First, let's get this out of the way. I would like to apologise. When I wrote in 2006 that my trip to the Ryder Cup at the K Club was a once in a lifetime experience I was clearly wrong. Because here I am again. In deepest Scotland. A twice in a lifetime experience.
I am hoping in another decade or so to be asked back again for the thricetime experience. By that time, I have it on good authority, the European venue for the Ryder Cup will have moved to eastern Ukraine, the newly built Steppes Trace Course, developed by the European PGA to encourage young Russo-Ukrainians to take up a new form of intercommunal conflict. Golf.
The twicetime experience has been going great so far. The sun has been shining, and there aren’t vast seas of mud to negotiate as you get from A to B via E and back again. So that’s two up on the K Club already and we are still 24 hours away from lift off.
Ambiguous terrain
The three courses at
Gleneagles
are built on that sort of inbetweeny land. Could be good pasture, could be meadow bog – depends on the season and the clemency of the weather. As we approached the place along a narrow windy road, that’s windy, not windy (tomorrow it could be windy and windy) you are suddenly adjacent to a bunch of silky, manicured greens, bunkers, mounds, run-offs, the works. I confess I began to drool and wish I had brought my clubs. And then I drooled some more as I realised I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, nine hours previously.
What I saw were holes that belonged to either the Kings Course or the Queens Course, the two oldest tracks in Gleneagles. In days of yore, when they held tournaments here they used to cobble together a course from different bits of the two. But the Ryder Cup is being played on the Centenary Course. A newish specimen designed by Jack Nicklaus. We seem to be keen to help out America by playing on American-designed courses. The K Club, Celtic Manor, Valderrama; I think they were all American designs. It is very generous of us, so it is.
The Centenary Course is also slightly different from the other two as it seems to be built on slightly better soil. More the sort of land that you would grow things on than put out for pasture. This is impressive geological knowledge. They should have sent me to the ploughing championships instead. [It’s not too late, Ed.]
Stadium course
But, I am told by a native of these here parts, that the Centenary Course is by far the better venue for spectators as there are copious mounds surrounding each of the holes. It is a stadium course. And, until the Ryder Cup reverts to being a private match between a group of international golfers, it will always be thus.
And then our bus took us to the Gleneagles complex. Impressive too with a small knot of modest enough houses, not as grand as the K Club houses or Mount Juliet houses, with normal enough cars outside, except for the Bentley and the Roller. One is for sale if anyone is interested.
And tree-lined roads that I assumed were part of the estate until we met a ruddy great direction sign and I realised that all these private roads actually had white lines up and down them and that Gleneagles is criss-crossed by public roads. Just a regular crossroads in the middle of the Scottish lowlands, albeit a crossroads that has been blocked off from the public for the duration.
It is all a bit, really, wow.
My role here, I am told, is to write stuff and offer meaningful insights that only a grey-haired, wizened giant who has been playing golf for almost 60 years can offer. What those might be I have no idea. But when I get them you will be the first to know.
I was actually thinking about that stunt they pulled in Denver a couple of weeks ago. The course they were playing was the venue for a famous Arnold Palmer US Open victory ages and ages ago. Palmer started his final round a fistful of shots behind the leaders but drove the par four first and went on to win.
Palmer’s driver
They had the driver that Palmer used that day and they had some golf balls from the same era. They asked the modern pros to have a bash and see if they could drive the green. Rory McIlroy came closest, about 45 yards short.
I had my own theory about why this was. I have a feeling that many of the old golfers were such brutes, physically, that the sheer power in their arms propelled the ball vast distances. Fred Daly, Ireland’s first Open champion, for example, had arms about the same size as a normal persons legs.
So I surmised maybe the modern golf swing is more about accuracy than power. Maybe the use, as we are told these days, of the big muscles, shoulder turn, hip turn and so on, produce golfers that are straighter but can’t really give it as much of a thump.
I suggested this to the Irish Times golf correspondent, sitting to my right. "No", he said "It was probably just wet that day".
So much for insights. Back to the drawing board.
