It’s been a long while since I’ve written anything of substance here. And while I could rationalize my hiatus with a few excuses about things going on in my life I’d be lying to myself. The truth is I just lost my passion for golf…no, that’s not accurate. I lost my passion for American golf.
Last summer I was able to spend a few weeks in Scotland with family on a vacation that was more sightseeing than golf vacation but managed to get in a few rounds on true links courses. It was my second expedition into links golf and while it was all glorious it ruined me for anything else.
That’s what did it to me. That’s what killed my passion for golf in my home. Links golf ruined me for any other brand of this crazy game. Some will argue that golf is golf whether it be links or parkland or Scottish or American but they’d be wrong.
Take a walk on a true links course and as the sound of the brown turf crinkles beneath your feet and your topped approach runs two hundred yards down the tan fairway you’ll realize that it’s a different game on a links course. With a breeze in your face, the scent of the sea and the waves lapping nearby you’ll find that links golf is a sport unto itself and while the game is still named the same its so very different from the golf we play here in the states.
So I came home last summer with a bad links golf hangover and a distaste for the tree-lined, soft, green courses I usually frequent. I forced myself to get out there but constantly found myself daydreaming about a links course while I soldiered on through rounds absent of beige turf, long run-ups and the sea…ah yes, the sea.
It’s special over there and different in so many ways. And while I could go on about the societal and cultural differences in the game (elitist in America versus egalitarian in Scotland) I won’t as I need to force myself to fall back in love with the game I played for so long over here.
Watching the PGA Tour in Hawaii may have stoked my fires but I think it was a visit to a golf simulator last week that really got me going again. A few buddies and I shook off the winter blues with a round at the simulators.
Faced with our choice of courses I jumped at the chance to play some links golf again…even if it was a video game. Our selection? The Old Course at St. Andrews. It doesn’t get any more links golf that the Old Course.
I had a ball. And quickly set to planning my next links trip for this coming summer.
Links golf is the drug and I’m an addict. And I love every second of it.
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