A Laddie and A Lassie In Scotland and Ireland: The Open Championship

The Open Championship

Our day began at 3:30am this morning. We are on our way to The Open Championship at Royal Lytham St. Annes golf course. I was so excited that I didn’t actually sleep last night, there was a lot of rolling around and thinking about the once in a lifetime opportunity. After a quick shower, we walked like zombies through the empty streets towards our car. It was pretty amazing. You would expect that at 4am, it would be pitch black, however it wasn’t. The sky was a greyish colour and Monika said that it is called “gloman”. From what I understand, being so far north Scotland receives long hours of light in the summer months.

Getting out of Edinburgh proved difficult. We circled around the outskirts of the city for about an hour unable to find the highway we needed. Finally, we found our highway and began our trek. Soon the “gloman” turned to a rising sun. It was great weather as we made our way through the countryside towards Blackpool England (a 3.5 hour drive).

We got off the highway and began following the signs labeled “Open Traffic”. We thought we were just outside the parking area, however we soon discovered that we were in a very long queue line. We spent at least 30 minutes following the car in front of us adhering to the parking signage. We ended up parking in the Curling Club and boarded a bus to bring us to the course.

Once inside, Monika was very happy that she decided to wear her boots. While the course was in great shape considering the amount of rain in the U.K. this year, the spectator areas were just full of ankle deep mud. I had a soaker within the first 5 minutes. I wasn’t about to let this ruin my day! We looked towards the practice green and immediately saw Rory McElroy on the chipping green. We also saw Justin Rose and Ratiff Goosen on the chipping green. When Phil walked out and headed to the range, we followed. As he hit balls with Butch Harmon standing next to him, we had hope that he was going to have a good round. We had decided to follow Phil, Luke Donald, and Geoff Ogilvy.

Phil started off very poorly so we decided to go ahead 3 holes and watch the groups before his come through. We saw Molinari, Bo Van Pelt, Rory, Oosthuizen, Bradley, Fowler and Harrington come through along with a couple of other less known players. This seemed like the best strategy, walk 3 holes ahead, find a good spot and watch 3 or 4 groups come through.

It was nice to see that Monika was very excited to see the players and actually seemed to be enjoying herself. I was a bit worried beforehand!

After a quick bite, we headed out for the afternoon session. We used the same viewing strategy and followed the groups of Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney, Vijay Singh, Ian Poulter, Ernie Els, Zach Johnson, Darrin Clark, Lee Westwood, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Grahme McDowell, Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose.

THE TIGER TRAFFIC WAS CRAZY! Swarms of people followed Tiger. As his groups approached our hole, you could see the mass of people headed towards you. All of a sudden your personal space was being invaded. On the 4^th hole, Monika and I had a great spot right near the green. I tried to make myself as big as possible and encouraged Monika to do the same. A short and stubby woman barged her way in between us and then attempted to push directly in front of Monika. Monika stood her ground! The woman kept saying “I am getting pushed”, trying to make it seem that she was in the right it was quiet funny.

Tiger made a terrific approach spot landing only 4 feet from the hole. After he made his birdie, we evacuated the area as quickly as possible. Monika’s legs were killing her from having to hold her ground against the pushing lady.

This was not the only instance in which there was pushing a jockeying for position. Later on, we had found a great spot. All of a sudden I have a woman on my back, then on my hip, then sticking her head in front of me on my chest, then directly in front of me. I could not believe it and made a comment to Monika. The woman was ruthless, she now had a great spot in the front row. Still wasn’t good enough, now she tried to work her way left along the rope. The older Brit that was right along the rope wasn’t going to take it! “Now listen sweetheart, now I don’t mind if you stand next to me but you will not get in front of me, I was here first”! The woman tried to play off the overreaction card, looking around to try and find some supporters in the nearby audience. None, everyone had seen what the crazy woman had done in the past 5 minutes. It was great to see someone finally snap on her!

Overall, the Open Championship was a great experience. We were able to follow the biggest names in golf and explored one of the most famous courses in the world. Our hopes are that one of the golfers we followed today is able to take the Claret Jug this year.

At 6pm we decided to head to Blackpool and find our hotel. Blackpool is right along the Atlantic (Irish Sea) and has a long promenade in which all of the hotels and attractions are on. The best way I can describe it is an oversized Niagara Falls right along the Ocean. Amusement parks, restaurants, arcades, souvenir shops and haunted houses are directly opposite Pleasure Beach. We checked into the Colwyn Hotel in which we had an Ocean view and headed out to see the city.

We walked around for about a half hour, taking pictures of the beach and looking at some of the shops nearby (most were closed at this hour). We found a pub and got a quick bite to eat before heading back to our hotel for the night.

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