In July 1970, I climbed into my old Ford car, slinging a suitcase-sized Olivetti typewriter onto the back seat, and pointed the car north to St Andrews. I was leaving a London barely settled after a general election in which Edward Heath, a round-faced, plummy-voiced Conservative who was an accomplished organist, had led his party to victory over Harold Wilson, a thin-voiced, wily Labour politician. It was an upset and one that Wilson would, in later years, attribute to England’s recent defeat by Germany in the soccer World Cup. “The country was in a bad mood,” he said.
I was in anything but. Though my wife and I had been married for less than two months, thus making my jaunt to Scotland not exactly what she wanted, I was looking forward to it immensely. I was going to attend and report on an Open at the home of golf. I had read about Opens at that famous venue, watched television footage of same but had never been able to attend one. Indeed, I had never been to St Andrews. Now I was bound for one of the halls of residence a stone’s throw from the Old Course and a week-long orgy of golf, one of my favourite sports.
Little did I know as I drove steadily north that in a few days I would be standing at the back of the 18th green, separated from the famous putting surface by little more than a couple of strands of wire and a wooden green fence, watching Doug Sanders push a very short putt wide of the hole. With that jerky stroke, Sanders passed up his first opportunity to win that Open. He and Nicklaus tied on 283 in regulation play and Nicklaus would go on to win the next day’s playoff, and his first St Andrews Open.
Now here’s the thing. There are Opens and then there are Opens at St Andrews. 1970 was my first and this week’s will be my tenth at my favourite venue. Each Open venue has advantages and disadvantages. The setting of Turnberry is memorable. Portrush in Northern Ireland proved a huge success when the 2019 Open was held there. The craic flowed. Birkdale may be England’s Muirfield in that it is the fairest of all Open courses. I love it because it has one of my favourite watching-places in golf – the soft, springy grass on top of the dune to the left of the 12th. Lytham is wonderful but it’s a testing walk being an out and back course.
I am enchanted by Sandwich, one of the Cinque (five) ports of England in the 11th century, for the sense you have of how it was before the sea receded. Play nearby St George’s and conversation can be drowned out by the skylarks singing overhead. The course is magnificent but, like Lytham, it can be difficult to get to. Carnoustie presents a severe test. How appropriate that it was where Ben Hogan won his only Open.
Hoylake has its JMW Turner-like sunsets over Hilbre Island and when we are there next year, we will see a new 17th hole, a par 3. Royal Troon is rather like Lytham in that it’s an out-and-back course. At the far end furthermore, there is the distinctive feature that gives Troon a distinguishing feature that some may call a nuisance and other a quirk. As golfers putt on the ninth green and drive from the 10th tee, jets roar overhead taking off from nearby Prestwick airport.
And so, we come to St Andrews. It has the West Sands, a magnificent spread of sand on which I have run (sometimes) and walked (more often). It has the Jigger Inn to the right of the 17th hole, any number of famous graves in the Cathedral grounds as well as the most iconic building in golf, the clubhouse of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.
It is my favourite for all the foregoing and also because it has the wonderful Topping and Company’s bookshop, a course that begins and ends in town (and not many places can say that) and a sense of history that descends on you the moment the city comes into the view.
Just as the enjoyment of a meal is enhanced by its anticipation, so the pleasures of a golf course can be magnified by the arrival at it. At the Myopia Hunt Club in Hamilton, Massachusetts, you’re greeted by baying and yelping foxhounds. At Brancaster in Norfolk, England, you might have to walk to the clubhouse because a high tide has practically encircled it and the course. After the roundabout near Leuchars, a few miles from St Andrews, you notice white milestones on the right-hand side of the road ticking off the distance to the old place – five miles, four miles, three miles. The estuary appears on your left, you round a corner and there in full sight is the old town, a view that always gladdens my heart.
In 1978, Nicklaus won again, this time by two strokes. In 1984 came Seve Ballesteros’s famous celebratory dance as he sank a putt on the 72nd green to beat Tom Watson, the defending champion, who had tangled with the wall behind the Road Hole, the 17th.
In 1990, Nick Faldo didn’t just beat the Old Course, he dismembered it, birdieing one hole in three in his first 54 holes setting a new 54-hole record of 199 for the Open and opening up a lead of five strokes over his nearest challengers. Five strokes turned out to be the margin of victory the next day as he set an Open record of 270 that stood until Tiger Woods beat it by one stroke in 2000. The third round of the 1990 Open gave us a look into the future and the momentous round at Augusta in the 1996 Masters when Faldo began the lead six strokes behind Greg Norman and ended five strokes ahead. At St Andrews, Faldo started the day level at 12-under par with Norman. When he finished, he was 17-under par, Norman had gone the other way, a 76 taking him.
One man watched Faldo’s performance that year with interest. He was of medium height and sturdy build and wore a blue blazer, fawn trousers, and an R&A tie. His face was weatherbeaten, his gaze was keen. After years of squinting down fairways the world over, his eyes didn’t miss a thing, nor did his brain. Peter Thomson, the wily Australian, won the 1955 Open at St Andrews, one of his five Opens. I noticed Thomson one day in 1990 when he was sitting cross-legged by the side of the fifth green and wandered over to ask him what he made of Faldo’s performance. “He’s obviously a very good player,” Thomson, one of the most cerebral of golfers, said. “He has very sensibly worked on his rhythm and it’s wonderful. That is what is so good about his golf right now.”
“Better aim away from the flagstick today, Tiger.” –Butch Harmon, 2005
Much what applied to Faldo in 1990 when he eventually won by five strokes could be applied to Tiger Woods’s victory 15 years later when he won by the same margin. I heard a story that when warming up on the practice ground for his final round, Woods hit every one of the poles spaced 50 yards apart from 50 yards to 250 yards. Seeing such accuracy, Butch Harmon, his coach, said: “Better aim away from the flagstick today, Tiger.”
Oddly as John Daly was such a colourful character, as well as being a wizard at the short game, I remember from 1995 only Costantino Rocca’s fluffed chip on the 72nd hole followed by that long putt from the Valley of Sin that got him into a playoff with Daly, one Daly won. The 2010 Open was memorable for the wind that blew on Saturday afternoon and caused play to be delayed because balls were oscillating on greens such as the 11th. That didn’t bother Louis Oosthuizen, who became the fourth South African Open champion after Arthur D’Arcy Robert (Bobby) Locke in 1949, 1950, 1952 and 1957, Gary Player in 1959, 1968 and 1974, and Ernie Els in 2002 (and again later in 2012). “It is so windy at Pinnacle Point in Mossel Point [where Oosthuizen has a holiday home] there is a saying, ‘Never open the front and back door at the same time otherwise the fridge will be blown out of the back door,’ ” Johann Rupert, the South African, said.
The 2015 Open is in my mind for the fact that it ended on a Monday. My colleagues and I couldn’t reach an agreement with our landlord about the rate for an extra night’s lodging so I decided not to stay in our rented accommodation. My plan was to finish writing about Zach Johnson’s victory, climb into my car and head south until I got tired. Then I would find a place to stay and drive the rest of the journey on Tuesday.
I remember filling up with petrol at 11:30 pm at a garage 50 miles south of St Andrews. I’ll drive on for another hour I thought. There’s a place near the border [with England.] They’ll have a room for me. When I got there, I discovered that it was full, as was the next place I tried and the next. There was nothing for it but to keep driving. On I drove, becoming increasingly tired and pulling over as often as necessary for a sleep. I finally reached my home in south Wales at 11:15 on Tuesday morning.
If Zach Johnson had given an impeccable demonstration of driving on his way to victory over Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen the previous afternoon, my driving between the hours of 23:00 on Monday and 11:15 am on Tuesday as I became increasingly tired was reckless. More than that, it was stupid and dangerous. I won’t be doing the same this year, that’s for sure. I want to survive to see another Open at St Andrews, my 11th.