ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND | From start to finish, The Drive, an initiative run by the St Andrews Links Trust, was one of the “believe-it-or-not” variety. Fourteen thousand golfers – they had to have Scottish postcodes – had entered a ballot which would allow 22 of them to win rounds for two over the Old Course at the cost of £42.50 apiece. Had they been paying the regular green fee of the moment, the price would have been £340 per person.
Almost all of the 22 winners had thought they were the victims of one more scam when they received messages reading, “Congratulations, you have just won ...” Then they dared to look again and, still in a state of total disbelief, their next step was to ring the Links Trust for confirmation. Even after that, Sam Bunce, who comes from Newbattle Golf Club in the Lothians, sent in the £85 for himself and his partner, only to find that his bank had flagged the payment for “suspected fraud.”
After a month of solid sunshine, Scots are no longer mentioning the weather on a daily basis. But on Wednesday of last week, it had to come up in conversation. How could the 22 be so doubly lucky as to have perfect conditions? The Old Course was looking spectacular, with the fairways so hard and fast as to allow everyone to boast of hitting the ball a country mile.
The first tee, however, hosted one nervous golfer after another. Bunce’s partner, Christine McConnell, steadied herself to hit a good enough shot and was about to set off down the fairway when she came running back to base. She had forgotten her clubs.
Bucket lists were ticked off, while those players who had forked out for caddies for the first time in their lives found them as entertaining as they were helpful.
Alex Armstrong, a construction worker from Cumbernauld, said that he could cope with the highest of multi-storey scaffolds on a construction site, but the very thought of hitting his first shot from a flat tee in front of the R&A clubhouse prompted his knees and hands to shake. His ball fled along the ground but the worst was over.
Coming up to 11 o’clock, GGP saw another group preparing to take off when there was a crossing of wires. Moments after I had asked which of them had entered the ballot, they couldn’t understand why it would be of interest. (By all accounts, plenty of golfers who have not booked well in advance can enter a ballot which paves the way for an early-morning message the next day which will say whether or not they have been given a starting time.)
An explanation was called for, and, when those visitors learned that while they had each paid the full £340 and the local ballot winners were paying 87.5 percent less, they looked more than somewhat bemused.
“Good on them,” managed one fellow.
“If they’re locals it’s what they deserve,” added a nearby caddie. The latter felt strongly that too many Scottish golf clubs were pricing ordinary people out of the game. A couple of Americans, a father and son who had time to join in the conversation, were inclined to agree. “Golf everywhere is becoming too country-club-esque,” warned the father.
It wasn’t something that was going to stop him or his son from playing, but both felt it was wrong. “Pebble Beach and places like it charge high prices and, because there are plenty of people prepared to pay them, they get away with charging more,” added the father. “The same thing’s happening with housing. One house gets a good price and the house over the road ups its price too. … And so it goes on.”
The Drive four-balls started arriving back at 1:30 and, unlike what you see on the professional tours, all of the players were smiling broadly, regardless of how they’d played.
Bunce had scored in the 70s with an 8 and a 2 on his card, and his partner could not have been more cheerful about a score which called for too much in the way of addition. As for the construction worker, he said he couldn’t have felt better had he won the lottery. He had made a par at some point which should have been a birdie – and had taken a picture of a 2-inch putt to prove it.
Drew and Tony Russell, a father and son combination who both work in the field of health and safety, were carried away with those very features on the Old Course as much as everything else. The pair mentioned that they were getting more and more calls to do full-scale health and safety tests on golf courses and, in what was an interesting snippet of information, they suggested that steps going up to high tees were arguably the most dangerous hazards of the lot.
Two Edinburgh couples, Jean and Steve Laux, along with their good friends Elaine and John Marshall, had a day which, if it were possible, was even better than the one they had envisaged. The wives had spent the day shopping and, since it was Jean who had entered the ballot in her husband’s name, the men were in no position to tell them to watch what they spent.
Congratulations to all the players, and just as many to Neil Coulson, the chief executive of the St Andrews Links Trust and his team.
“It’s been fantastic to see the first golfers visit the Home of Golf to play the Old Course as part of The Drive,” said Coulson. “The initiative was borne out of a desire to widen access to our golf courses as part of our charitable objectives and I’m delighted the reaction has been so positive.”
Later this month and in early June further days will offer opportunities for golfers from the armed forces, with a disability, from the emergency services, women, families, Scottish golf club members and volunteers to play the Eden Course.
“It’s reaffirmed our belief that everyone should feel as if they have a place at the Home of Golf and to play at St Andrews links.”
Well said, and here’s hoping more of our major championship venues come up with their versions of Coulson’s initiative.
E-MAIL LEWINE
Top: Sam Bunce and Christine McConnell
courtesy st andrews links