Golf rarely lends itself to perfect moments. Frustration and the occasional obscenity, yes, but much less often are those times when everything is simply the best it could be.
But sometimes it happens.
In April, five men from Mill Creek Country Club, plus a sixth who is a former club employee, stood on the first tee at The Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, believed to be the oldest golf course in the world. No one knows for sure how old it really is, but the best guess is about 500 years — or some 2½ centuries before the American colonies decided it was time to fight for their independence.
For anyone with an appreciation of golf and golf history, then, this is truly hallowed ground. And as these men stood there on the first tee, the emotion of the moment came sweeping over them like the brisk, buffeting winds from off the nearby North Sea.
The feeling of being on The Old Course “is almost indescribable,” said Rick Jorgensen, who lives in Mill Creek. “I won’t claim that it’s the best golf course I’ve ever played, but then you consider the history and the fact that you’re playing at the home of golf, and you think about all the people that have walked on those fairways ahead of you for hundreds of years.”
“Going down the first fairway at The Old Course,” said Lee Fosse of Mill Creek, “it was the same feeling I had when I was in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on a Sunday morning. It was kind of a mystical experience. And it’s the only other time I’ve ever had that same feeling.”
The weather at St. Andrews that day was “vintage Scotland,” said John Scott of Mill Creek. That is, gray skies with a chilly wind that rarely dropped below 30 mph and occasionally gusted to 40 mph.
“Every picture you see on TV of how it can be miserable, that’s what it was,” Scott said. “And I was thinking, ‘I wish it wasn’t blowing this hard. I wish the weather was better.’ But now that I’ve thought about it, I realize it was the perfect weather to play The Old Course. It was links golf at its best and worst, all at the same time.”
For these men, the trip to St. Andrews was part of an 11-day golfing excursion to some of the most famous golf courses in Scotland — or, for that matter, anywhere in the world. They played Carnoustie, which has hosted the British Open seven times, including in 2007. They played Muirfield, which has hosted the Open 15 times, last in 2002, as well as the 1973 Ryder Cup. And, of course, The Old Course, which has hosted the Open a remarkable 27 times, most recently in 2005.
“We dubbed our trip ‘Heaven for Eleven,’” Jorgensen said. “Eleven straight days, and a different course every day.”
In addition to Jorgensen, Fosse and Scott, the group included Barney Dodson of Mill Creek, Jim Paulson of Bothell and Simon Spratley of Lynnwood. Dodson and Paulson are also Mill Creek CC members, while Spratley is the club’s former general manager and today the GM at Seattle’s Sand Point Country Club.
The trip was conceived by Spratley, who was born in Britain and married in Scotland. He also did much of the planning, which began with trying to get tee times at The Old Course. He made an on-line request last September, and then had to wait about two months for a confirmation.
By then the rest of the trip was taking shape, although “we were on pins and needles for those two months, thinking we might not be able to play (The Old Course),” Spratley said.
Those tee times were finally confirmed, and in the meantime Spratley had been booking other courses. Ten more were added to the itinerary, including a last-day stop at the PGA Centenary course at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, which will host the 2014 Ryder Cup.
A few of Scotland’s more notable courses were unavailable, including Royal Troon Golf Club in Troon, site of eight British Opens, which was closed to public play in April. Also, Turnberry Resort in Turnberry, which is closed for the year as it prepares to host its fourth Open in July.
Rather than renting cars, the men hired a bus and driver for the duration of the trip. Tom, a retired schoolteacher from Dundee, was the group’s chauffeur “and he was fabulous,” Spratley said. “He really made the experience.”
Lodging was at local bed-and-breakfasts, which provided the opportunity to mingle with townsfolk. And the Scots, Dodson said, “are really neat people.”
Likewise, the starters and other golf course employees “are very proud of Scotland and very proud of their golf heritage,” Scott said. “Most of them wanted you to enjoy yourself and have a good round.”
For their 11 days of golf, plus going and returning travel days, the men paid between $6,000 and $8,000, depending on personal expenses, including souvenirs. A similar golf vacation here in the United States would be much more expensive, Jorgensen said, “so when you look at what we got for the money, it was a steal.”
And, perhaps surprisingly, the six men never grew tired of golf or each other.
The former was a concern for Jorgensen at the outset. “I was a little worried about 11 days of golf in a row,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘Shouldn’t we have a break and take a day off in the middle?’ But there wasn’t a single day when we got done that I didn’t wish we could go out and play another 18 holes.”
As for the latter, Fosse said, “we had six compatible people, we got along well and we had a good time.”
No one got hurt, which was more good news, although Dodson did catch a cold on the flight to Scotland and later developed a fever of over 100 degrees.
But sit out a day? Not a chance.
“No way did I even think about that,” Dodson said.
Among other memories of note, Paulson managed a hole-in-one on the 15th hole at Cruden Bay Golf Club. Scott played a shot from the road on the famous “Road Hole,” No. 17 at The Old Course (“The caddy said, ‘No, no, you have to play it there.”) Jorgensen broke his sand wedge when his follow-through hit the forward wall of a deep pot bunker. And the entire group posed for a memorable picture on the historic Swilcan Bridge at The Old Course.
This was, Dodson said, “the trip of a lifetime. Scotland is just a unique place to go and play golf.”
The men have talked of doing other golf trips in the future, perhaps in this country and maybe even overseas again, Jorgensen said.
“But I don’t know as if I want to go back to Scotland again,” he said. “I just don’t think it could ever live up to this trip. (The golf) was fabulous. The food was fabulous. The people were fabulous. And the golf courses were just awe-inspiring.”
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