Wednesday, August 9, 2000
Edinburgh

Dear Fellow Addicts,

I'm just returned from one of the most amazing experiences in my storied sporting life: a round of golf at St. Andrews. I conjured up all of you as I played the links and thought I'd share the experience...

The fam and I had spent a couple of days in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival after 2 weeks in Ireland (there's more stories there...plus a round of golf to tell later on). They'd granted me the free day to drive up the 1-1/2 hours to St. Andrews and try my best to get on one of the courses (there are 4 in addition to the Old Course...where Tiger ruled supreme just barely 3 weeks ago...N.B.: there are still stories about him in every paper in Britain/Ireland every day since then). I called up and learned that single golfers can join a 2 or 3-some on a first come basis so I got up about 6 AM and drove up, arriving just before 8. By then the line was full and they weren't taking any additions until they started a new line at noon.

John at St. Andrews

So I headed over to the New Course (laid out by Tom Morris, hisself) and got on right away. Rented a set of clubs (Titlist, no less!) and headed out w/a pair of young fellows and an expat Yank who married a Scot, retired from the Air Force and runs a B&B in St. Andrews. He knew the course totally (locals can join the Links for £98/yr...free access to all 5 courses...let's move!) and was a great help with shot strategies, etc.

By the time we stepped up to the first tee box the sun was out, fat white clouds danced on the horizon, the air was perfect and a perfectly blustery St. Andrews breeze was billowing our shirts and pant legs. In short, it was a glorious day and, damn!, I'm on St. Andrews playing golf! I kept thinking of the Wayne's World skit..."I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!"

Now, I should add that you cannot play any of the courses at St. Andrews without a handicap card. It's to keep hackers off the links. Being a very beginning golfer (two days before was the year's anniversary of my beginning...at the Ark Tournament), I've never thought about my handicap. I talked to my instructor who had kept records of our rounds and he declared me a 23.6. Not bad, I thought, for a year's work. So the cutoff, I learned when I got there, was 24 for men. "Jeez," I thought, "I'm right on the edge!

If I get the jitters...I am at St. Andrews, for heaven's sake!...and spew it all over the course the rangers are gonna boot me!"

So with more than a little nervousness, I teed up the first shot...no range, no time for the putting green...and was quickly admonished to use a long iron on the first tee...a driver will put me in danger of the bunkers surrounding it. My heart leapt. I'm totally at ease with my irons and put a drive exactly where it belonged and proceeded to par the first hole.

"Ain't nothin' to this game!" I heard Robin Williams intone over my shoulder.

I'll share the details of the balance of the round w/each of you over some perfectly Scottish libation when next I see you but suffice it to say I played the game of my life. It's a very tough course...much more difficult than the Old Course, I heard over and over again from other golfers.

Narrower fairways (remember: the Open showed us that many of the fairways...and the greens!...are shared w/other holes), lots of rough, gorse, and amazingly undulating greens. I took lots of pictures and will carry them on the road with me to show you. What the Open also showed me was how to deal with those minus-100 lies: the 5-to-8 iron bump and run. Lots of times when you'd putt from well off the green, etc.

Anyway, the numbers: I parred 5 holes (a first for me), had a bunch of bogies, a couple doubles, and more triples than I would have liked and shot a 97 (and, yes, that's someone else counting each and every stroke). A score I am thrilled with for this course. I had no 1 or 2 iron (which I would have preferred to hit off at least a half dozen of the tees) and the driver and I never really liked one another (a regular stiffness shaft that felt like a whip to me), but my irons were working like magic. In fact, I'd just finished reading "The Kingdom of Shivas Iron," Michael Murphy's follow up to "Golf in the Kingdom" (you all need to read these books) and genuinely felt as though there was magic moving in my game. I even teed off w/my eyes closed on the 18th I felt so bulletproof.

John on the 18th Tee of the Old Course

All in all, it was a fantastic day. The weather was perfect, the course was beautiful, the aura of simply being there was unbelievable. I took pictures of myself on the Old Course, panoramic vistas of cool holes, the old R&A Clubhouse (the one you see on the 18th green of the Open), etc.

I have a plan: How 'bout when I turn fifty (2 years from this Monday) we take a trip over here and play a bunch of golf? The courses are amazing, the scenery sublime, the single malt Scotch is to die for, and the company would be grand.

I hope you got some vicarious pleasure out of this little account. I though of each of you often and played a hole for each of you. It's not difficult to get on the course, only the Old Course is expensive, and the aura is palpable.

Hope to see you each soon. Until then, hit 'em where you need to and, every once in a while, close your eyes when you tee off.

Slainte!

Johnny Mack No More a Hack