Holy Fuck.
That’s all I can say, and it’s not a good “Holy Fuck” either. The trip had its moments, but it was generally a complete fucking nightmare. Let’s take you through a step-by-step of the itinerary
Sunday: Arrive at KCI and find that our flight is delayed due to ATC problems over Newark. We leave 45 minutes later than expected. Upon arrival into Newark, we wait an additional 25 minutes to taxi to our gate. By this time we are almost screwed in getting our connecting flight until I see that it’s stalled due to maintenance concerns. We haul ass over to our gate only to find out that they departed without us. We’re fucked. No one is helpful at all, and after several questions, I finally find out where I can get help through Continental.
The ticket agent at the desk is a complete fucking moron. After telling her that I just need to get into Scotland and I can work around the car reservation from there, she continually tells me there are no flights into Glasgow. After pointedly asking her about a flight into Edinburgh, after she was trying to shuttle us to Paris, she finally says that, yes, there is a flight from Newark to Edinburgh leaving in about two hours. We get on the flight, but we are going to need transportation to Glasgow, which I try to work out, only Hertz has no cars at Edinburgh. We board the plane, only they wait 20 minutes to hold the plane for a group of passengers from Chicago, something they made no fucking effort to do for us. I call the guys who organize the trip, and they are able to find a driver to take us from Edinburgh to Glasgow, so all seems right until:
Monday morning: They lose our fucking golf clubs. Sure enough, despite a two hour advanced notice, the dumb motherfuckers can’t re-tag our clubs for our flight. Don’t worry they tell us, all will be well, because we’ll get them by Tuesday morning, so we can play Prestwick. We rent the car and proceed to experience the true horror of understanding the British road system, but finally work it out.
Two hours later, we arrive at Turnberry, which is truly the most beautiful place I’ve ever stayed in my life. The hotel is tremendous, and the food is even better. There’s a really cool twelve hole pitch and putt course short of the hotel, and two massive putting greens that aren’t even connected to the golf course. The inside of the hotel is vintage, but not overly ornate. Tastefully done, and a ton of cool memorabilia throughout. The breakfast there is amazing. Pastries, rhubarb compote, Eggs Benedict…fabulous.
We wake up Tuesday morning after a long and harrowing day with high spirits. I absolutely dominate breakfast. We become a bit concerned about our baggage since our claim number doesn’t work on Continental’s website. I call them shortly after they open at 9, only for them to tell us that our clubs will not be in today due to the incoming flight to Glasgow being canceled on account of the volcanic ash cloud. No clubs. We’d rent from Prestwick, but there’s a monsoon coming down, and we didn’t want to have to spent $1000 for Galvin Green rain gear. So, we miss our tee time at the first Open Course. Fuck you, Continental, fuck you dead in the ass.
We sleep most of Tuesday, waking up late in the afternoon. We visit a really cool old castle, and then venture in to the city of Ayr, where we eat at a restaurant and then hit up a small local pub called the Bridge’s Bar. There we encounter a variety of slices of Scottish life, nearly half of them were unemployed, including a woman who was laid off from an unemployment office. One group was celebrating their club, Ayr, winning a promotion into a hire soccer league, so they kept playing Kings of Leon’s “Your Sex is on Fire”, their theme song. A Scottish guy tells me I know shit because I’m an American, and then kisses me on the ear ( a wet kiss) before he leaves. It’s a really fun evening, and we’re both in good spirits until we get back to the hotel. I Skype my wife and she tells me that the vets think that one of our dogs may have lymphoma. I get almost no sleep that night, and seriously contemplate coming home after what has become a complete debacle.
After sleeping until Wednesday am, we call Glasgow, expecting our clubs to be in. They tell us it wasn’t on the first flight, but will be in by 10 am. We are forced to push back our tee time at Turnberry.
After checking out of the hotel, and bumming around the pro shop most of the day, the locker room attendant calls the airline, who still hasn’t delivered our clubs from a one hour drive 3 hours after the plane has landed. We push back our tee time again. The attendant, feeling sorry for us, does us the one true solid of the trip: he gives us the lockers of Tom Watson and Greg Norman. I got Norman’s, locker number 86.
We play Turnberry in a gale force wind. It never drops below 40 mph, and generally stays around 50 mph. We are the last group off, and the conditions just whip our ass. I absolutely nutted a driver on one hole and hit it 170 yards. On the next hole, which plays downwind, I heel the piss out of a driver which goes 330. The rough is gnarly, wet, and halfway up our calves. It swallows any ball offline. I’ve never played in harder conditions in my life. It was absolutely brutal.
We get into Edinburgh about 11 pm and collapse. I Skype with my wife and she tells me our dog doesn’t have cancer, but probably has Addison’s Disease (the same thing Kennedy suffered from). He’s going to need monthly injections and daily steroids for the rest of his life. $1300 vet bill. Fuck.
Thursday: Carnoustie. I hit one of the best drives of my life on the first hole and have about 77 yards in, but a tricky lie. I blade the flip wedge into the green and end up with my ball on a 75 degree downslope. We were lucky that the winds at Carnoustie were only about 20-25 mph. I struggled on holes 6-10 (triple, bogey, triple, double, triple), but play the next five in even par, including hitting a 7 iron to two feet on 11. Sixteen plays about 300 yards factoring in the wind, and no one in our group can reach it with a driver.
I hit the fairway on 18, but blow my hybrid way right, and barely keep the third in bounds to the left (which is just off the green). I can’t get up and down, and finish 18 with a double for a 99 which felt more like an 83.
I Skype my wife after we get home after some Scottish Chinese food, and she tells me that she’s having more pregnancy complications (she’s already had prenatal surgery once). I’m completely flipping out at this point, and feel totally helpless.
Friday: We play the Jubilee Course at St. Andrews. I start off really well with the driver, and have short irons into the green on the first three holes, but bogey every one of them. I par the next three holes, including almost dropping an 80 foot, two-tiered birdie putt on 5, but I make a horrendous bogey and a bad double on 8 and 9 to go out in 43. The back nine is up and down, but I actually managed to play the entire round with a single Pro-V until I hook one OB on the tee shot at 18, which leads to a snowman. I putt horribly on the day, shooting 93 with 42 putts.
Saturday: We were supposed to play the Old Course this day, but we didn’t get on the ballot. I haz a sad. Instead, we do touristy stuff around St. Andrews, visiting their cathedral, castle, and other stuff.
Sunday: We play Kingsbarns, which is perhaps the nicest of all the courses that we play. I had a horrible case of the pulls on the front nine, but play 10-14 in 1 over, missing a number of makeable birdie putts. I hit a punch shot with 50 yards of hook into the green on twelve, making one of the better swings of the trip. Thirteen plays into the wind. It’s 135 from the back tees, but is another 20 yards short when factoring in the elevation change. With the wind, I hit 5 iron to 12 feet, but miss.
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The wind eats up my 4 iron on 15, which leads to a four hole collapse to finish out. I play the last four 9 over to finish with a 91 at a legit tour caliber course in 30+ mph winds.
I wake up at 2 am on Monday morning and we pack, getting to Edinburgh at 6:00 am. The rental car (a Skoda, by the way, a fucking Czech car) is dropped off and we check in for our flight. At 8:00 we are told to wait until 10:00 am (for an 8:40 departure) for further instructions. Apparently, the plane almost crapped out mid flight and they can’t fix it so…
After a 3 hour wait in line for new tickets, we are scheduled to fly out of Glasgow on Tuesday morning. After another 2+ hour wait in the airport, we are shuttled to the airport hotel, where we fly out from Glasgow at 10:30 Scotland time.
Currently, I’m stuck in Philadelphia for another 5 hours of layover. I’ll get to KC sometime around 11 tonight and I’ll have enough 2+ hour drive home. I’ll post pictures at a later date.
It was a really nice experience from a golf perspective, but also somewhat disappointing due to the courses missed, and endlessly frustrating because of the incompetence of Continental, and the life events that happened when I was gone.
At this point, I just want to be home.
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