EXCERPT
The two gents on the first tee had the Eden Course essentially to themselves. The weather was not unusual for late November in St. Andrews: clear blue but bitterly cold, the kind of cold that sets a nose spouting like a freshly tapped Vermont maple and can rub a nipple raw after 18 holes spent scraping against the stitching of a golf shirt’s embroidered logo. “They aren’t Americans,” thought the man standing behind a second-story window. He appeared to be frowning, but the jetty of blonde hair on his forehead naturally furrowed his brow. In truth, save for the knot in his throat, he could not be happier to be here. He now split his time between houses in London and Oregon, but Scotland was home.
Americans, he thought, would be swaddled from head to toe in Gore-Tex—if they had not bagged golf altogether in favor of a sauna and a massage at the Old Course Hotel’s sparkling new Kohler Waters Spa. These blokes, with their wool sweaters and their beanies, were most certainly locals. They could be university professors or sheep farmers, or quite likely one of each, for in Scotland golf is not a game of kings but a game of the people, and in St. Andrews it is not a privilege but a right.
The history of golf in St. Andrews dates back
over half a millennium, but it was the future, not the past, that
preoccupied David McLay Kidd as he peered out the conference room window
across the Eden, the Old, the New, and the Jubilee courses and out on to
St. Andrews Bay. Watching the
two men tee off was a momentary but welcome distraction from the
painstaking wait for two other men, presently huddled in the hallway, to
return with the verdict that would alter not only the path of Kidd’s
career but also the landscape of golf in St. Andrews forever.
St. Andrews is one of those special destinations where the reality eclipses the anticipation. It is, for golfers, like Disneyland is for children—a fact that many of the 16,000 locals lament, especially during the busy summer months when the narrow streets around town are clogged with cars piloted by tourists not used to driving on the left side of the road. Still, there is no discounting the giddiness a golfer feels driving in on the A91 when the trees clear and the “Auld Grey Toon” suddenly appears. The links are right there; the first turnoff leads straight to the practice center and the Eden Clubhouse. Past that turn the A91 becomes Guardbridge Road, which parallels expansive playing fields that, rain or shine, always seem occupied by students engaged in spirited rugby matches. Beyond the pitch sits the stately Old Course Hotel, beyond which every self-respecting golfer knows sits the famed Road Hole.
Many visiting golfers never venture beyond the six golf courses that comprise the links and the three streets (North, South, and Market) that are the main arteries through the heart of town. In this way it is almost as if the northeast corner of St. Andrews—framed by the beaches of the West Sands, where the running scenes for Chariots of Fire were filmed, and the East Sands, just beyond the ruins of the St. Andrews Cathedral—has been zoned for golf, like The Strip in Las Vegas. St. Andreans who reside in outlying neighborhoods and opt not to go downtown can tend to their gardens, walk their dogs, shop for groceries, go to school, play in the parks, and live their lives in relative peace and quiet. Despite the ubiquitous tourists and the Starbucks, the old town retains an undeniable charm thanks to its cobblestone streets, ancient stone buildings, quaint shops, abundance of pubs, a barbershop offering free whisky with every haircut, and generally lovely people who speak with the most beautiful, if unintelligible, accent on Earth.
Try as he might to convince himself this was just another job, that if he did not get this there would be others, Kidd knew in his mind and in his heart and with every stitch of his soul that such thinking was complete and total shite. The commission to design the first new championship golf course for St. Andrews in nearly a century was simply beyond comparison. Pebble Beach and Augusta National are treasures to be sure, but neither comes close to the history, aura, and spirit that envelop St. Andrews. To Kidd, the only other place that maybe, just maybe, might present such a once in any lifetime opportunity to create something special and lasting was the moon.
One problem with the moon is the lack of pubs. Kidd is keen on a right pub, and the longer he was left waiting in the conference room the more desperately he longed for a pint to help settle his nerves. Not that Kidd’s bladder could handle it after all the coffee he’d drank that morning and the soup he’d been served, as was custom at mid-day meetings inside Pilmour House, headquarters of the St Andrews Links Trust, the body created by the aforementioned Act of Parliament. In addition to managing and maintaining the Links as a public park and place of public resort and recreation, the Act empowered the Links Trust to, “lay out, open up and maintain new and additional golf courses.” In 1993 the Links Trust added the 5,260-yard, par-69 Strathtyrum short course and the 1,520-yard, par-30 Balgove nine-holer, which, along with the Old, New, Jubilee, and Eden, gave the town 99 holes, making it the largest public golf facility in Europe. However, not since the christening of the Eden on July 4, 1914 had the home of golf built a regulation-length course.
The reasons for building a seventh course had been, and remained, a hotly debated topic around town, especially in light of the fact that a number of nearby courses not under the purview of the Links Trust were struggling mightily. But the train had left the station, the requisite signatories were all aboard, and the Links Trust was set to award the most coveted commission in the history of modern golf. Now, at the moment of truth, all David McLay Kidd could think about was how badly he had to use the loo.
Kidd was hesitant to leave the room and risk interrupting Alan McGregor and Gordon Moir, General Manager and Links Superintendent of the Links Trust, respectively. Then again, perhaps they had ducked into McGregor’s adjacent office and the muffled voices Kidd heard on the other side of the conference room door were a couple of co-workers chitchatting about last weekend’s thrilling comeback by Rangers to tie Aberdeen on Barry Ferguson’s penalty kick goal late in the match.
“You look worried,” said Paul Kimber, Kidd’s second-in-command. Kimber pushed his chair back from the table. Fidgety in the dress clothes he donned only when absolutely necessary, he stretched his long legs. Six-foot-five inches tall with broad shoulders, his frame seemed more like a swimmer’s than a golfer’s. He did not fit easily at the conference table, plus he was still feeling the aftereffects of the brutally long plane ride to Scotland. Noting the pained expression on his boss’s face only worsened Kimber’s discomfort.
Kidd tried to blame his grimace on his bloated bladder, but just as Tonto knows when the Lone Ranger is not feeling his Kimosabe self, Kimber sensed Kidd’s confidence was teetering. Kidd’s brain swelled like a popcorn bag going round and round in a microwave oven, kernels of thoughts exploding and cramming his mind with if, ands, or buts. Yes or no, the scenarios were infinite, and yet each ultimately weaved its way back to one inescapable conclusion: No was not an option. They had to, “get to Yes” as Kidd likes to say. They had come too far.
Copyright © 2007 by Scott Gummer