Storming the Castle Course

We stormed the Castle Course in St. Andrews yesterday and the walls held. Without a doubt, I would say this is now the hardest course in Scotland. It is long and there are a lot of hazards. Most courses here rely on the weather to protect them, the Castle Course has a many well placed bunkers, high grass mounds in the middle of the fairway and tricky greens, so even on a sunny day this course would be a challenge.

Let's address the mounds first. They have been dubbed "Don Kings" by the locals as the stick up out of the fairway and have high grass on the top. They are well positioned, protecting the main landing areas on the fairways of several long holes. If you get behind one, all you can do is take a lofted club and hit over it, so they usually count for at least a one stroke penalty. Less conspicuous but just as deadly are the bunkers. While they are mostly off the fairways (unlike the Old Course) they can be very steep and difficult to hit out of. A miss-hit will again cost you at least one stroke. Another hazard that comes into play is the North Sea. This course hugs the coast much tighter than any of the other St. Andrews Links courses. There are several holes that a ball hit too strong into the green will carry off the cliff and into the water. The most dramatic hole on the course is the 17th. It is a 220 yard par three that plays into the the prevailing wind over the water. Both the tee and the green are on high points as close as you can get to the sea, with about 200 yards of carry over an inlet. It seems to be inspired by the famous hole at Cypress Point.

The final challenge, if you ever make it there, are the greens. There is not a flat area on any one of them. Even with all the rain they have had, they were still very fast. It is not hard to hit a put that almost stops at the hole, takes one more turn, then picks up speed and rolls off the green. There is even a story of a New Club member who putted off the green in a competition and couldn't find his ball. The grass mounds and the greens are a huge source of controversy. Almost everyone I talked to said the course is too hard. The greens keepers I talked to said there are plans to shave a few of the Don Kings back this winter, so the course will look different next year. The bigger issue is what to do with the greens. There are no easy pin placements and in the summer they can only get faster. I doubt they will invest the time and money to completely redo them, but some changes will have to be implemented. Overall this is an amazing course and a great addition to the St. Andrews Links arsenal, it'll be interesting to see how it changes over the years.

After the golf, we hit the New Club for a couple of pints while my Dad figured out that Mom had her Visa card stolen in Barcelona. They were walking down the street when a young guy came up and asked directions in English. A minute later two guys who said they were police, asked to see what was in their pockets and purse as they said this was an area well known for drug deals. Even though they were suspicious of the situation the person claiming to be a cop was able to lift my Mom's Visa card out of her purse. Luckily Chase suspected something was wrong and denied the charges as they tried to buy a bunch of electronics and cancelled the card. A good thing to remember when travelling if something feels suspicious, trust your instincts and get out of there.

We had dinner at Ziggys, a great steak and burger place that has been around for just over 20 years. They started out as a take out cart, then moved up to a store front, then in 1985 moved into a great space behind Ma Bell's. We had the nachos and quesadillas to start, which were both great, then we all had a burger and chips which was huge and very tasty. We closed out the night with a beer at Ma Bell's, a bar I used to work at back in 1987. It has gone a lot more upscale since I worked there. Monday night was open night mike and there was a young guy singing county songs that we could not understand a word of because his Glasgow accent was so thick.