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An ordinary golfer plays England's formidable Royals and St. Andrews' Old Course
Royal Liverpool
Royal Lytham
Royal Birkdale
St. Andrews
By David G. Molyneaux
HOYLAKE, England
An October drizzle began after lunch, mixing with the winds off the Irish Sea to provide a cold, wet afternoon game at famed Royal Liverpool Golf Club.
"Rain makes the game more authentic," said Charlie Grimley, my partner for the Liverpool round on a quest to play three of England's Royal golf courses, as designated through the centuries by kings and queens.
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| Bunkers, like this one at England's Royal Lytham, are deep and mean. |
My list also included Royal Lytham & St. Annes and Royal Birkdale, site of this summer's British Open championship.
I would finish with a visit to golf's ancient roots at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
As an amateur golfer who sometimes labors to break 100, I felt blessed to walk the fairways of some of the world's best courses, which are open to travelers at a time when many of the top tournament championship courses in the United States are difficult, if not impossible, to get to play. Because of their exclusivity, a regular Joe can't even have lunch in the clubhouse.
Hungry for U.S. tourism dollars, England's old bastions of golf clubiness are setting out the welcome mat to men and women travelers. Of course, English pounds come at a high price these days, as the exchange rate pushes golf fees at some courses to over $250, but other championship venues, while not Royal, are available for as little as $70.
You don't just show up here; you arrange a tee time through a tour operator or through a special Web site. I can attest that the system works.
Links to the links
Tips and recommendations on how to arrange golf in Scotland and England, including Royal Birkdale, sight of the 2008 British Open. |
Trespassing on hallowed ground
Anxious at my first Royal, I was braced to feel that I didn't belong, that I was trespassing on hallowed ground.
But my fears were ungrounded. Perhaps Britain's stiff upper-lippers have gone to charm school, because I was welcomed warmly by staff and members at all three Royals.
Each club, all within an hour's drive of the city of Liverpool, had my tee time noted, my rental clubs ready when I arrived. At two courses I used a coupon, included in the golf fee (more than $200 each), for a light lunch in the clubhouse.
I sat with a bowl of vegetable soup at a window overlooking the 18th greens at Liverpool and Lytham, anticipating the rounds to come and imagining past championship crowds and famous finishes.
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Large, hungry bunkers guard a green at windswept Royal Liverpool
Photo by Ed Stone, GoGolfandTravel.com |
Walking wet, carrying my clubs
The weather at Royal Liverpool made no effort to be hospitable to a visiting American.
With temperatures in the low 60s that felt like 50s in the wind, I was decked out in a warm undershirt, flannel long-sleeved shirt, fleece windbreaker and green rain jacket with rain pants.
In the drizzle, I swooshed -- that's the sound of plastic pants rubbing against the thighs -- to the first tee. I hit a poor shot that found the left rough, then slung my rented golf bag over my shoulders, thankful for the relatively recent invention of the dual strap that evens the load over both shoulders.
On most courses in the UK, you won't find motorized golf carts -- they are called buggies here -- and if you want a caddy, you'll need to arrange that ahead of time.
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The clubhouse at Royal Liverpool
Royal clubhouse photos by England's Golf Coast | The Royal courses, as with most of the other courses in England, Scotland and Wales, are designed for competition between players who carry their own clubs, in a test of both skill and stamina.
Weekend American golfers accustomed to riding around in a motorized cart may want to get into walking shape -- 18 holes usually covers more than 4 miles per round -- before heading across the Atlantic.
I could have used a pull cart with wheels at Liverpool, as I did when I played alone at Lytham and Birkdale. But I didn't want to disappoint Charlie, my playing partner. Charlie, who grew up near Liverpool, was chagrined enough because of the lightness of the rain, which stopped altogether after 10 soggy holes -- reducing the challenge, as Charlie saw it. Like other golfers from the United Kingdom, Charlie has his entertaining stories of playing competitive rounds during rain driven horizontally by swirling winds off the sea.
Our battle against the elements was authentic enough for me.
Royal Liverpool, built in 1869, played long and difficult, with greens that you can't see from the fairways and winds that blow your ball left or right if you hit the high, smooth shots that usually work in the United States. The Royals are links courses, which generally means a windswept landscape, bumpy, sandy soil and prodigious bunkers. (See definition in sidebar.)
I made major use of my 5 iron, punching my way around the course, a bogey plus golfer for 18 holes. (Note to non-golfers: A bogey is one shot over par. Bogey plus is a humdrum quality of play producing a score that might reach a total of 100, versus the goal of 72).
Don't keep score, said the club pro
The October weather cleared a bit for my round at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club.
Asked his advice for someone playing Royal Lytham for the first time, club pro Eddie Birchenough said: "Don't keep score. The course is a special place, but it will just beat you up."
And it did, though I've never so enjoyed such a thorough beating.
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Clubhouse at Royal Lytham. The flag on the 18th hole is above the middle bunker. The first tee is to the left. |
Lytham's narrow fairways are framed by tall grasses on dunes of sand and short trees that permanently lean sideways from the wind. Greens are high in the centers and slope to the sides, so a shot to the green may trickle back off into a bunker.
Bunkers are score killers, 197 of them placed to gobble up just about any shot that doesn't go where you planned it, shots that were poorly planned and especially shots that were not planned at all. Many of the fairway bunkers are so deep that your only goal is to hit your ball out, with no hope of advancing toward the green.
Lytham is easy to forgive because it's such a pretty place, from the first tee that sits along a gentle path next to the impressive red brick clubhouse to the daunting greens on the 6th hole, protected by six bunkers, and the 9th hole, surrounded by nine. I counted 15 bunkers barring my way to a well-deserved bogey on the 18th hole.
Playing at the site of the British Open
The entrance to Royal Birkdale Golf Club, where the 2008 British Open begins July 17, is a simple, potted country road through a pasture. Birkdale has hosted eight Open Championships, and the awe of being ordinary golfer getting to play this extraordinary course struck me on the first tee.
Out popped Bert Beddows from the starter's hut. Beddows, formerly a Royal Marine, now the official starter at Royal Birkdale, was my first golf starter attired in tie and tweed jacket, quite a change from the typical American in T-shirt and shorts.
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Bert Beddows, right, dispenses advice on Birkdale's first tee.
Photos by Molyneaux
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Beddows is not shy. As he ticked off my name from his list of tee times, he chatted, offered advice and set the standard of reverence for a round at Birkdale.
"I see you are using an iron," said Beddows, as I eschewed a bigger club and chose a 5 iron from my rental bag for a safer tee shot that I hoped to hit into the center of the fairway.
"Tiger Woods used an iron on this hole," he said.
Beddows took a position about 10 feet from me and stood watching, evaluating my swing like a commentator at a professional tournament.
I smacked a less than successful shot. It hit the fairway but trickled into the left rough about 175 yards out.
"Backswing a little fast," he said, respectfully, as he returned to his starter's hut to await the next golfer needing advice or encouragement.
Charlie Grimley, my playing partner at Liverpool, would have been disappointed in the weather that delightful October day -- dry and warm, with sunny skies and gentle breezes off the ocean.
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| Winds off the sea, behind the dunes, right, whip across Birkdale's 6th green. | I hacked my way for 18 holes, noting the subtle difficulties of the course, which winds around sand dunes packed with tall grass so thick that an errant ball is lost forever.
At every hole, I would imagine Tiger Woods. Then I would hit about halfway to where his shot would have landed. Birkdale is designed to punish mistakes by good golfers who hit long shots. The course is more merciful to ordinary players whose shorter shots find less danger. By laying up in front of the guarding bunkers, thus reducing the difficulty of my final approaches to the greens, I managed to play respectable bogey golf -- thanks to Beddows' admonition to slow my backswing.
After the round, I prolonged the glorious experience by sitting with a beer on the clubhouse patio next to the 18th green, watching other golfers finish Birkdale. That will be a choice seat at this summer's British Open.
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The clubhouse patio by the 18th green at Royal Birkdale, site of the British Open in July 2008. |
Where golf for the public began
Nearly every golfer has a goal to play the fabled Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
The Old Course, where local citizens have had the privilege to play for more than 400 years, sits in the middle of the busy medieval city of St. Andrews, on the edge of the North Sea.
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Gorse grows thick along the fairways on the Old Course.
Photos by Judi Dash | The layout looks like a combination of golf course, sheep's pasture and wild backcountry gathering place for socializing, which it is. On Granny Clark's Wynd, a dirt road that runs directly across the 1st and 18th fairways, local folks often stroll as if they own the place, which they do.
To play the Old Course, you can book a tee time through tour operators ahead of your visit or take your chances in St. Andrews on the daily ballot: You play if your name is drawn. If not, you try again the next day.
A spot on the daily ballot of the Old Course opened for me when a man from Chicago was unable to make his trip to Scotland to join three friends who had booked as a foursome.
In gusting winds off the ocean and an occasional light rain, the Old Course played even tougher than it looked -- windswept, with open fields like animal pastures, double greens, hungry bunkers and roughs with gorse that grabs and hides your ball. I marveled at how the game has remained the same in Scotland for more than 500 years while it has changed -- gentrified, citified and manicured -- in other parts of the world.
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| On the 18th hole, Molyneaux, right, finally makes a par putt. | With my partners, I smiled for all 18 holes, despite errant shots and short putts. I finished with a par after a 12-foot putt and basked in the applause of spectators, who tend to gather near the 18th green at the edge of downtown.
Nearly three dozen other courses of note lie within an hour's drive of the Old Course, including the impressive new Castle Course set to open this summer (2008).
That means that with enough time and money, you could play golf here at a different course every day for a month. At 4 miles to a course, you could walk 120 miles of rugged golf.
Don't forget to bring sturdy shoes, layers of warm clothes and rain gear, because golf on this side of the Atlantic doesn't stop for inclement weather.
So prepare to embrace it.
Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net
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