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ENLARGEAlex Palm, right, and friend Kyle Hudson of Eugene stand on the first tee at the St. Andrews golf course.
I recently had the privilege of traveling to Scotland for a golf vacation with three of my closest college buddies.
We started our trip at the home of golf, St. Andrews. Through a friend of a friend, we had the great honor of receiving temporary member status for two days at The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, which gave us full use of the Clubhouse and a coveted tee time on the Old Course.
After successfully navigating the famed road hole, I stepped onto the 18th tee at level par with thoughts of a closing birdie. I promptly proceeded to miss the widest fairway in all of golf and hit several ancient buildings whose location could only be described as being south of the golf course. After my closing double, we retired to the men’s locker room located in the basement of the clubhouse about 10 paces off the 18th green. We quickly showered, changed into our ties and jackets, and headed into the clubhouse to relive the adventures of the day.
After several hours and more than a few pints, we noticed that there was a covered balcony above that overlooked both the 1st tee and 18th green. We immediately decided that this would be a much better vantage point to watch the action on the course. Several dead ends later, drinks in hand, we stumbled into a large upstairs room accessing the balcony.
Halfway through the room, we were greeted by a voice questioning, “Can I help you lads?”
We looked over and saw a middle-aged man sitting behind an immense desk whose previous use must have been by the knights of King Arthur’s Court. After a brief moment of silence, we replied that we were planning on taking our drinks onto the balcony to enjoy the evening sun. He stated that it was actually his private balcony and usually not open to members. He then introduced himself as Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A.
As soon as we picked our mouths off the floor, we introduced ourselves and ended up enjoying our frosty beverages with our new friend. We ended our visit when he had to jump on a conference call to discuss golf as an Olympic medal sport.
The next time I saw Pete was a few weeks later on TV, when he presented Padrig Harrington with the Claret Jug.
We started our trip at the home of golf, St. Andrews. Through a friend of a friend, we had the great honor of receiving temporary member status for two days at The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, which gave us full use of the Clubhouse and a coveted tee time on the Old Course.
After successfully navigating the famed road hole, I stepped onto the 18th tee at level par with thoughts of a closing birdie. I promptly proceeded to miss the widest fairway in all of golf and hit several ancient buildings whose location could only be described as being south of the golf course. After my closing double, we retired to the men’s locker room located in the basement of the clubhouse about 10 paces off the 18th green. We quickly showered, changed into our ties and jackets, and headed into the clubhouse to relive the adventures of the day.
After several hours and more than a few pints, we noticed that there was a covered balcony above that overlooked both the 1st tee and 18th green. We immediately decided that this would be a much better vantage point to watch the action on the course. Several dead ends later, drinks in hand, we stumbled into a large upstairs room accessing the balcony.
Halfway through the room, we were greeted by a voice questioning, “Can I help you lads?”
We looked over and saw a middle-aged man sitting behind an immense desk whose previous use must have been by the knights of King Arthur’s Court. After a brief moment of silence, we replied that we were planning on taking our drinks onto the balcony to enjoy the evening sun. He stated that it was actually his private balcony and usually not open to members. He then introduced himself as Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A.
As soon as we picked our mouths off the floor, we introduced ourselves and ended up enjoying our frosty beverages with our new friend. We ended our visit when he had to jump on a conference call to discuss golf as an Olympic medal sport.
The next time I saw Pete was a few weeks later on TV, when he presented Padrig Harrington with the Claret Jug.
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