Today at the Old Course.

Prior to my father and I trekking across the pond - and to The Open - I distinctly recall having said something approximating the following:

You know, dad - I kind of want it to be a little windy and rainy when we go to St. Andrews. It is an Open, after all.

Having now returned this Wednesday evening to the lovely (and warm and dry) Birnam Hotel  (great accommodations, incredible staff), I thought I'd offer a few random reflections on my first ever visit to St. Andrews.

Prior to leaving the hotel this morning, I checked the weather forecast for St. Andrews: a 30% chance of rain, winds around 25 mph. Perfect! And desperately, painfully incorrect.

First things first, let me say that the fine folks at ScotRail do an brilliant job getting people to and from the Old. One must take the train to Leuchars, then board a bus for the brief ride to St. Andrews, but this is made very easy and very, very fast. The bus drop off is immediately adjacent to the tent village, which is more-or-less parallel to the Road Hole. 

And how does one react when their first glimpse of St. Andrews - or any Open course for that matter - happens to be of what is almost certainly the most famous golf hole in the world? I will confess to having had an instinct to cross myself - though this instinct was tempered somewhat by the amount of commerce about. But that's alright - the R&A needs money, too.

Well, I've delayed the inevitable long enough - it's time to talk about the weather. Sheer, unadulterated brutality. The 30% chance of rain meant, apparently, a veritable deluge. And the 25 mph winds were more akin to 30-40 mph.

Virtually every garbage receptacle I glanced at contained several umbrellas that didn't survive the tempest. 

Suffice it to say, I saw very few players on the course today. Watney was out a little, as was Ishokawa. I saw Els and Westwood on the range. In the lot behind the range, I saw Jimenez (The Mechanic - the man) putting on his rain gear out of his trunk like a weekend duffer. But most players apparently had the good sense to stay indoors.

I will provide photos and further elaboration later - as it stands, I just want to down a couple of pints and call it a night. But three things struck me very quickly that I wanted to share while they're fresh in my mind:

• Crossing the seventeenth fairway it was clear that the rain had done little to soften the course. Very firm, very tight. Millions of years of geological evolution dictate that this piece of land drains water very, very well.
• Television and photographs can't do justice to the degree of undulations on these fairways and greens. In places it's almost as though these were obstacles meant to slow an advancing army.
• Finally, another thing that photos and TV fail to capture: until I stood right next to it, I was unable to appreciate just how close the road is to the green at 17. It is absolutely terrifying, and easy to see how so many championship hopes have died on the road and against the wall immediately behind it. Viewing it from the crossover only 100 yards or so shy of the front edge, it's plain that this is perhaps the most intimidating approach in all of golf - with or without the new tee location.

That's it for now. I'll check in again from either Edinburgh or Alabama. Y'all take care.