The Postage Stamp

Tuesday, Jul 22^nd – The Postage Stamp

The following is based on a true story.

Cliff Notes

One of our lads couldn’t hold his beer.

Jack’s driver was found sitting outside his cottage door in the morning with a sign that said “Free to a good golfer.”

Troon was magnificent (some beautiful views) and difficult (many deep bunkers and incredibly dense rough.

Our caddies were fabulous and gave us a whole lot of new golf humor – see below.

Chan birdied the 1^st  hole, again !! He seems to do this every round.

Jack birdied the 3^rd hole with a putt from 35-40 yards out in the fairway (i.e. about a 150 foot putt)!!

Paul continues to master putting from off the green (and I mean long putts or putts over serious mounds) to get up-and-down.

Steve just missed a birdie on 18 and ended as medalist with an 80.

Final scores – Championship Course: Steve 80; Paul 83; Chan 84; Jack 86. Trust me – these are really good scores as everyone played a tough course very well.

From the tee on number 7. Where is that fairway anyway?

Final scores in the afternoon – Portland Course: Steve 80; Paul 81; Chan 83; Jack ‘other’.

At dinner, Paul was identified as the obvious bachelor in the group and received a note (carried by our waiter) from Beatrice (who apparently was eating somewhere else in the restaurant). She suggested that Paul contact her that evening.

The Rest of the Story

Actually, on Monday night while driving to Troon from St. Andrews, some of the lads had a few drinks in the back of our Mercedes van. One of the lads (who will go unnamed to protect the innocent) seemed to have a bladder that was unsuited for that much drinking or that much driving. He pleaded with Hilda (our driver) to get to an exit quickly, but there were no exits that appeared to have a restroom, so on Hilda travelled. The lamenting got so loud that Steve offered Chan a rubber band, at which point Hilda pulled over to the side of the road, and the unnamed lad went deep into the bush for relief. When Chan got back in the car, we were on our away again, but Jack refused to give him any more beer.

We awoke to another spectacular sunny, warm day at Troon. Records were being set across the country as temperatures were getting into the upper 80’s, or about 20 degrees above normal. Once again it was shorts, sun screen and sun glasses. Thank goodness there was a slight zephyr to keep us cool (but not the strong winds that can disrupt a golf game).

We had an early morning tee time at Royal Troon Golf Club (note that it is the last course to be given the Royal designation, and according to the Royal Family, it will be the last). It deserves its Royal appellation – home of numerous Open Championships with winners like Palmer, Weiskopf, Calcavecchi and Watson. It has a very large and nice clubhouse with lots of historical pictures, trophies and paraphernalia.

 

At the tee on #1 at Troon.

 

The course is more beautiful, with seaside vistas and more character to it. It was hard and fast, so good drives really roll out, while bad drives (and sometimes good ones) get into the pot bunkers or rough. When I say rough, I mean the toughest rough we have ever seen – even on this trip. My caddie said that they cut the fairways about once a week (grass grows slowly in this climate), the first cut of rough about once a month, and the real rough hasn’t been cut for about 100 years. It’s true !! That means the real rough (we say gorse, or heather or as David Faherty would say “the spinach”) is so thick that walking on it feels like you are walking on a mattress. It is excessively deep and spongey and if your ball goes into it – it is either resting on the thicket and not buried too badly or it is completely lost and won’t be found until they cut the grass in another 100 years.

 

We have a very good group of caddies – knowledgeable, humorous  - that helped us score well and enjoy the perfect day (great course, fabulous weather).  We learned some new golfing terms from our caddies about putting – like the Joe Pesci (a nasty five footer) and the Lance Armstrong (one ball left) – as well as some stories about Tiger Woods that will not make the blog but will be discussed thoroughly at Old Oakland some Wednesday night or Saturday afternoon.

Steve’s caddie used to caddy for Colin Montgomery and was on his bag one year when Monty won the European Tour Championship as well as the European tour money title. He travelled with Monty to the US for one of the Tour Championships that was held in Atlanta. Ultimately, Colin (the caddie) said the money was great, but the travel, stress and demands of managing someone else pretty much 24x7 wasn’t worth it, so he returned to Troon and caddies there for hackers like me. He taught me (and all of us) how to hit shots out of ultra-deep rough (like you can’t even imagine in the US how thick this rough is) as well as deep pot bunkers (he taught me how to hit a ball out of a four foot deep bunker with my ball no more than 6 inches from the wall of the bunker – I actually did it!!!!).

An interesting thing about all the courses is that the holes all have names and many of the features of the course have names as well:

There’s Hogan’s alley on Carnoustie (as seen in previous blog posts) – a very narrow strip of fairway made famous by Ben Hogan. By the way, Jack nailed a drive 282 yards down Hogan’s alley while Steve hit a 282½ yard down the same alley. Paul and Chan found the bunkers.

There’s the Bobby Jones bunker and the Hell bunker at St. Andrews (already mentioned in previous posts).

At Troon, there are many names, but the third most famous hole in all of golf is The Postage Stamp – a 110 yard, downhill, par 3 with a tiny green surrounded by deep sand-traps, rough and steep hillsides covered with rough. There you will find the Coffin bunker (if you’re in it you’re dead) and the Whorehouse bunker (if you’re in it you’re screwed). Really, I cannot make this stuff up. Jack parred from the Coffin and Steve hit a wedge that spun backwards 20 feet off the green into the Whorehouse, but he still parred the hole. Paul had a ho-hum par by two putting the hole. It seems like a very easy hole, but Tiger Woods went 6, 5, 4, 4 on four days of the Open Championship there one year.

   The postage stamp. It is hard to appreciate the amount of 'down-hillness from this photo and how severely the back edge of the green drops off (almost 50 feet).

 

 The foursome at the Postage Stamp.

After our first round we had lunch in the dining room at Troon (no hats please), and enjoyed looking over the 18^th green. In the afternoon, we played the Portland Course at Troon – another very nice links course – with the same hysterical caddies. It was very hot and dry and some of our drives were over 300 yards with Jack outdriving us on one hole by 60 yards (yes, he got his driver out one more time and hit that big high draw with the wind). Again most of us played quite well and we had a very enjoyable afternoon.

 

A couple of other side notes:

It is time to mention that no place has air conditioning since they never see 80 degree weather (and we were hitting 87-89 degrees). So almost everything indoors was stuffy.

We couldn’t find Paul’s golf glove after we unloaded our clubs and shoes from the van, but eventually it came to light were it was.