Golf

I find it both odd and fascinating how sports can, at times, stir feelings akin to the sacred, even a sense of the holy.      

One of my first experiences of awe while engaged in a sport happened when I was a grad student in Scotland, the country most associated with the beginnings of golf.  Twice, I had the privilege of playing the historic Old Course in St. Andrews, the holy grail of the sport.  No, I am not a millionaire.  Back in the seventies, anyone studying at a Scottish university could play eighteen holes of the most famous golf course in the world for the equivalent of five dollars.   

Sadly, I played poorly on both occasions, and I knew even at the time why this was the case.  The entire time I was playing this golf course of myth, I felt I was an impostor, someone undeserving of the privilege.  How was it that I, an American who rarely broke eighty for eighteen holes, was walking the same fairways and putting the same greens where the sport’s greatest have played?  I felt the ghost of Tommy Morris sizing me up with every swing.  Morris was golf’s great champion of the mid-19^th century, a golfer who, fittingly, was born and died in St. Andrews.

Years later, on a return visit to Scotland and St. Andrews, I knew I couldn’t possibly afford to play a round, but I still wanted to pay my respects to the Old Course.  I stood reverently about forty yards back from the first tee and gazed down on one of the most iconic scenes in golf.  

Slowly, I became aware that there was a commotion occurring by the first tee.  For some reason that I couldn’t initially grasp, a man with an oversized camera was snapping photo after photo of two golfers who were about to begin their round.  The two golfers were smiling at the camera as they leaned on their drivers.  As my eyes focused, I realized the two men were the American actors Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. 

Perhaps the two actors were in Scotland to work on a movie and were taking a break from the filming.  Or, maybe they’d flown to Scotland just to play this legendary course. 

What happened next was priceless and unforgettable.  Out of a little hut, a structure no bigger than an old-fashioned outhouse, walked an elderly Scot.  I realized he was the Old Course’s official starter, and I waited to see what would happen next.  Would he ask for the two actors’ autographs?  Would he ask to have his picture taken with Lemmon and Scott?  No, he walked up the two men and, in a voice loud enough for me to hear every word, said what I remember as, “Aye, if you plan to play, you have a minute to start.”  

Lemmon and Scott, looking like ashamed school boys, apologized profusely.  But the starter had already turned his back and was returning to the hut.  I had no doubt that he was looking at his official timepiece and counting down the seconds.

In my memory, Jack Lemmon teed off first.  It was a low slice that veered into the thick gorse that bordered the fairway.  I knew from first-hand experience that that would be a nearly impossible lie to play.  George C. Scott teed off next, and his shot was no better. 

Was I relieved to see two of America’s greatest actors being humbled by St. Andrew’s Old Course, as I had been humbled years before?  Maybe I was.  But I also felt a kinship with Lemmon and Scott.  What else would have prompted me to call out “Have a good round, Mr. Scott”?  

George C. Scott looked around, thanked me, and shrugged.  I knew exactly what that shrug meant.  It was the look of someone who knows they’re in a battle with an adversary—the Old Course and the ghost of Tommy Morris—that will undoubtedly beat him and beat him badly. 

“Aye, that’d be golf for you.”