Golfing the Links

I know that some of you are actively uninterested in golf; most are probably just ambivalent; and the rest - the golfers - are absolutely seething with envy at my situation right now.

This post is for the latter category. I hope we can still be friends.

I've managed to get out to golf twice now (I attempted a third time, but that was at about 10:30 am on a beautifully sunny and relatively wind-less Saturday morning - needless to say the course was packed), and that means I have now more than paid for my restricted student links ticket. I paid £105 for the year, and if I'd been paying regular price my two rounds would have cost me £140. I paid off my ticket after the front nine this morning. Everything else from that point until the end of next August is basically free. Don't hate!

So, what is golf in St Andrews like?

WINDY.Oh. my. I've never played in such wind. I have been laying in the fairway 115 yards out and hit a solid 6 iron and barely made the fringe. On the other hand, I smoked my 5 wood off the tee almost 280 yards this morning. I was grouped with three Scotsmen who have been playing the links for almost 40 years together, and you should have seen their drives. Not a single one went higher than oh, maybe 50 feet off the ground. They were putting from 30 yards out! It's a different mindset, that's for sure.

Deceptive. Where are all the trees? Why does this hole look so easy? What's that? You hit it three inches off the fairway into that rough? Oh. Well. Good luck. The wind and the rough are the toughest aspects, for sure. I tried to hit a full 5 iron out of about 6 inches of grass today and it dribbled forward maybe 8 feet. Apparently it's especially thick right now because of the terribly wet summer most of the UK had.

You wanna play rough? OK, we'll play rough!

Bunker-y. Those pot bunkers we've all seen in the Open Championships are no joke in real life. I actually had to hit backward out of one during my first round, because I had rolled right up to the front! I got the full experience. But the sand in them is wonderful, which is great. Not like that ground-up concrete we have at some courses back home.

Bunker in front of number 2 on the Jubilee Course

Beautiful. One of my favourite parts of golf is being outside and enjoying the walk. Obviously, we have beautiful courses back home (it's BC, duh!), but it is a different sort of beauty here. Wind-swept, rolling hills of grass and gorse bush, the ocean on one side, golden yellow fields on the other, with a medieval town on the horizon. The sun sits lower in the sky, so the light is always sweeping dramatically across your view.

All in all, I am very thankful for the chance to live and play here for a few years. What a blessing. If anyone wants to come join me for a round, I'm only a 9-hour* plane ride away!

*If you could convince the pilot to let you sky dive as you're crossing over Scotland. Hmm...