Legends of the Falls

Anyone watching the British Open today. It brought back a bunch of memories from my trip to Scotland with Tod Jeffers in 1984 when we actually played Carnoustie.. Here’s a shot of us playing the 17th hole. I’m on the far right in the red sweater. Upon close inspection you will note that I am wearing knickers, which I wore for pretty much every round in Scotland (Tod remarked that my choice of apparel was like a guy from New York City wearing a rhinestone cowboy shirt in Dallas). Tod has the light pants on and the other guy and girl were a couple of newlyweds from the US who were on their honeymoon and were matched up with us (the guy played, the gal just walked along).

Here’s a piece of a map of the Carnoustie golf course that shows the finishing holes at the course. I’ve placed a red X on the may where our friend Glen Durso stood when he took the photo above. The direction of the photo is toward the upper right hand corner of the map. In the photo you can see the wall of the Barry Burn running along the forefront. From the map you can see how the burn snakes around on both sides of 17. On the photo at the top you can just make out the burn behind us. If you look close you can see the walk bridge across the burn on the left side of the photo and you can also notice that bridge on the map above.

If you watched the open today, you saw Ernie Els hit his approach shot fat on 18 and it came up short of the burn (notice on the map how the burn runs right in front of 18). That reminded me a little of my shot on the finishing hole. When Tod and I played it, the pin placement on 18 was in about the same location as today, i.e at the very front of the green, about 10 feet onto the green and maybe 10 yards past the burn. When I hit my approach shot, I thought I had hit it perfect but it came up about 10 yards short – I don’t know if I misclubbed myself or the wind got it but the ball came down in the burn – but only momentarily.

Here’s a closeup photo of the Barry Burn. Notice how the bank on the left is made by bricks that form a kind of stair step up the side. Remember playing stoop ball as a kid (I’m talking to the second generation here, I’m not sure the third generation ever played anything as unorganized as stoop ball 🙂 )? You would throw a ball against the steps and it would fly backward. Well that’s exactly what happened to my ball when it landed in the burn. It didn’t hit the water but rather came down against the bricks. That caused it to ricochet back down the eighteenth fairway toward me coming to rest about 20 yards short of the burn (if I remember correctly I got safely on and two putted from there).

The big hotel in the background of the above photo wasn’t there when Tod and I played the course. There was actually no clubhouse. There was a small shack that acted as a pro shop and a gravel parking lot where you could change into your spikes. Of course that meant we couldn’t roll of the course and have an immediate brew. So after we finished our round we headed back to St Andrews where we were staying.

The route back to our hotel took us through Dundee, a working class town on the River Tay. It was about a 30 mile drive and by the time we got to Dundee we were a little thirsty. I was driving and spotted a bar just off the road. I pulled over and Tod ran inside to get a six pack for the road (how times have changed? – you just wouldn’t think of doing that these days). A couple of minutes later Tod comes out of the bar laughing his head off.

While we were in Scotland we had been trying all sorts of different beers. Since we didn’t have a clue what most of the brews were we’d simply ask the bartenders in each of the establishments we’d hit, what their recommendation would be. So that’s exactly what Tod did when he went into the bar. The bartender responded (imagine a thick Scottish brogue “Ahh, we’ve got this great imported beer – RRRolling RRRock.” Tod could not keep a straight face and was still laughing as he came back out to the car (and no, he didn’t get the Rolling Rock).

I have bunches of other stories but I’ll save them for another day.