A racing of the heart

Golf Digest, July 1984

No-one who enjoys a game of golf could tee off at St Andrews on that first tee at the foot of the steps from the house without a racing of the heart. When I first looked out in September of 1954 it seemed like heaven. All my imaginings were proved true. There before me in the soft damp light of autumn lay this holy ground. So wide and keen was that first hole, sharing with the last the width of two cricket fields, and down at the end that dark surface ribbon that indicates the narrow burn (stream). And over it, banking it, the closer cut with the flag straight out in the wind.

Peter teeing off at St Andrews

Beyond in the near distance were the blackened railway sheds I would face to face come the 17^th hole, and beyond that the Hills of Fife in the direction of Edinburgh. The railway sheds have gone, alas, but nothing else has changed.

The North Sea rolls into the Firth of Tay and along the beach to the right. The Royal Air Force Station at Leuchars sends up its jets from the distant pines, the seagulls the real landlords.

Taken from Peter Thomson’s book ‘Lessons I have learnt’

WRITTEN ON November 9th, 2009 BY Tim AND STORED IN Peter Thomson, Top Courses