St. Andrews

"The way she moves really talks to me... I'm going out of my mind`Cause the way that she winds...is truly divine. She takes her time as she approaches me... Then she gives me the sign as she moves her behind... That only God would design" - Lenny Kravitz

The Old Course - St. Andrews

I reached the golfers’ Mecca this past week.

The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland is considered to be the home of golf. It is the oldest golf course in the world, and in a sport that is full of traditions and history, this is THE place where all that tradition and history begins.
I absolutely loved the course. Let’s see if I can put this into words.

I was actually excited the night before my first encounter with the course, just thinking about being able to walk around the place. It was hard for me to go to sleep, and very easy to wake up, which I did even earlier than what I had set my alarm. Without even noticing, I prepared myself just like I was going out on a date; clean shave, thoroughly bathed, combed hair, lots of cologne, my best clothes… nice breakfast (soft boiled eggs) and double-teeth brush. If I would have had the time I would have clipped my nails too, but I got caught preparing Felipe’s bag and didn’t have the time. I know… I am a dork.

Imagine for a moment you are in the middle of the ocean. There are no rocks, no reefs, no beaches that interfere with the endless sway of the waves. There is no roughness, or waves breaking into solid walls of earth or sand. They dance around meeting softly against each other, going in very different and various directions. Some waves are big, some small… others come together with sister waves and others all by themselves. All dancing to different songs, like the earth rotation, the currents, the tides or even the moon. Picture a soft but persistent breeze that ruffles this spot in some lost ocean, giving it just that little extra unsettle-ness and variation to the scene, but not enough to break any of the playful wave dance. Now, somehow someway, nature takes a picture in 3 dimensions, puts a cast over this picture and creates a unique mold, of all these waves, of all the dance, of all that is happening in this un-timed milisecond in history. Nature then turns the mold upside down and fills it up with sand, earth, and grass…

That is the place where St. Andrews lays.

Of course the process where this land developed took hundreds or even thousands of years, but the picture that my mind caught of the land as I walked it for the first time was that; nature, or God if you will, carved those golf holes in this specific place. Men just cut the grass in certain areas, dig a hole in the ground and set a tee box where to start playing. There is no artificial movement of earth, no interference whatsoever by men (well, maybe a lawnmower and a hole digger) just what was left there by time and the everchanging world where we live in.

So the holes go up, down, and sideways. The fairways ondulate, sometimes softly, others hard. So do the greens, which are calm at times and wavy and unsettled at others. The waves of pasture were high enough sometimes that would not allow you to see much further, other times it was as calm as a soft day in a lake and you could see way ahead. I felt as I swam through this picture I talked about, through this sea of land as I marched down through it with Felipe‘s bag on my shoulder… and it made me want to play it SO BAD!!!!!!! So many nicks and knacks and cracks and valleys and peaks and breaks … a golf course with so much life in it! It is crazy!

I’ve been lucky enough to see other links golf courses, but this is by far my favorite. I wonder if there are others that are like this one.. I would love to meet her.

Maybe the next time I am in St. Andrews I will be lucky enough to play it… and dreaming even further, maybe play it a bunch of times!

I wonder if the stars reflect on the Old Course on a clear night… just as they do on seas of dark nights. Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to check that out as well the next time. I wonder as well if I am the only one seeing this… after all, I am the golf dork.