A Little Slice of Fife – Part 6

Carnoustie Golf Links

By Marshall Carder

Bert had agreed to drive us around the council area of Fife up to Carnoustie (in the council area of Angus) and arrived very early the next day to collect us for the hour ride. We were well rested but full of anticipation and downright fear of facing such a tough course, but at the same time we had just played three straight days on the most hallowed ground in golf, so we almost felt like we were going to be able to handle it.
    Carnoustie is different from the other links that we had just played in that it is extremely well manicured, like the resort courses in the USA, yet a very hard test lurks just beneath this beautiful veneer. It was deliberately designed by man’s hand and thus does not have that roughhewn natural charm of the St. Andrews Gems. That said, Carnoustie has an amazing layout that feels very much like a modern cousin of those classic links even though it predates both the New Course and Jubilee by fifty years. Constant tinkering and renovating over the years have given Carnoustie a feel much different from the wind-swept dunes, but preserves the most fundamental elements of riveted bunkers, gorse bushes, deep heather, and rock-hard fairways, not to mention the stiff Scottish breeze lashing players as they make their way around. And while everything in St. Andrews looks and feels very old, Carnoustie has a very modern and new feel to it. From the glistening glass clubhouse to the perfectly round practice green, everything about the place is cutting edge

The Famous Spectacle Bunkers

As is often the case with old golf courses in Scotland and England, Carnoustie has no practice fairway, otherwise known as a driving range. Thus, when you step up to the first tee at what many consider to be the hardest test in the world, you do so without so much as one practice shot. We had decided that Brooks, Bert, and I would play together in the first group, and Wells and Jared would play with Jim and Ron.
    Bert and Brooks were playing to forward tees together, which meant that I would tee off first from the back tee. With a small crowd gathered around, I went through my routine and proceeded to snap hook the ball right into the bridge about 50 yards left of the tee and straight into the famed Barry Burn, otherwise known as Pitairlie Burn, a minor river in Angus, Scotland. The caddie told me not to worry, that I was in good company. Tiger Woods had done the exact same thing on the hole his first time around. The story goes that he yelled out to the crowd to ask if it was in the water, and “yes it was” came the reply, “but it’s already on eBay now.” Remembering that didn’t really help my state of mind as I proceeded to pull my second tee shot into the left rough only to knock on the green and complete a crowd-pleasing 7 just to get the day started.
    On the 2nd hole, my snap hook reared its ugly head again, only this time the caddy was certain it would be playable. It was just off to the left of the fairway bunkers in the heather, he assured me. However, a careful look among the long native grasses yielded no balls, so the only option was to re-tee, which meant a long run back to the second tee box. The caddie suggested that I should just drop a ball where it most likely had landed and play on. To me, this was absolute blasphemy. There was no way in hell that I was going to break the rules. We didn’t do it at home and we certainly wouldn’t think of doing it on such hallowed ground. I managed to birdie the second ball and card a bogie, which meant that I was already four over after just two holes. And the wind was freshening. I needed to buckle down or this could get really ugly.

Wells in the Barry Burn, where
Brooksie’s shot miraculously emerged

By the time we got to the famous Hogan’s Alley, number 5 on the course, I had started to feel pretty good and declared to the caddie that I was going to birdie this hole just as Hogan had done for four straight days in the 1953 Open Championship. The out-of-bounds fence just to the left of the tee stretched the entire length of the fairway and beyond. Any shot more than a couple of yards left of the tee box was out of bounds and there was only about 20 yards between the fence and the huge, menacing bunker smack dab in the middle of the fairway. Hogan had famously cut his driver off the fence and landed in perfectly between the fence and the bunker on each of those four days in 1953.
    Because I don’t have a cut driver any more, the perfect drive for me had to be knocked down into the wind straight over the bunker, which I somehow managed perfectly. The caddy seemed very pleased. The second shot was a nice full 3 wood that felt great but just barely cleared the hidden ditch and left me about 90 yards to the hole. Again, I looked at the caddie and told him this was going to require a special shot into the wind, full wedges would not do. I took my 140-yard club and fashioned a nice low draw that ended up 8 feet below the hole. So far, so good, I thought, but my nerves were only increasing, because now I actually had a chance at the birdie I had predicted. After the putt dropped, I was filled with relief and joy at the same time. I looked over at the caddy and asked him how good was that. It was even that much better, “because you called it,” he replied genuinely.

Mars – 3rd shot Hogan’s Alley #6
at Carnoustie – birdie made!

     A couple of holes later, Brooks managed the par of the trip so far when he holed a 120-footer from off the green. The caddie remarked that Brooks had mentioned needing a par, but he certainly hadn’t expected it to come on this hole. The celebration and demeanor were priceless, like that of the little boy in Swope Park all over again. Little did he know that the best was yet to come.

The wind kept up, as did the cavernous bunkers. On the famed Spectacle Hole, Bert managed to hit his second shot in the left eye, while Brooksie’s third ended up in the right eye. Remarkably, both extracted themselves in a single shot, with Bert catching it thin and reaching the green, while Brooksie slammed into the face of the bunker, where the ball caught one of the riveted edges and rolled around along the face of the bunker until the gods managed to spit it out into the rough between the two. For my part, I managed a 320-yard drive up the right side, hit the green with my second, and, three putts later, put a five on the card – a little disappointed that I hadn’t managed a par but delighted I had found the fairway and the green and avoided the famous hazard.
    We finally came to the 18th tee box and took the classic photograph and looked down at the par 4 where Jean van de Velde so famously made a 7 where a 6 would have won him the Open, slashing about in the heather, into the burn, and into golf infamy. The story goes that he later returned to the course and managed a 6 with his putter alone, a score that would have won him the claret jug, but the insider scoop from the caddies was that it took him five tries to do it.
    Either way, as we stood on the tee looking down the out-of-bounds fence that stretches all the way from the tee box to the green, we once again tried to let the magic of the place soak in for just a while longer. I managed to hit a cracker that ended up well down the hole but over by the 16th green. It was a good spot to reach the green but unfortunately there was a huge fairway bunker blocking my view of Brooksie, who had managed a perfect tee shot down the center of the fairway. In the end, my second shot did find the green and again I carded a five after 3-putting. Tough but not really that bad, all things considered.
    But Brooksie was facing more than 170 yards into the breeze and Bert wasn’t truly convinced that he could clear the Barry Burn, which runs directly across the front of the green. Fortunately, Bert’s skepticism didn’t deter Brooksie, who pulled out a Hybrid and took his best whack at it. And what happened next was truly a gift from the Gods. The ball was sent screaming off of his club straight at the green. The problem is that it was only about a yard off the ground. An encounter with the burn seemed inevitable, but just as the ball disappeared and spirits began to sag, a miracle happened. The ball hit the first wall, rattled around and then was spit out by the golf gods a mere 10 feet from the cup. Now, if you have seen the depth of the burn or remember van de Veldes’ miserable fate, then you can attest to the fact that this was very unlikely. But so it was. On the last hole of the last day of golf, the gods graced Brooksie with a par. What a game! What a memory!

18th at Caroustie
(good caddy,bad cameraman; he missed the clubhouse!)

The banter in the clubhouse was rich and excited as we compared stories and cards. Jared had put up a 9 on Hogan’s Alley, which showed just how good my birdie was. But of course, the talk of the day was Brooksie’s par on the 18th. Brooksie had considered the best shots of his life to be a pair of eagles at Encinitas Ranch, both holed out from the fairway. The first on the old 4th hole, a par 4 and the number-one handicap, and the other on the old 9th hole, a par 5. But now I am sure that the second shot on the 18th at Carnoustie is right up there with those. In reality, though, the love affair continues, and there is still always a chance for the next “best shot of my life” moment, and that is why it has stayed with him for a lifetime. Because as long as you have another shot, you have a chance at glory, and nobody can take away the ones you have aced. Nor can anybody take away the camaraderie and friendship that are cultured and nurtured through the great game of Golf.

Copyright © 2014, 2020 by Marshall Carder Marshall Carder lives in Cardiff by the Sea, California. He is a father, a husband, and writes occasionally about things that inspire him. This story appeared originally on WordPress, posted on July 24, 2014.