arose last fall at the MAPGA Section Championship when I met the Scottish owner of Executive Travel and Leisure (877-295-2247), the diminutive Graeme Pook, who had at one time played in the British Open and on the European Tour. Graeme, who would eventually be known endearingly as “Pookie”, was organizing a pro-am excursion to Scotland, in which the participants would stay at the Old Course Hotel in Saint Andrews and play 6 courses, 3 of which were ranked in the Top 50 in the world.

The way the deal works for the pros is that if we can come up with a team of 3 amateurs who pay their way (in this case around $4500 for everything but the plane fare) then we go for free. Now, I realize that this is not cheap. I am fortunate to work at a club (Woodholme) and in an area where there are many who can afford such an expense. The real problem for the amateurs is finding the time. My only qualification for the people I ask to go is that I must be able to have fun with them. Even though there is a competition involved it is not that big of a deal, and the important thing is that we enjoy ourselves. Of course, before I set the wheels in motion to go I have to clear the idea and the timing with Jennifer, and once again, even though I would be gone for her birthday, she was all for it (thank you sweetheart). The plan was to go for 6 days the first week of April, and a major concern for me was the weather. I checked with my friend Mark Diamond, who had been to Scotland on numerous occasions, and was told that it doesn’t really matter when you go to Scotland, that anything could happen at any time. He had been there in June and had to play with winter gloves on both hands every day.

So that was settled: I was going to find a team and go to the birthplace of golf. I didn’t really believe that I could have a better time, or play better courses than I did in Ireland, but I certainly wasn’t going to find out by staying in the States. Now I had to find a team. One of the first people I asked was Dave Oros, a member of Woodholme who I’ve taught off and on for a number of years. Dave was interested immediately, and mentioned in passing that if the timing worked out and he could go we could probably take his jet, a Gulfstream G-3 he shares with Peter Angelos of the Orioles. Of course, I considered this to be a great idea, although I was prepared to get there any way I had to.

Dave’s recent history, and the reason he has a jet, is quite a compelling story and could easily fill a book, much less the rest of this article. When I first taught Dave around 1997 he had started a company called Aether Systems which, among other things, was working towards supplying real time financial information on hand held wireless machines such as Palm Pilots. The tech boom was just beginning and the following year Dave began to get very busy. The last time I saw him in 1999 he mentioned that he might be taking Aether public in a year or so, and that if I wanted to invest I should let him know. He stopped coming for lessons after that, at which point I lost track of him. The next thing I knew one of my friends asked me if I had heard about Dave’s company. I replied that I hadn’t, and he informed me that Aether went public at $16 a share, and shot to $55 the first day. In a short period of time the stock went to $150, and Dave was listed in Forbes as one of the 400 richest men in America. The stock peaked at $345 a share, and for a moment he was worth over 2.5 billion dollars. Of course, the market collapsed, and Aether’s value went with it, but Dave, and the company, survived with enough to still be able to afford half a jet and then some.

I don’t go on many of these excursions, and when I do it is always with people I know I will enjoy being with and who will enjoy themselves at the same time. Dave is one of the nicest and most unassuming guys you would ever meet, and I knew that he and his team (his brother Matt and his stockbroker Ralph Marra) would be fun to be with on our 7 day adventure. As a bonus, I received a call from David Dorn, a friend and fellow professional who first got to know Graeme and who also had a team going on the trip. David asked me if I knew of another pro who might want to go on the spur of the moment (it was a week before we were to leave) to fill in for a Scottish pro who had to drop out at the last minute. At the moment I got the call I happened to be standing in the Manhattan apartment of my best friend (and also a professional) Mark Diamond, and within minutes Mark was set to accompany us.

Needless to say, the plane ride was awesome. The normal agenda for an Ireland or Scotland trip is to fly over night, and with the 6 hour time difference land in the morning and tee it up after breakfast. With my back being the way it is (not good) I would, after sitting in a coach seat for 7 or more hours, not be able to play that soon after landing. When I arrived in Ireland in 2003 I was sick as a dog from trying to sleep on the plane (bad reaction to medication) and missed the entire first day. This time, however, I put dibs on the couch (the plane has 8 seats and two couches), and was prone for the entire flight. The ride was unlike any plane ride I had ever been on, and by the time we landed in Edinburgh and took the hour bus ride to St. Andrews I was ready to go.

The itinerary seemed quite promising. We were scheduled to play fun rounds (as opposed to the pro-am rounds where our scores would count) at the Dukes Course, owned by St. Andrews and designed by multiple British Open winner Peter Thomsen, then the Balcomie Links at the Crail Golfing Society, one of the oldest courses in the world, followed by the Devlin Course at St. Andrews Bay, a relatively new resort just outside of town. The three courses for the competition looked to be as good as it gets: Kingsbarns, a newly built (5 years) links course that had quickly ascended to the ranking of 46th in the world, followed by Carnoustie, site of the British Open debacle of 1999 where Jean Van de Velde famously imploded on the 18th (and ranked 22nd), and ending at the Old Course at St. Andrews, home of more history than any single golfing venue in the world and ranked 5th among the world’s best.

A huge plus for the week was the hotel. What more could you ask for than to stay at the Old Course Hotel, with rooms that looked out over the Road Hole and a view of the course, the North Sea, the Swilcan Bridge, the Royal and Ancient (fabulously lit up at night), and the charming town of St. Andrews. The rooms were perfect, as long as you didn’t plan on watching much television, which, as had been the case with every other country I had traveled to in Europe and Asia, was abominable. Breakfast each morning was excellent, a full buffet with Scottish fare along with every other breakfast food imaginable, and the Road Hole Bar on the 4th floor was a marvelous place to sip a Scotch, look out over the course, and, as it turned out, watch some interesting arm-wrestling matches. But we’ll get to that later.

Our first round, at the very forgettable Duke’s course, was played in relatively mild temperatures with only a light wind, maybe 10 mph. This was quite surprising, since one of our main concerns had been the possibility of horrendous weather. The weekly forecast had called for temperatures in the high forties with rain, and didn’t even bother mentioning the wind, which usually ranges from brisk to fierce. The course layout was actually quite nice, with views of the water and the town, but the conditions were awful, spongy and wet everywhere, while bulldozers dug out huge new bunkers on every hole. As it turns out, since Herb Kohler (of American Club and Whistling Straits fame) bought the hotel and the courses, he had begun an overhaul of the Dukes Course that had essentially just begun. It was nice to get started, though, and with a congenial opening dinner at the hotel later that evening our overall demeanor was good.

We arrived at Crail the next morning and teed off under bright sun and blue skies, and the sight could not have been lovelier. Crail is a short links course that dates back to 1786, and for those of you familiar with Michael Murphy’s book Golf in the Kingdom, is the inspiration for the Burningbush Golf Club, home of Murphy’s famous characters Seamus Macduff and Shivas Irons. In the book Shivas makes hole-in-one with the mystical “baffing spoon” in the black of night on what turns out to be Crail’s 13th hole, a 215 yard par three played uphill, over a cliff, and against the wind. I roped a 16 degree Rescue in there pin high, and I must say that it is one of the most memorable par 3’s I have ever played. As we walked up and down the rolling contours from one remarkable view to the next we marveled at our luck with the weather (it had warmed up to almost 60 degrees) and at the beauty of the course and the surroundings. It didn’t hurt that we were playing a 5500 yard par-67 course where you could sometimes hit the ball 3 fairways over and still have a fine shot at the green. The course could never be described as difficult, (excluding the 4th, a 460 yard par 4 aptly named “Hell Hole”), but the set of 6 par- 3’s and a few drivable par 4’s were tons of fun.

After each round the routine included lunch at the course, which inevitably included two or three pints of Tennant’s, Calder’s 70, or Guinness Extra Cold, followed by a brief rest at the hotel prior to visiting the Road Hole Bar, where I was able to sample amongst the 120 or so different single malts on the menu. I have been a single malt lover ever since my wife’s late father introduced me to the joys of Macallan 18 Year Old the first time I visited her for dinner at her parent’s house in Virginia. Here in Scotland I discovered a few new favorites, including Glendronach 15, Old Pulteney 21 Year Cask Strength, and Bladnoch 21. Having always been one enamored of technique in any endeavor, I was surprised to learn that the way I had always preferred to drink single malt, over ice, was not the preferred method of true scotch drinkers. Instead, pouring the elixir straight into the glass, followed by a splash of water, opened up the flavors more effectively and provided for a more satisfying drink. If you keep your eyes and ears open, it seems you learn something every day.

After the bar it was time to walk into town for a bite to eat. The biggest difference between my Ireland trip and this one was the travel time, in this case the mostly total lack of it. Everything in St. Andrews was right here in walking distance. Carnoustie was the longest drive, and that was only 40 minutes from the hotel. In Ireland our shortest drive was an hour and a half, and it was 3 plus hours to get to Old Head. What saved us there was the wonderful banter of the bus driver, who regaled us with Irish history all along the way. I would also have to say that I have never seen a more beautiful country than Ireland, where one scene out of the bus window was better than the next. The pubs in Ireland, which numbered at least one out of every three buildings, were wonderful places full of cheery atmosphere, and those in St. Andrews were every bit the equal, although not as plentiful. The Scots definitely get the nod in alcoholic fare, and, I would have to say, in the food, as the bar food in town was quite good, and offered a lot more to choose from than did the establishments in Ireland. In both places you get absolutely killed on the money exchange, either with pounds or Euros, and you simply have to get over the fact that hamburger that cost ten pounds is actually costing you close to 20 bucks.

Our third round was at the Devlin Course at St. Andrews Bay, which was another American type course with nice scenic views, and was a step up from the Duke’s course, although again somewhat forgettable. What was not forgettable was the weather, which was so nice we were stripping off layers as we went. Dave and Ralph were struggling a bit with their games, but Dave was getting more comfortable as we went along, while Ralph, as it turned out, had no idea we were going to be competing and was completely out of his element. He made the best of it, however, by focusing on keeping pace and not slowing up play, although his caddy always got a serious workout. Matt, David’s brother, was a 15 handicap who could hit a drive 320 yards down the middle on one hole, then hit one 320 yards sideways the next. As the wind picked up the last 3 days, Matt hit some of the furthest off-line shots I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of golf shots. They all had great attitudes, and it was obvious that they were so happy to be where we were that bad shots did not affect anyone’s demeanor. And why not be happy? No pressure from work, perfect weather, beautiful accommodations, and wonderful golf: it was the kind of thing Wordsworth was talking about. We were enjoying each moment, and at the same time compiling memories for times when we needed something good to think about.

Now the real fun began. We started the pro-am at Kingsbarns, and if you ever come over here, do not fail to play this course. It was absolutely fabulous. It was still sunny, but the temperatures took a major downward turn and the wind began to fairly howl. I would compare it favorably with Ballybunion, and even Old Head, for the spectacular vistas and challenging shot values. I shot even on the front, then made a couple of bogeys before I got to the 15th, one of the hardest par-3’s I have ever played. I hit a hard 4-iron, posing all the way, and watched as it hit the rocks and bounded out to sea. I had misread the wind just enough to cost myself a nice triple bogey. We were playing the courses from around 6500 yards (all of us playing from the same tees) and it was truly all you wanted. I exited with a 78, feeling a bit beat up, but enthralled nevertheless. I should not fail to mention the par-5 12th, a 600 yard back-breaker that runs right along the ocean and rivals the 18th at Pebble and the 12th at Old Head as the most scenic par-5’s I have ever played.

With the advent of the pro-am came the arrival of my friend Mark’s playing companions, three Scottish lads who ironically named their team “Gentlemen of the Links”. None of us who had come over on the jet had ever seen anything like these guys. They had been friends forever, playing on the same rugby team, and were so full of life that it was impossible not to watch them whenever they were in action. The first night at the hotel they arm-wrestled for hours, winding up wrestling for real on the floor of the bar. They started in on the beers after each round, and never took a break until the wee hours of the morning, by which time it was even money that all shirts would be torn off and there would be blood somewhere. But it was blood among brothers, and their love for one another manifested itself entirely in physicality, laughing, drinking, and fighting: but it was the laughter that won out in the end, and a night with the Gentlemen was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time.

Our second pro-am round was at fabled Carnoustie, a wonderfully brutal course made all the more tough by a freshening 30 mile per hour wind that whipped across the course. If you’ve ever complained about the lip of a bunker being too penal, either around the green or in the fairway, think about the bunkers at Carnoustie, where every lip was a sod wall that went straight up about as high as your head. Quite simply, it was a one shot penalty if you went in one, and they were seemingly randomly placed everywhere on the course. For this reason alone a good caddy is a must, and here, as on all the other courses, I got lucky, although when all your caddies are as good as I had you might begin to wonder if caddies simply aren’t just good as a rule over here, and I suspect that in general they are. Certainly the 6 fellows I had were all quite good, and all were fun to talk with while we played. George, my man at Carnoustie, read the greens to perfection and never steered me wrong on club selection or direction. I hit the ball quite well in the wind and shot a nice round of 68. My team struggled with the wind and the bunkers, but we all loved the course. I had always wondered what “Hogan’s Alley” looked like, and when we walked to the back tee on the par-5 6th hole there it was. Just standing there gave me chills, and I pictured Hogan drilling one over the fence on the left side of the fairway, knowing absolutely that the wind would drift it back in bounds into the fairway. There are a lot of ghosts on these courses, and the memories are everywhere. At each moment I tried to drink it in, to absorb the moment, and make it last forever. But that’s what memories are for.

Finally we reached the last day and the Old Course at St. Andrews. It did not disappoint. A cold 40 mile-per-hour wind had whipped up over night and there were off and on squalls due to hit randomly during the day. Our team was out of contention but I had managed to pull out to an 8 shot lead in the individual portion of the event. The Old Course is a marvel. You’ve simply never seen anything like it. The fairways are generous, but many times you need your caddy to tell you where the fairway might be. Brutal pot bunkers dot the course, most of which you can’t even see off the tee. The greens are the most amazing thing about the course. I three-putted five times for my 76, and could easily have had more. When was the last time you had an 80 yard putt? With the wind blowing the ball across the ground after it hit it was easy to wind up miles from the pin but on the green, since most every green is a double green. The wind was so strong that you might have to add 10 feet to a 30-footer, and if you weren’t hitting your putts solid you could forget it. It was absolute joy trying to hit a punch duck-hook 5 iron to hit the green on a 130 yard par three, where the wind was juicing up to 50 mph and even the caddies were shaking their heads. The Road Hold was as hard as everyone said (there is almost no shot into the green that will hold), but the moment I will always remember was in the 18th fairway when, standing over a 50 yard bump 4-iron shot through the Valley of Sin, it began to hail. The only course of action was to assume what the caddies called the “turtle” position, hunkering down to reduce the target area and letting the pellets hit you in the back where they didn’t hurt as much. By the time the hail stopped I ran my shot through the pellets up onto the green about 6 feet away, then made the putt for a finishing birdie. We were drenched and rapturous, beat up and buoyant, tired and happy. We had played three of the best courses in the world in true Scottish conditions, and we were ready for more.

When Pookie asked us if we were considering coming back next year, Dave had already made up his mind. “Absolutely”, he said. We all agreed.