Breakfast done, we checked out and rocked up to St Andrews the next day at 12. I said I'd throw my name in the hat for the Old Course, why not?! So it turned out that someone started the queue at 11.20 the night before, and when the starter opened the pavilion at 6am there were 29 souls hoping to get out. Not all of them got a tee time. When I arrived there were still 6 names on the list, but I said what else am I doing today? So I sat outside having a coffee and hoping. At 2 I was told that while there were still 5 on the list ahead of me, no one was there to take the 2.30 game that just opened up and if they still hadn't by 2.20, I was up. It paid to wait there, and on the loveliest of calm sunny afternoons I teed off on the first tee. Unbelievable.
If you haven't been there I'm sure you'll still have a sense from the TV of how the town wraps around the 1st and 18th. It is the focal point of the town, I think I could sit there all day watching people come in and head out. But as you head out the headland and see all the other courses around you and you get the sense of ancient golf, played in it's perfect place, for 100s of years and by every great the game has ever seen. Again my caddy was not only a great bloke but super at his job. I had two mental lapses, one resulted in a treble, the other a quad. In spite of those I shot 10 over, so delighted with the vast majority of my golf on the day. I almost holed my approach to 18, it missed by an inch or two at most and won an appreciative round of applause from the gallery.
I missed the 3 footer but we don't talk about that. LOL.
There was something very special about the place, so much so that I would say that my experience at St Andrews completely eclipsed Carnoustie in ways I couldn't have fathomed the day before. If you haven't been but you've been thrown by any comment about it not being a great track, take my word for it, you will not regret the decision to go.
Still on cloud 9 a week later. That will be tough to top.
