by Alex McCauley @amccauleyart
Even after living here in St. Andrews for a few weeks, it still feels as though I was plucked from Pennsylvania and placed inside of a photograph.
I landed at the Edinburgh airport shortly before 8 a.m. on September 5th. After a grand total of zero minutes slept during the flight, I was right at the point of exhaustion where my body and mind weren’t communicating. Customs and baggage claim merged into a hallucination that ended by stepping onto the St. Andrews shuttle. After sadly not falling asleep on the hour-long journey, we arrived. I picked up all the necessary items for my tenure from reception and headed to my room. Forced to schlep my luggage across the lawn to my new building, I then proceeded to nap on a sheetless bed for about three hours until I decided my next move. The first three days were difficult in terms of transportation, I didn't have a bike and the bus app, Stagecoach, conveniently never worked. So I walked. I walk about seven miles a day here.
Most of that is from golf.
I’m lucky enough to say that I have never been sucker punched, but my introduction to links golf was as close a feeling as any. The Eden Course, 9:30. Writing those words now makes me shudder. A morning filled with naive eagerness quickly sank into soaking despair by noon. My crispy white pants had taken on a new shade, damp from both rain and fear. But my new rain jacket, the first I have owned for golf, was serving its purpose with dignity. My playing partners, one a captain of the competitive team, retreated from the elements after the ninth hole, followed by me. A rude awakening is understating it, but it prepared me for redemption on the Old a few days later.
Nothing will prepare you for the first tee at the Old Course. One minute you’re strolling cobblestone streets and the next you’re floating on ancient turf akin to the Mona Lisa. Oh, and on the first tee, there are fifty eager tourists waiting for you to shank it into the burn. The course moves so effortlessly between tee to fairway to green to tee, with occasional pits of eternal suffering dotted in between. Once we completed the turn, and the sun’s light mellowed with the wind, all became clear. Seemingly every hole of every course I have ever played stems from what I just played.
The common ancestor.
Crossing the Swilcan Bridge felt like grabbing my college diploma at commencement. I teleported to the other side, but somehow there is a photo of me smiling on it. Finishing with a crowd perched atop the Rusack’s hotel examining my every move didn’t feel like as big a hurdle now. A good round on the card, a better one for the soul.
I’m slowly becoming a part of this place. Now that I have a rusty commuter bike at my disposal, I can cruise around the tight streets, gazing at the brown brick buildings and tourists on my way to economics classes in the aptly named Castlecliffe building. That’s technically the reason I’m here, to get a Master’s degree. The photographic feeling comes mostly on the bike ride back to my apartment. I start the ride down The Scores, turn left at the R&A, right onto The Links (adjacent to the 18th fairway), around the line of tourists waiting for the Swilcan Bridge to clear, then behind the road hole and through the Old Course Hotel parking lot. That’s six sites some people wait their entire lives to see. What makes me worthy to ride along golf’s holiest commute? Am I even allowed to have a bad day when the whole world’s golfing population is envious of me? These are just a few of the brain ripping thoughts I discover when procrastinating my econometric modeling homework.
And to the golfers reading this; I swear I’ll only ever ascend the Swilcan Bridge for golfing reasons. No recreational crossings allowed, only ritual ones.
1 comment
Thank you!