Carnoustie and St Andrews Old Course

the obligatory bridge photo on the 18th at St Andrews...

These posts are all going to be a bit out of chronological order... but that's just the way it is...

A colleague of mine and I went up to Scotland for some meetings in Glasgow (two of which were quite good) and decided to take advantage of our geographic location by trying to see if we could get on any of the golf courses up there - with the criteria being 'fabled' or part of the Open Championship rotation.

Carnoustie's clubhouse from the 1st fairway

a much more pleasant scene without Jean Van deVelde wading across...

Amazingly - we were able to book times on Carnoustie right on their website, and then we gambled and won with St Andrews, where the R&A reserves some tee times daily for people that enter their ballot.

the R&A clubhouse & center of town

You either show up in person or ring them a day in advance before 11:30am to put your names in for the ballot... the results are then posted online and at hotels and other venues around St Andrews at 4:30 pm. We did our meetings in Glasgow, then drove the hour or so back to Edinburgh, where I was checking the results on the blackberry...scrolling and scrolling down until I was convinced we had missed out... but then we were there..with a 1:50 time, and the forecast was for warm-ish partly sunny conditions... a fantastic result (especially because we had not even decided on back up course if unsuccessful).

bunkering on the shared 8th and 11th green, where play cris-crosses
to make the turn back towards town

We were again fortunate with weather... It was windy at Carnoustie - which made a very difficult golf course that much more challenging - and then at St Andrews it was actually warm, with wind only for the middle 6 holes - with blue skies for most of the day.

my tee shot on 18...

We got to St Andrews a couple of hours before our time to see a bit of the town, and also brought jacket & tie because 9 years ago I had been introduced to a member of staff at the R&A who provided me with a three day temporary membership... we spoke with the man at the desk who allowed us in again to view the trophy case, library, snooker room, etc - which again was really a treat.

the real deal - the Claret Jug in the R&A's trophy case

the only golf motif stained glass I've ever seen... appropriately at 'the home of golf'

I still believe that with another round at Carnoustie it would not be as difficult as my score indicates (see below) ...with local knowledge being very important - especially when trying to figure out where to hit the ball off the tee because some tee shots that looked very good either ricocheted off fairway mounds across into the rough - or ran through the fairway into long rough or the gorse - which is worse than a hazard...

St Andrews is a bit more open - and there was a caddie in our group that I could ask if my memory from my last rounds there (1999?) was still accurate (not that the course has changed a bit...)

Result: 89 at carnoustie (!) - followed by 71 at St Andrews...

representing w the Sawgrass hat...

the target of the tee shot at 17 is over the "L" in hotel according to the caddie..I cut it a bit too close, but was in play in he right rough by the hotel.. and from there avenged the two 5's (bogeys) made nine years ago with a birdie on the toughest hole out there - where David Duval's battle with Tiger ended (see this NY Times story for more... I'm just pleased with my result...)

Just a great couple of afternoons on the golf course...