Day 2 (Turnberry)

We may have started the trip off with the best course on the trip. Turnberry is a spectacular course, and we got the weather we were waiting for. Cloudy with winds coming out of the Northwest at 25mph and gust upwards of 45mph. Baptism by fire, welcome to Scotland... The wind definitely affected our play and made it mentally, physically, and emotionally difficult to play well. Our caddies tried their best to save us from ourselves. My putting was initially suspect, so my caddie, Tommy (who we came to find out later from the other caddies was called Tommy “Ledbetter” for his tendency to turn golf rounds into teaching clinics), immediately went to work trying to fix me.

Turnberry is set on an amazing piece of land. The course runs along the west coast of Scotland with many of the holes bordering the beach. The clubhouse is a veritable museum of golf with old golf clubs, news clippings, tournament scorecards, and pictures of past championships and champions of the Open. We spent about an hour in the pro shop trying to determine what to buy. Dave picked up a sweater that has so many features that it almost swings for him. We spent about an hour on the range and then got ready to head out into the weather and start our first of 162 straight holes of some of the toughest golf in the world.

Playing the course was tough for everyone. I’m sure you can score well on this course if you can keep it in the fairway and on the green. But that is definitely easier said than done. The wind will send your ball thirty or forty yards in either direction if you have ANY spin on the ball. And the rough is brutal. And the bunkers are brutal. The saving grace is that your caddies can pretty much find any ball you put into the shit; you just have to be able to get it back out. The caddies were great by the way. We had three kids and one old veteran. Tommy, my caddie, was a retired caddie master for Western Gailes and knew an amazing amount about the course, its history, and how to get out of trouble, which helped me greatly. Dave, Ryan, and Jeff had the three kids who were great as well.

The greatest part of the course for me was history and the geography of the course (not my mediocre play, of course). You make the turn at a point facing Ailsa Craig and pass by a lighthouse built around the time the course was built and the ruins of an old castle owned by Robert the Bruce. It’s a piece of history in the middle of a spectacular set of golf holes. We were playing at low tide, but with the wind you could still see the water crashing up against the shores and imagine what it was like back when the course didn’t exist and the castle sat on the point.

We finished our round (I’ll let one the fellas give you the scores) and dragged ourselves back to the clubhouse for drinks and dinner. Fish and chips were on the menu as well as steak pie. Glenmoranghie and Turent’s beer were poured for us as well. As the last ones out of the clubhouse that night, we took one last picture and headed to the hotel. What a great start to the trip.

rtn