Golf in the Field of Time

Years ago, as it was my dream, I travelled by bus to play a lone course up in Scotland.

It was coming on winter, the coldest in over 100 years I was told. Heading in, the lifeless skies, overcast and miserable, along with the fact not a soul was out playing, the Old Course looked to have not one friend in the world.

The famed course known as St. Andrews looked like another thing, too. Like golf.

I needed clubs. So I rented a set from the golf shop and hired a caddie, as well. I wanted to have a caddy. I didn’t want to be out on that brooding course alone.

I didn’t go into the clubhouse. It was closed for renovations. I’d liked to have gone in inside though, to see the portraits of famous players gone by, which I knew were hanging on the walls. It was cold outside, too. And cold tends to send a stern message, which in the Scottish vernacular sounds a lot like, ‘Get on with it!’

I did catch glimpse of Bobby Jones on the course, however, and rather clearly I feel as my caddie turned out to be something of a local folklorist, or golf historian.

He wasn’t elderly, my caddie. He didn’t belong to that bygone era — not by a long shot. But he did seem to know that time. He spoke in quite a colourful way, too, if you get my meaning.

From the chilly outset, around the 1st green I should say, my caddie began telling me what seemed like all there was to hear about Bobby Jones, during his rounds at the “Home of Golf”. He appeared to know all there was, about the goings of one of golf’s premiere names, or golf’s most famous child prodigy, during his visits on the Old Course. My caddie did speak of Jones’s wins, or the big stuff. But he also related, in some detail too, quite a lot that was commonplace or ordinary. He seemed extremely informed of even the smallest stuff that was, to me anyway, without hint of drama.

For example, at one hole my caddie had Jones simply standing there, off to the side of one tee, his arms crossed, while staring down the fairway. At another place, he had him talking with a tournament official. He told also what was the topic of the coversation — weather. My caddy said too, along the 2nd or 3rd hole, that Bobby Jones had stopped at one spot, to scrape mud off his cleats. Why?

At around the 5th, when I was certaine we were out of sight of his employers, and he wouldn’t get into trouble, I asked my caddy if he played, and if so would he like to throw down a ball and play along. He did. And from then on we more or less took turns shouldering the bag.

He continued retelling his detailed retellings, of one of the greatest players of of the 1920s, and perhaps of all time, until I could actually see Bobby Jones walking up the fairway just before us. He spoke with such assurance that all might have come with a 100% guarantee certificate.

Soon I suspended all disbelief, and gladly.

By the time we had arrived at hole No. 11, Bobby Jones was definitely with us. And his mood wasn’t a good one. His travails on No. 11 is one story I already knew. I knew about what happened with Bobby Jones at No. 11. I knew too, vaguely, about his early struggles at controlling his temper — and who hasn’t? From my caddie’s words I could plainly see now the figure of a man, swinging away in the back bunker behind the green.

His clothes, his haircut. In my mind still I vividly see Bobby Jones wearing a pair of ivory-coloured slacks, with a dark-blue sweater — on that very day he tore up his card on that hole, and stormed off vowing never to return.

By the 17th hole, my right arm had gone numb. The cold was merciless, and had rendered it useless. I had to place on the grip with my left hand, just to have go along for the ride. My caddy, conversely, seemed fine with it all. I hit it out of bounds off the tee on 17, a hole I’ll remember. Took a quadruple — not too unhappily. I felt I got off easy.

I didn’t care that much; I was enjoying myself. It was my caddie and me, and also there was Bobby Jones.

At the time I had a pretty good swing, played competitively, and scored better than average, most times — but not that day. I shot an honest 88, pure and for keeps. And I was pleased with it.

Tempted to cheat, roll the ball onto a better lie, by the bottom of a shoe, for example, you realise in the next instant, as from a bolt of lightning, that God lives there, and you don’t do it. Lastly, I mentioned earlier my caddie was rather colourful. Here’s just one example. Coming in on 18, after a long struggle with the dire conditions, my caddy said in his equally harsh Scottish brogue:

“Ya see tha’ obelisk over thar’?” And there was one, or is. It stands to the right and back a bit of the old clubhouse. He said, “Tha’s a Scotsman laying down.”