“I’ve never missed a putt in my
mind.” Jack Nicklaus
Carol
writes: It was with little fanfare and
hardly a sign that that we crossed into Scotland 18 days after we had
arrived in the UK. We crossed our first firth
of many just outside of Edinburgh by way of the bridge over the Firth of Forth
(has such a lovely ring to it).
We decided
to bypass the city of Edinburgh for now and save our visit for the end of our
Scottish loop, at which time the Scottish kids would be back in school,
Edinburgh’s festival season would have run its course, and hopefully crowds
would be much more manageable.
Many weeks
ago in a campground in France we had chatted with a Scottish couple who gave us
lots of tips about places to go and things to see in Scotland, and one of their
recommendations was to go to St. Andrews.
St. Andrews is known in the golfing world as ‘The Home of Golf’ and lays
claim to be the place where golf was invented and has been played since at
least the 15th century. The
British Open is played at St. Andrews Old Course every 5 years and has been
played there a whopping 28 times.
So, for the
golfing connection alone, we headed up the east coast to St. Andrews.
We should
have been paying more attention to the signs we had been seeing along the road that mentioned
something about the “Ricoh British Women’s Open Championship,” especially the dates. When
we arrived at the St. Andrews car park, we were glad we had gotten an early
start because parking spaces were already starting to fill up with fans for the
Saturday round of the British Women’s Open Championship. All that mattered to us was that we got a
parking spot, not very easy for a 23-ft. RV in city lots built for small cars.
As we headed
toward the oceanfront course at St. Andrews, we detected a very happy, festive
atmosphere.
Our walk
took us right next to the 18th hole where many a thrilling British
Open match has been decided, past the little bridge that is a famous landmark
at St. Andrews,
then a
little further on to the iconic old clubhouse, where I proudly had my picture
taken.
As all golf
aficionados know, the St. Andrews course is right next to the beach
and is
infamous for its many challenges with hilly topography, hellish bunkers, rainy
days, and unpredictable winds. In fact,
despite the incredibly lovely and breezy sunny day we were having, we found out
later that Women’s Open play was suspended shortly after noon because of high
winds with gusts that were toppling some of the metal barriers. Al and I were thinking to ourselves, “Isn’t
wind just a part of the game?” One of
the course officials graciously chatted with us and explained that play has to
be suspended in the interest of fairness when the winds are so powerful that the
golfers’ balls are moved around. Then it
all made sense…
As we
continued our walk into the town, we passed by displays and ruins depicting the
role St. Andrews played in the religious conflicts of the 16th
century Protestant Reformation. At that
time St. Andrews was the focus of Catholic religious power, and Protestant
conflict evolved over new ideas raised by Martin Luther and John Calvin. The bishop’s castle was besieged
and the
cathedral was destroyed.
It was
interesting walking through the ancient cemetery attached to the cathedral
grounds. One of my favorite tombstone
epitaphs was one for Margaret Stuart Hunter (d. 1917) that read: “SHE
DID WHAT SHE COULD.”
Next to the
cemetery we briefly strolled past the most prestigious university in
Scotland—the University of St. Andrews. In
the informative university museum we discovered that student life at St.
Andrews is steeped in many ancient traditions, one of the most fascinating for
me being the wearing of distinctive red academic gowns. In recent times, two of St. Andrews’ most
famous alums include Prince William and Kate Middleton, who went to university
together St. Andrews.
When we left
St. Andrews, we headed north along the east coast, then cut inland through the
majestic Cairngorm Mountains. We were
finally seeing some of that fabulous natural Scottish beauty that we had been
told about by so many people along the way.
We saw grand open vistas, grass-covered hills, small ski resorts that were closed for the season, and
lots of sheep.
Heather and
also fireweed, which I recognized from our trip to Alaska, were in full bloom
and formed large patches of gorgeous purple carpets.
Balmoral,
the Queen’s Scottish estate, is located in the Cairngorms. I could easily understand why it is one of
the favorite vacation spots of Prince Charles.
From the
Cairngorm Mountain region it was a short drive to the coast that borders the
Moray of Firth that projects out into the North Sea. Our next destination was Culloden Battlefield,
where we would get a heavy dose of pivotal Scottish history, followed by our
first taste of Scottish Neolithic history at Clava Cairns.
“The harder I practice the luckier I
get.” Gary Player
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