The Steps Behind the 18th at St. Andrews
A favorite experience in Scotland with my daughter and my wife
My 5-year-old daughter Missye and I sat on the steps behind the 18th green at the Old Course several times during our time in the “Old Grey Town.” Depending on the time of day you could see a variety of things from that post. Early in the morning, after the agronomy staff and equipment exited the stage left, we could see the pristine putting surface and gaze down the empty 18th fairway. Every now and then the odd person or three would cross the path that intersects the 18th and the 1st. This foot traffic increases throughout the day but at that point, pedestrians have only to avoid opening tee shots. From our perch you can see the starter’s shack and first tee, as groups of 4 take their turn teeing off before a small but gathering audience. When it is still early you can even hear some of the nervous chatter among the golfers as they snap photos. With every departure you can hear soft semi-verbal expirations, like the uneasy laugh that comes after you get your finger pricked for a blood sample, “That was it, not so bad.” Each group of players and caddies toddle off of the broad teeing ground, embarking on a journey many of them have been waiting for their whole golfing lives (and imagined every day since booking this trip). Even the bad shots topped harmlessly into the ample fairway are occasion for an exhale of relief.
A few hours later as those groups begin to come in, you can see the joy and gratitude on these same faces. They look up at the buildings, they walk slowly, some are now even chatty with new friends that they had never met 4 hours prior. They are glad that you are there to watch, even if it gives them a tinge of the same spectator-nerves they felt on the first tee. This is why they came.
Missye would stand on the step just above where I sat and hang her arms over my shoulders and lean on me like only little daughters can. When someone would make or miss a putt, she could voice her reactions into my ear without anyone else hearing. The perfect golf watching partner. We liked to watch them putt out and then walk up to the stairs. Sometimes their wives would be waiting for them. Even through the pink hue on their wind chapped faces, you can see a special gleam. Sitting on those steps places you in between those who have been playing the Old Course and those who have been waiting for them – you are right there at the intersection where a wife first sees on her husband’s face all of what it meant. She can see it more now than she was able to understand before, even more than when she saw him (months ago) hovering over his laptop keyboard worrying about how, when, and with whom he would get a tee time; more now than in the days leading up to it, checking and re-checking the weather forecast. She now understands it even more than she was able while spending the last two nights walking around town together seeing as many people carrying golf bags as grocery bags, sometimes both; even more than when she stood on this same spot beside her husband the day before watching other couples participate in this same ritual. She now sees the difference on his face that only she can discern. He has returned from somewhere magical that he has never been before. There is gratitude mixed with a mystical sadness brimming in his eyes under the hat that he will keep forever on a shelf; the hat he wore when he played the Old Course.
My wife Marianna’s favorite scenes from the steps feature smiling men (some of them around the age of her late father) walking across the street and down the path towards the starter shed. They wear giddy smiles and backpacks. If you have ever seen a group of teenage girls in a parking lot waiting to load the bus for a youth group ski trip, this feels the same. They have pillows under their arms and are giggling and walking just fast enough to look silly, but not quite running. But these men will not spend the next several hours making friendship bracelets and sharing earphones, they are anxious to spend as much of the night as needed in line for the chance to play the Old Course the next day without a reserved tee time. So much will have to fall into place for this to happen. A group that does have a booked tee time must have fewer than 4 players, said group must then agree to let one of these strangers join them for the next several hours, and it will require these would-be-golfers to try to sleep on the concrete (as if falling asleep the night before Golf-Christmas isn’t hard enough). Then and only then if they are lucky, they might get a chance to pay the hefty greens fee to play some time during the following day. The men in their late 50s early 60s were our favorite characters in this dramedy. It was almost impossible not to imagine both of our late fathers in these men’s Footjoys. We talked about this a few times. When the Scottish wind and weather have primed the pumps on your tear ducts, it is amazing how quickly the figures in your field of vision can be blurred to look and even sound like your dad.
From atop this wide set of stairs, you can see what some might call the well-oiled-machine-ness of the Old Course. The way that groups start their rounds at perfect intervals and a how groups finish 18 very near the first tee. In between each set, marshals open and close a walkway that crosses both fairways as people scurry across to-and-from the beach, or the putting course, or the large clubhouse that serves some of the “newer” courses. Clockwork is a apt metaphor, but to me it feels like something more organic.
From this spot you can experience what might be the beating heart of all golf everywhere. It is a rhythmic center that contracts with little electric pulses pushing people out into the flow of the first fairway where they disperse and bring life to the entire body. They eventually make their way back, towards the heart as they are drawn back into the ventricle of the 18th fairway by that same rhythmic pulse. Open the gate, close the gate, tee shots, approach shots, open the gate, close the gate, tee shots, approach shots. To watch any activity out on the course is like holding your finger to the wrist of golf, still beating. It beats on until the end of the day, when the only movements you can sense are those of the last of the golfers trickling in at dusk.
These last groups are the locals, who have access to the latest tee times and know how to make it in before sunset. They are so acquainted with the “Road Hole” and “Tom Morris” that they could play 17 and 18 in the dark, which they effectively do. They wear understated clothes and carry their own golf clubs, which also seem understated in comparison to what fill most bags belonging to American golfers. Their wives may not be waiting on the steps, some of their wives are playing in their group. These gentlemen and ladies hole familiar putts which were preceded by sensible shots from the fairway, shots for which they may have even employed a putter instead of a lofted wedge.
The locals then amble across one of the two intersecting streets to have a pint in one of several buildings that for over a century have served as the “house” of the golf “club” of which they are a member. Clubhouse. Proper.
