I felt a sense of satisfaction from reaching St Andrews, as I'd never been in this part of the world before. It was not Mongolia, but I still felt that I was travelling. This is the region of Fife, and if you look closely at Fife on a map, you'll see it's actually a bit of a peninsular, being bounded to the north by the firth of Tay, and to the south by the firth of Forth. These days there are bridges over both: the bridge over the Tay will take you immediately into the centre of Dundee, and the bridge over the Forth will land you near Edinburgh. However in the "old" days, Fife was a moderately self-contained unit, and hence it is sometimes referred to as the "kingdom of Fife". Wikipedia seems to think that, after the Romans had left, the line of the Antonine wall was a boundary between the picts to the North and the Brythons to the south, so Fife would have been the southern border of the pictish domain.
St Andrews is a town of character, and it's really surprising to find such a classy place so far north. It hasn't been ruined by awful modern shopping malls and the taint of the lower classes. It has blue-flag beaches, and when I walked on one I saw a man removing litter from it. By comparison, on the rocks on other beaches in Scotland I found broken beer bottles, probably left there deliberately by teenage delinquents. How has St Andrews managed to maintain a charming atmosphere? There are a few reasons for that: firstly it's quite a small town with a population of 17,000, secondly it's got a good university; also it's a golfing Mecca, and lots of rich golfers come here.
Saint Andrew was one of the disciples of Jesus, and is the patron saint of Scotland. The scottish flag is supposedly his sigil, the saltire cross. From approx 1318, the cathedral was the grandest in the land, however it was sacked in 1559 by a savage mob of protestants led by John Knox, and was then left to decay.
Supposedly this is where golf was invented in the twelth century, as shepherds knocked pebbles along the ground into rabbit holes. I don't know if this is true, but golf is clearly a big industry in this town, and it is known as the home of golf. There were many ball-games floating around in the middle-ages. Definite references to golf appear in the records in 1457, when James II banned it so as his subjects could spend more time on archery. He banned it on another two occasions. The game as we know it today was codified by the "Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews" in 1897, and the club took a leading role in regulating the game until recently.
There are six golf-courses hiding behind St Andrews's west beach, and the most famous is probably the "Old Course" whose tee-off is in front of the "Royal and Ancient" Clubhouse, a short walk from the town centre. These six courses are all bunched together on the north-west side of town. The new Castle Course is at the other end of town.
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I happened to chat to a caddy who I met called John, and he'd spent the day walking around the "Torrence Course" outside town for Carl Mason, who is an english professional golfer. The competition was the Scottish Seniors Open, which is open to golfers over fifty, and many big names were present: Ian Woosnam, Sam Torrance, Roger Chapman etc, and Sky Sports were there to record the action. The 72 players in the competition go around the course in groups of three, and take approx 4 ¾ hrs to complete the eighteen-hole course. You can be a spectator for the day at the Fairmont for five quid apparently. I was also told what the word "links" means: a golf links course is one by the sea, and the Old Course is a prime example. Links courses have coastal weather, which is typically variable, and windy. Furthermore, the soil is usually quite sandy, and as a result the fairways are smooth and the ball rolls further. John commented that there is much more prize money in golf than there used to be thirty years ago, and many professional golfers are extremely rich.
But it's not completely exclusive. I went down to the Himalayas putting green not far from the tee-off of the Old Course, and guess what? you can hire a club and a ball for £2 and go around a little nine-hole putting green. It was busy and it was fun. I happened to fall into partnership with a middle-aged American called Wayne, and he seemed to know a few things about golf. Whenever he saw someone get a hole-in-one he'd accuse them of being a hustler:
"A golf-hustler! I can't stand golf-hustlers!" he'd exclaim in his larger-than-life style. At one point during our game a little girl took his ball away which made us laugh. The green itself is probably international-quality grass as well so I wasn't laughing at the kindness of the people who had allowed me, a golf novice, to bat a ball around to my heart's content. I discovered I wasn't too bad at golf; all those hours spent playing squash have taught me a lot about ball control, and this is transferable to golf.
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