We had a three-day ticket for all-you-can-play at the St. Andrews courses, excluding the Old Course. This ticket spanned Monday through Wednesday, with a very special Tuesday. As I reported in another thread, members of the uk.sport.golf newsgroup got wind of our coming. After some discussion, eight USG players were found to play in a 36-hole Ryder-Cup style match against the eight USG players on Tuesday, May 11. This is truly an historic event in internet golf - two contingents of internet golfers from different continents meeting to play and drink and dine together. Amazing to think about, wonderful to have been a part of it. Once these matches were set up, I felt that it was worth the trip to Scotland just for this one day. I still feel that way, though the trip was so much more. Monday, we played the Jubilee in the morning, and Dimitri from the UK team joined us on the New in the afternoon. These are very tough courses, lots of gorse, bunkers, complex areas around the greens. These courses seemed very similar to me - I think if the holes were mixed up between Jubilee and New I wouldn't know the difference. However, they are wonderful holes. They are not by the sea very much - you see the Eden estuary for a bit on the New. The bunkers at St. Andrews are all very penal - steep walls in the front, you often have to pitch out sideways or even backwards. This holds on the New and Jubilee, as well as The Old (which has the most penal bunkers of them all). The caddies say the Jubilee is harder because the greens are trickier. I think I'd vote that the New was harder because it was tougher driving, at least for me. The New, of course is old (laid out in 1895), it is only new in relation to The Old. The Jubilee (originally laid out as a 12-holer in 1897, with many modifications over the years) is adjacent to the New. The weather continued to get warmer and calmer all week. I think it was in the mid-60s on Monday, and in the 70s by Thursday. Who'd have thought I'd think it was too hot in Scotland in May? Neal had a caddie in the AM, he took Coops' yardage book, I guess so he could read it to us. This caddie slowed us down by jabbering about the holes even when I was standing up ready to hit the ball (I don't need or want that much information, personally). He also was talking to Neal ad infinitum. We fell behind. I was very happy when our group was told to speed it up - the caddie transformed himself and started moving and stopped talking. We were back in position in no time. Dimitri met us at lunch and joined three of us (Joe, myself, and Coops) in a warmup match. A precursor of things to come, Dimitri's side won. Dimitri kept us laughing with his quick wit and energetic personality. It was a real treat that we got to play this extra round with him. Wednesday we all played the New. One par 3, David Sneddon and I were playing as partners and I hit my ball into the right-hand greenside bunker. David followed with an identical shot. The marshall was standing by the tee and inquired if we would be back to play this course again. We said we sure hope so... someday. He said he would make sure the green was moved for us. Ha ha. We lost the hole. Scottish people have dogs. They like to take them wherever they go. They take them walking on The Old Course. They even take them golfing with them. They sit patiently on the side of the green, watching eagerly when the balls are rolling, then looking away bored when they stop. I never saw a dog that was not well behaved. I wished that I had a dog to take walking on The Old Course... I think they should have a place that you can rent a dog. Maybe I'll move to St. Andrews and start a business... In the afternoon, being a bit tired, we opted to play the easy Strathtyrum course. Short and open, it is more of a beginners course. I think we would have played it in about 2.5 hours if it were not for running into a high school medal competition. Still it was only a little over 3. We only took 4 clubs each, and had a great time. Mark G kept teeing off with his putter on the short par 3s... he was in heaven. Of course, his soul belongs on a golf course. OK, I saved Tuesday for the last. This day, May 11, should be a national holiday in all the UK, the US, and Canada. I declare it RSG-USG day. I personally will treasure this day forever, and will recall it when I need to get an attitude adjustment. This was the day of the RSG-USG matches! The St. Andrews Links trust put an article on their website You can see it here: http://www.standrews.org.uk/news/pr/pr2004/internet_match.htm They mistakenly say: The competition is one of the first ever examples of a match being organised by people who have made contact only through the internet. Which should have something about two continents in it I suppose. Anyway, we met at the New clubhouse, and one by one we met our new friends. We had met a few briefly the previous night in the pub, and I was eager to meet the rest. The prize for the match was a Forgan Mashie, donated by Chris "Hickory" Homer, who runs Past Masters Old Links Golf Events (http://www.oldlinksgolf.com). Hickory's handicap is based solely on playing with hickory clubs, and boy can he hit them. It was fascinating to me... I have played a few times with hickory clubs, but I have never seen anybody hit them so well. I lucked out and was going to play with Hickory and Johnty, who is involved in the Leith Society Rules History web pages and discussion (http://www.ruleshistory.com and http://www.leithsociety.com) in the AM 4BBB. I was paired with Mike Plowinske, as we have a history of playing well together. How could there be a better grouping, a better day, a better time? Johnty is a very likeable guy, lots of fun, and we had a blast. I peppered Homer with questions about hickory clubs and golf history and he didn't seem to mind. The UK team got off to a good start, but Mike and I Ham-n-egged it as usual to get the point for the RSG team. After the morning matches were completed, the math was performed and it ended up all tied. The singles matches would decide the victor. The singles matches were 2 9-hole matches, we would switch partners at the turn. The front 9 was to be played ordinary match play. The second 9 a little invention of mine called Match Play Madness (TM). You can read about it here: http://ttsoft.com/thor/rsgohio/mpm.txt But basically, throw out all the rules, and you play the ball as it lies and hit it from the tee into the hole. No drops, no penalties, no moving anything - take to the extreme that you accept the situation your ball ends up in. You finish with the ball you teed off with or you can't win the hole. The UK team had to find a last-minute replacement, as one of their team had to cancel. Coops found a member of the St. Andrews Golf Club to fill in. Great move, Coops - Stuart (the member) invited the whole crew to the clubhouse for lunch! This was really cool, the club overlooks the 1st and 18th hole at the old course, we went out on the balcony, took pictures, and then ate lunch. Thank you Stuart! I played Stuart in the first 9, and he is an amazing golfer. He has no idea how far his clubs go, doesn't look at yardages (I forgot to mention, Hickory does the same thing), and plays all kinds of interesting shots. And he played pretty well, beating me 2&1. For Match Play Madness (TM), I played Mark M from the UK, and Coops played Stuart. We both got off to poor starts, and after 3 holes, both matches were 3 down. After 6 holes, I was back to square! Match Play Madness (TM) was in effect on all 3 holes: on the fourth, Mark had to play off the cart path; on the fifth, he didn't quite carry the only pond at St. Andrews, on the sixth, again didn't carry the pond coming back the other way. Stuart also hit into the pond, but it was low and he could walk down to the sand and did so, blasting out of the water and just over the green. Kewl! The rest of my match with Mark was exciting - back and forth, we arrived at the last all square. We both missed the green, but I was in heavy rough and did not get up and down, Mark made a great chip and saved par to win the match. We were the last group of the day, and later it was discovered I needed to win that match to halve the hole event. Congrats to the UK team for their great play and wonderful victory! We had a special dinner that night, the RSG team all wore special shirts embroidered with "RSG-Scotland" and an oval Saltire (Scottish Flag). The UK team showed us up with suits and ties. We had a wonderful dinner, tales of the day were told, I did not want it to end. Unfortunately the staff eventually said no more beer unless you go to the bar, so, well, that ended it. We had some great speeches, cheers, and the UK team very graciously gave us the Forgan Mashie as a souvenir of the matches, even though it was rightfully their prize. I also had brought a gutta percha ball from Oakhurst Links (http://oakhurstlinks.com), where they play with turn of the century equipment. I also brought a hickory club, and thought Hickory and I might have time to play a couple holes. I gave him the ball - well, first I gave it to Johnty by mistake, but he graciously understood and returned it. Later I found out he had read my article about Oakhurst Links (http://ttsoft.com/thor/coolest.txt), and taken the time on a visit to the US to go experience that cours. Hickory later presented me with my own Forgan iron, a beautiful club that I will mount and display. Thanks so much, Hickory! So, Eight golfers who have met through RSG and the internet play together for years and years, talk about and plan a trip to Scotland where they will share close quarters and tons of golf. Eight golfers in the UK get wind of it, arrange to travel miles to meet us and play a match. It all works out fabulously, new friends and memories to last a lifetime are made. This, my friends, is the power of The Gemme we call golf. The next day we would play The Old Course. I have been thinking and practicing that first tee shot in front of the towering old clubhouses and the gathered onlookers for a long time. Mark K's caddie, John, spoke that night so passionately about the Old Course, I started calling him Shivas. I didn't get much sleep at all.... would I even be able to take the club back? Would I be shaking too hard to play golf? Would I break out in tears? Would I hit the hotel on the road hole? Find out next post....