Jul 14

British Open at St. Andrews' Old Course -- revered and, oh yeah, obsolete

So I’m watching the British Open on the telly (see, I speak British) with my buddy Mike Malone from Alabama and he says: “Is that a golf course? Looks like the cow pastures we have back in ‘Bama.”

Reminded me of Sam Snead’s quote when he first saw the course: “Down home, we wouldn’t plant cow beets on something like that.”

Fouteen greens serve two holes – what, the cheap Scots didn’t want to spring for more greens? And what’s the deal with No. 18? Everybody but Michelle Wie is driving it. Golf has been played for 500 years at St. Andrews – will somebody please come out and say technology has made the Old Course obsolete?

After one day, I’m about “revered” out. If TNT had said “revered” one more time, I think I would have thrown up. The piece on Bobby Jones would have made a statue weep.

I think if something gets old enough, it automatically qualifies as “revered.” And there’s no doubt everything about the Old Course is old, from the old course to Old Tom Morris to the old Royal and Ancient to the old men, burns, bums, and those knobs and knolls named after some old broad’s breasts. It’s so old, I guess you get bored and start naming everything around you to keep it interesting. I’ve aged a year just watching the first damn round.

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22 comments

§ greg said on : 07/14/05 @ 16:04
St Andrews is not a great golf course now.It will only be great in an 80mph thunderstorm and maybe Tiger will cry like he did at St George.
§ cm16 said on : 07/14/05 @ 19:26
You've got to be kidding... St. Andrews is not a course built on first impressions.
Sam Snead's quote upon first seeing St. Andrews was: "Say, that looks like an old abandoned golf course. What did they call it?"
But he softened after winning the Open there in 1946. He would later say: "Until you play it, St Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away." The key phrase: "until you play it."
Bobby Jones wasn't a fan of St. Andrews the first time he played it either. But, it ended up being one of his favorite course (yes, he too won an Open there).
And please, don't judge a course because its 357-yard 18th is driveable. Any great course has a short Par-4 or two that forces players to gamble.
§ Ron Mon® said on : 07/14/05 @ 20:20
Sheeee-it. I wept when I took the bus from Leuchars, rounded the bend and saw the sandstone building for the first time. I wept when I shanked my approach to #1 onto the Himalayas. I wept when I parred # 17, and I wept when I parred #18 after driver/putter through Valley of Sin. St. Andrews is St. Andrews, just as Augusta is Augusta, Devil's Pulpit is Devil's Pulpit, Royal Melbourner is ... you get the idea. Whether they are hard, clay, or grass, a tennis court is a tennis court. But a golf course, ahhh, now that's a unique entity unto itself. I have never walked Augusta, so I cannot appreciate the hills and the subtle cants and rolls. I have played the Old Course, and long to return. Play it once, and it DOES stay with you forever.
§ RJ said on : 07/15/05 @ 07:58
I wept when I lost my dog. I wept when I lost my parents. Can't say I've ever wept on a golf course. Except when my friend took that practice swing when I was right behind him and 460cc of titanium crashed into my nose. Actually, that was more coughing up blood than weeping now that I think of it. You need to get some perspective pal. As much as I often disagree w/ the writers on this site, TM hit it right on the nose. Kinda like CBS saying "tradition like no other" over and over re: the Masters. Hey, we get it, we are supposed to be in awe. Now can you please show me some more golf?
§ Ron Mon® said on : 07/15/05 @ 08:09
RJ and I can weep together. I agree if they are overdoing the "tradition" commentary . . . this ain't Fiddler on the Roof. However, my perspective is sufficiently skewed that I know a gem when I see one. The setting, the people and the course make St. A the finest venue for a British Open (who doesn't like birdies?) bar none.
§ JC said on : 07/15/05 @ 11:21
i pity those who think the golfing world (and the rest of it) starts and stops at the borders of the USA !
§ Rick C said on : 07/15/05 @ 11:36
Two summers ago, I played the Old Course three times in 24-hours...I never broke 80 but the course and the city seared themselves into my brain for the rest of my life! The city is magical and the aura around the course is incredible. To know who has walked the same fairways as I did over the last 150 years is mind-boggling. It's the place where it all began and needs to have it's rightful place in the rota FOREVER!
If you haven't played it, you have no right to diss it...Even if you have played it and still diss it, you will be in the 2% of the people that have no sense of history and what it means when it comes to this place. I'm going back next summer and will still get the chills up and down my spine from it all...It might be that the temperture is 50 and the wind is blowing 50 kph but it will still be the place I'd play my last round at...Oh yeah, Tiger's favorite course to play? The Old Course.
§ jack h said on : 07/15/05 @ 20:17
I agree with Rick C -- however.. I first visited and played the Old Course in JULY 1959, before all the fanfare started. It was cold, windy, misting rain, the course was as I recall completely vacant except for us.. I recall it as a miserable experience, but looking back I guess it was fun to have done it. We were certainly ready for a Scotch or two when we finished. Have I been back since... no....
§ terry said on : 07/15/05 @ 22:03
I hear you JC. I'm a Brit living in the States and love the place. But when the USGA tells me, during the US Open, that although it didn't invent the game it has become its guardian, and then some muppet on FOX Sports says that Augusta is really the home of golf, I feel the urge to....
Well, it gets my goat.
§ John said on : 07/17/05 @ 06:17
Tim McDonald,

Again you have managed to put your foot through your mouth.. That's right , I said through..

Tim, we can all pay our daily course fee of $35-40 and think that we have played the best course available just because Golf Magazine said it was.

Just think of it Tim, with all the tricks of TV to make sports venues look attractive, when they in reality need to be condemed; i.e. Orange Bowl, Wrigley Field, Gator Bowl, Monster Park.. St Andrews looks fabulous just because of it's nostalgia, and it is so natural.

Tim, quit crying and complaining "until you play it"..

I've noticed that every player at The Open seems to uncontollably tear up when asked what it feels like to play St. Andrews, even if it's not their first time.

That within itself should tell you something.. But I forget...you aren't a REAL golf writer, only one of propaganda..
§ Gregg said on : 07/18/05 @ 09:06
While watching highlights of previous Open Championships at St. Andrews, I noticed players driving the 18th green, and sometimes hitting it THROUGH the green. These highlights were from 1970 and 1978. What did you say about modern technology?
§ RJ said on : 07/18/05 @ 12:31
So Rick C, I am in the 2% of people who have no sense of history or what the place means? Hmmm, didn't realize we had ever met. Interesting, since you apparently know me better than I know myself.

Now, if you'll take a minute to step outside of your pompous view of the world, maybe you will consider that different people might determine the value or nostalgia of things differently, no? If I ever got to play even 1 round of golf w/ my father, that first round, even if played on a 9 hole dog track muni w/ artifical mats instead of tee boxes, would hold more value and nostalgia to me than a place that I'm reminded every 5 minutes by commentators is "special." If it's so special, why do you constantly have to remind people, places like that speak for themselves.

But I suppose my opinion is right, so long as you agree with it. Otherwise I'm some sort of imbecilic dolt. Well, there was a guy in the first half of the 1900's who thought the same way. He was from Germany. I think his first name was Adolph. Thankfully his view of the world didn't become the world view.

And JC, just because we don't hold the Old in the same light as others, doesn't mean we think golf begins and ends in the USA. If I was given a choice of a Scotland golf trip or an Ireland golf trip, I'll take Ireland 10 times out of 10.

But then that's just MY opinion, and if Rick C doesn't like it, it probably makes me an idiot. Which isn't entirely innacurate, but for other reasons altogether.
§ Paddy said on : 07/18/05 @ 12:33
Why is it that we always have one american who has a bee in his bonnet about tradition. ok you live in a young country and you think macdonalds is haute cuisine... personally i think you appreciate the Old Course...(sure you're scared), but try to avoid cliche journalism by being deliberately argumentative, particularly from a pro-american stance...you do other americans a disservice, and i have many american friends who would agree with me. As for ageing a year...maybe it's the comb over
§ DBS said on : 07/19/05 @ 07:46
I would like to know how Tiger Woods' statistics compare to Bobby Jones' stats re: the grand slam?

I really don't know anything about golf, only what I've seen on TV. But I am curious about these two players & their amateur playing years. My understanding is Bobby Jones is the only amateur player to ever win the grand slam in a very short period of time. How does Tiger Woods compare to this?
§ Ivory said on : 07/19/05 @ 12:56
Tim Macdonald...
Sometimes you illustrate the clear difference between "those who write about or play golf" and "true golfers". How obsolete is a course that housed 100+ of the greatest golfers in the world for four ideal days, and only of them scored double digit under par?
§ Ivory said on : 07/19/05 @ 13:08
DBS,
Tiger--Three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur Championships and three consecutive U.S. Amateur Championships in six years; ten professional majors, including two career grand slams; and the only professional to win four straight major championships.

Robert T. Jones was the best career amateur golfer, EVER!!! And, two totally different careers. I'm confused why the comparisons between the two continue.
§ GM said on : 07/19/05 @ 13:25
Great! More ignorant ramblings from a writer(?) who has only one objective: identify what consensus opinion is about a subject (in this case, the Old Course at St. Andrews), and then take the opposite angle.

I suppose Tim McDonald would yawn and say "what's the big deal" if given the chance (most likely in his dreams) to patrol left field at Fenway or centerfield at Yankee Stadium, run a play from the 50-yard line at Lambeau or Notre Dame Stadium, skate the old Montreal Forum or Maple Leaf Gardens, or shoot a free throw on the parquet of the dearly departed Boston Garden.

Nice try at your form of shock journalism, TM. But no one's buying it. If you are indeed a golfer, and you play St. Andrews, you'd be ripping yourself for writing what you did. Either that, or you just don't get it!
§ KH said on : 07/20/05 @ 09:10
You sir are a typical yank. I Have played golf in 15 states in the us and believe me you guys are kidding yourselves on if you think those are golf courses. I can only assume from your ignorance you have never played St Andrews.
§ Tim McDonald® said on : 07/20/05 @ 13:27
And you, KH, are a typical Brit. Look around you -- your empire crumbled decades ago, so stop acting like the UK is the center of the universe.

You need to learn a little humility --you guys have a lot to be humble about.
§ Greg Pinelli said on : 07/21/05 @ 00:04
Tim...Your absolutely right. St. Andrews is obsolete. And Shinnecock is a course where putts 5 feet above the hole roll 40 yards off the green? Right? How many great courses have you ever played up close and personal? Or even seen? I mean..outside you Mom's living room?? No Tim...you are the man..Jones..Palmer..Nicklaus...are full of it.
§ Steve Cooke said on : 07/24/05 @ 06:03
Hi
I have a Blog from St Andrews and a Golf Tourism Business

I am actually from down South and moved to the area because of the Lure that is St Andrews

I dare any true Golfer to stand on the 1st, 17th and 18th Tee's of the Old Course and not have Butterflies in your stomach

For anyone who wants a hole by hole account of the Old Course have a look at the front page of my site (over 200 pics you can share)

Regards and Great Blog

I have a Blog button at the bottom of website www.scotlandgolftouring.com if anyone likes golfy type Blogs
§ Brandon Tucker® said on : 04/09/08 @ 01:22
I know it's like seven months later, but this has to be the funniest blog on TG. Well done.