Trip of a Lifetime (Part One, Chapter Three)

III. Good and Bad

We wake up on Saturday morning to an absolutely glorious day. Sunny and warm, 70 degrees, absolutely no wind. This is Scotland? We are playing the Eden Course at St. Andrews this morning, followed by the Championship Course at Carnoustie in the afternoon. What a day! We drive over to the Eden Course and check in. We are in buoyant spirits. Unfortunately the gentleman checking us in at the Eden Course has other ideas. He actually asks for our PROOF of a tee time. Luckily, I actually HAVE the email printed out with our little confirmation number on it. Yeah, like what are the chances that I'm just going to walk up to him and out of the blue say "I believe you have a 7:12 tee time for Whayne, party of two." Do I LOOK like the criminal type? Do I LOOK shady? Would a 46-year old man REALLY make a living out of driving around Scotland, stealing other people's tee times? And would I REALLY try to do this at the EDEN COURSE, of all courses? I just don't think he liked Americans. Either that or he was mad that he was stuck working at the Eden Course instead of the Old or New Course. Other than the Old Course, this is the only time on the trip where we are REQUIRED to provide PRINTED documentation of an existing tee time. It kind of ticks me off and takes the wind out of my sails. Thanks for the buzzkill, guv'nah!

He hands over our scorecard and pencils to us, and still kind of put off by him, I jam my hand into my pocket and promptly IMPALE IT on the needle-sharp pencil he just gave me! I'm bleeding all over myself as I stagger off to the first tee!

I manage to scrape up a bogey on the first hole, and then promptly hit my tee shot on #2 out of bounds. It lands in the Elysian Fields of the 14th Hole of the Old Course. I jump over the short stone wall, play my ball back into the Eden Course, and it goes right into a gorse bush: lost ball. That's karma justice, I guess, for jumping the wall onto the Old Course.

On the 4th hole, a short par four, I DRIVE the green, only to three-putt for par. Roger one-putts for birdie. As they say, drive for show, putt for dough. The rest of the round proceeds rather uneventfully.

Before we head up to Carnoustie, we wander over to the 1st tee at the Old Course, to watch a few groups tee off, and lo and behold, we run into the same guy we shared a table with the night before at the Dunvegan Hotel's Lounge Bar. Weird.

We drive up to Carnoustie and watch the gathering clouds. Looks rather ominous. So much for our glorious day. It's as if the Carnoustie Gods are conspiring against us. "You are NOT allowed to play MY course in benign conditions!" We are told that since the British Open is going to be played at Carnoustie in 3 weeks, we have to use rubber mats in the fairway. We check in, and they give us these little astroturf rectangles that we are required to carry along with us, and put down whenever we have a shot from the fairway. OK, whatever. Then, it starts to rain. Oh boy.

I get off to a good start, even in the rain: only 2 over par after four holes. But then the wheels start to come off. On the fifth hole, I end up taking an X on it (probably an 8 or 9 if I was counting). I lose my little green mat, forget it another time and have to go back for it, but manage to regroup and par #6, Hogan's Alley. I par #7 so now I'm 6 over after 7 in the rain with a quadruple bogey. Not too bad. Then it starts to rain so hard that I can't even grip my club anymore. It slips out of my hand twice on the 8th tee. Roger birdies #8 and shoots 39 on the front nine. He's playing in this monsoon like the priest from Caddyshack. I can't hold onto my clubs anymore and walk off the course after the 10th hole.

I am completely and utterly soaked to the bone. I walk in from the eleventh tee and change clothes in the car. I decide to drown my sorrows with a beer and wait for Roger. He finally gives up after #13. It's raining sideways. We drive back to St. Andrews, looking and smelling like two drowned rats.

My finger (remember the pencil incident from this morning?) is really starting to throb, so I buy some ointment for it and head back to my room. All of my clubs, grips and clothes are soaking wet. I dry them off as best I can, crank up the heat, and go to bed. The day went from totally glorious sunshine to typhoon-like conditions in about 8 hours.