The Misty Birthplace of Golf

By Tom Callahan

No one is exactly sure when or where golf was invented, and only God knows why. The Romans, the Dutch, the Chinese and a few others over the years have been willing to take partial responsibility, reasoning that any grassy place with shepherds and crooks might have done it. After all, what is more inevitable than a man lifting a club to vent some hideous rage on the most innocent object in his path?

The consensus is that it came from Scotland. So, whatever their ancestry, golfers are disposed to imagine that, in some essential way, they did too. As for the location of the Scottish maternity ward, there is no question. It is St. Andrews. According to the Morrises (Old and Young Tom), Bobby Jones and Henry Cotton, a serious golfer cannot be confirmed without going home to the broom and bracken of the Old Course. Furthermore, it is considered a crime against nature to trace a route any less circuitous than by way of Turnberry, Troon, Prestwick and Muirfield.

"Serious golfer" is a superfluity, since there are no frivolous ones. Even the most heartbreaking hacker is expected, indeed required, to hand his soul over in significant measure to the game. In return, he is issued a sackful of allegories and a lot of little road maps pointing to the unfairness, or at least the arbitrariness, of life. Ostensibly, a number of tangibles go with it as well.

Golf is considered a boon to both physical and mental health, though almost no one ever looks or feels better after a round. While intended to be a display of self-control, fundamentally it reveals temper. Implied in the $ game's sociability are honor, forthrightness, friendship, kindness, courtesy, generosity and understanding. But nearly nowhere are frailties of character laid barer than on a golf course. After 18 holes with a stranger, you know him. And golfers are as prone as the police to develop fatalistic cynicisms about their fellow men.

For beginning this summer's pilgrimage, Turnberry on the west coast seems a happy spot, being so convenient to Glasgow. The course fairly floats in midair over the Firth of Clyde, much the way Pebble Beach overlooks the Pacific Ocean, including the crashing surf and even the barking seals. Turnberry's open spaces are generous, and the heavy work is yet to come: the hands ringing in the heather and the hands wringing over the gorse. Scottish golf is a bouncier brand, played as much on the ground as in the air, and only when the putts are rolling well does anyone look up at the sky.

The outline of an island is visible on the sea. An old Spitfire runway has been commandeered by a wing of gulls. Their strafing missions are conducted over a neglected lighthouse. All in all, quite beautiful. Still, it's easy to see how Tom Watson was able to close with 65-65 to Jack Nicklaus' 65-66 in their famous staring match at the 1977 Open. Turnberry is a soft place to start.

Even with its charming "postage-stamp" hole, aced by Gene Sarazen at the age of 71, Troon is more distant, dim, vague, gray, dreamy and melancholy, much closer to the mind's impression of moors and mires. It resembles a battleground that is really a testing ground, bumpy and full of bad breaks. Like youth, the longest shots start to go a little awry, until, like hope, they disappear entirely into the darkness of the day. "Unrecoverable," say the caddies without irony, over and over. "Unrecoverable." On the moonlit night, the golf-course hotel might be Baskerville Hall. From the center window of the Roberto de Vicenzo suite, the shadow of the course appears to be moving. Something emits a low, long, unimaginably sad wail. It's a golfer.

Prestwick is moodier still, especially without caddies. This is the original Open course, drafted for the first twelve championships, not re-elected since 1872. But for occasionally happening on a green, one would never suspect Prestwick was a golf course. It looks like the Ponderosa. A par-four hole is overdriven from the tee, while a par-three one is unreachable from anywhere. Most of the holes are par fives. The sole compensation for being lost and confused all day is a blind 3-iron shot at the 201-yd. fifth hole, aimed high over a scrubby embankment but pushed comically to the right. It turns out to be 5 ft. from the cup.

The last stop before the city of St. Andrews in the kingdom of Fife is the east coast and Muirfield, the most elegant estate on the Firth of Forth. No trees, no burns (creeks), 165 sand traps. It is raining sideways, and one of the caddies is a matron named Heather, who replies in confusion to every profane mention of the stuff. Keep a grip on the club, get a grip on yourself. The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers goes back to 1744 and leather golf balls filled with boiled feathers. But the club still hasn't got around to building a pro shop. Modern ammunition can be purchased at the tobacco counter in the dining room, the nerve center of the operation.The custom is to play 18 holes, dress up for lunch, then play 18 more.

At table, a steely old Scot with a military carriage who ought to have side- whiskers introduces his grandson and retells his favorite Muirfield tale of the day Watson both won the 1980 Open and was kicked off the course. With authentic old niblicks and featheries, he had gone back out after hours in the company of the historian Ben Crenshaw, only for a hole or two, to cement his memory. The club secretary, Paddy Hamner, dragged them off by the ears. "But, of course," the grandfather says, "you're on that same sort of mission, aren't you? You're on your way to St. Andrews."

It's a little gray city of turrets and spires, cathedrals, castles and university complexes, bookstores and pubs. Between a hill of cutout ruins and the turgid North Sea rests the Old Course in its original and only form, where golf has been played since the 12th century. Every course has 18 holes only because this one does.

The nicknames of the landmarks that dot the holy land are as familiar as the wind to golfers: the Swilken Burn, the Principal's Nose, the Beardies, the Coffins, Hell Bunker, the Road Hole, Granny Clarke's Wynd, the Valley of Sin. An elderly caddie named Alex, who wears a checkered cap but otherwise has the grace not to be too picturesque, checks them off as you go. Every calamity has its accompanying parable: "This bunker you're buried in is the Bob Jones bunker. Unable to escape it, he stormed off the property and pledged never to return. Of course, he came back to win the Amateur and the Open both."

After a dismal while, though, Alex begins to fret about the destructive + force of tradition and tries to lighten the atmosphere. "Forget the Beardies, the Coffins and the Principal's left nostril," he says. "You have three pars on the trot now." But too many shots, moments and memories have been missed. The game is up. On the 18th hole, a meager drive, a half-skulled 6-iron, a pitifully pulled putt and a long tap-in add up to a par four that tastes like turned milk. "You're home," whispers Alex, graciously leaving off the "laddie." Home? Right. Yeah. Sure. Well. It's good to be home.