What drives life in St. Andrews? Golf, of course.
This month, golf goes home. It happens every five years, when the game’s oldest and grandest event, the Open Championship (sometimes called the “British Open” by blasphemers), returns to St. Andrews. For a week in July, an ancient little town on Scotland’s rocky eastern coast hosts hordes of visitors, including Rotary club members from all over the world.
Of course, some Rotarians are already there.
Founded in 1927, the Rotary Club of St. Andrews spends most of its time the way you might expect: hosting charity events, travel and historical lectures, concerts, an annual ball, a monthly bridge tournament, and plenty of convivial networking. Every January there’s a Robert Burns lunch, complete with readings of the national poet’s verses and heaping helpings of haggis, the Scottish dish made of sheep’s liver, heart, and lungs, along with suet and spicy oatmeal, cooked inside a sheep’s stomach. (Call it an acquired taste.) There are fundraisers for the Rotaract club at the University of St. Andrews (where Prince William met Kate). But in years divisible by five, when the town becomes the hub of international sport for a week, the Rotary club gets caught up in the excitement.
“Golf Week, as we call it, is simply fantastic,” says St. Andrews Rotarian Eric Brown. “The course is part of the town, with pubs and restaurants only steps from the tournament. People mill around, there are pubs spilling over into the streets, caddies rubbing shoulders with media stars and fans, everyone talking about the events of the day, looking forward to the next day’s play. The buzz around St. Andrews is unlike any other venue. This is indeed the Home of Golf.”
It wasn’t always so. As purists know – and tourists are often surprised to find out – the town’s golfing greatness is the result of a series of fortunate events.
The Old Course at St. Andrews dates to the early 1400s, but it wasn’t the first. Shepherds were knocking stones at rabbit holes soon after a warrior king named Macbeth died in battle in 1057. Golf evolved on local “links,” sandy coastal turf that was no good for farming. Sheep sheltering behind hillocks, ducking the wind and rain, nipped and kicked the turf until the grass died, leaving sandy ditches – bunkers – that trapped early players’ lopsided golf balls.
In the 1850s, the best golfer in Scotland, Tom Morris, helped create a new sort of tournament, open to professionals as well as the aristocratic golfers who paid him to carry their clubs. In his time, “professional” meant caddie; the amateur game, played by well-born gentlemen, was far more important. But after the first “Open Championship,” something interesting happened: People noticed that the lowly caddies played better than the aristocrats. Morris finished second in the first Open Championship in 1860. He won the next year, and again in 1862, ’64, and ’67, while a new breed of “golf fanatics” swarmed the course he built at Prestwick, on Scotland’s west coast. Golf was becoming a spectator sport.
In 1864, Morris got an offer he couldn’t refuse: The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews paid him £50 a year, plus “a barrow, a spade, and a shovel to improve the ragged Old Course.” He set up shop beside the Old Course – a golf shop that exists to this day. He caddied for his social superiors and fashioned their golf clubs out of hickory and iron. He discovered that spreading sand on a putting green made the grass grow. He sank clay drainpipes into his putting greens – the first cup liners – to keep the holes from collapsing in the rain. Those drainpipes happened to be four and a quarter inches across. That’s why every hole on every golf course today is the same size, and why I keep missing short putts.
In Morris’ day, a golf course might be 10 holes long, or 20. After he made the Old Course the jewel of Scotland, other towns trimmed or expanded their links to match the St. Andrews standard of 18 holes.
History moves in mysterious ways. The first dozen Open Championships were held at Prestwick’s 12-hole layout. That’s where Morris’ son Tommy became the Tiger Woods of his day. A handsome young swashbuckler known for swinging so hard that his Balmoral bonnet flew off, Tommy Morris dominated the Open from 1868 through 1870. Three consecutive victories entitled him to keep the original trophy, a red leather Championship Belt with a silver buckle a rodeo star might envy. That left Scotland’s golfers nothing to play for, and the 1871 Open was canceled.
A proper trophy would cost £30, equal to thousands of dollars today. The Prestwick Golf Club didn’t want to pay so much. Now the affluent golfers of St. Andrews saw their chance. By chipping in £10 to pay for a new trophy – the Claret Jug that Rory McIlroy hoisted last year – the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews earned the right to host the Open on a rotating basis. In time the R&A became the international game’s ruling body. St. Andrews became the acclaimed Home of Golf – a multibillion-dollar return on that £10 investment.
This year, as always, the Open will transform the old town. The world’s best golfers, their caddies and entourages, hundreds of reporters, and 200,000 golf fans will all descend on several square miles that normally accommodate 17,000 citizens. “It’s certainly a spectacle, and business booms,” says a nongolfing Rotarian. “It is also a bit of a pain in the arse.”
The locals know that parking, never easy in a town with only three main streets, will soon be impossible. Traffic will back up for blocks. Every restaurant will be booked solid. Gardens will get trampled while howling, drunken celebrants look for their hotels.
“It’s terrible,” a St. Andrean says, “and we wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
For Rotarians, one of the year’s highlights comes in June, when the Rotary Club of St. Andrews International Golf Tournament – the 61st was held last month – matches Rotarians from around the world on the Old Course and other local tracks, such as the Eden and the New Course (founded in 1895). “Last year we had 330 participants, including what I call camp followers – nongolfers enjoying our social program,” says Bill Whyte, the event’s official convener. That tournament saw players from Australia, Botswana, French Guiana, South Africa, the United States, and 18 other countries and areas vie for the coveted Llandudno Cup over five spring days at the center of the golf world.
“What a thrill,” Brown says. “It’s a truly international event – and one of the few ways golfers can guarantee a chance to play the Old Course. Rotarians worldwide, take note!” — Kevin Cook