Four Years of University
in Golf Heaven
By Andrew Perry
Although university is only four years, my time at university has in many ways been the culmination of my childhood.
For the last four years, I have called St. Andrews, Scotland, my home. And despite being some 4,000 miles from my true home in Boulder, Colo., it also is as close to an in-state education I would ever get. Throughout the university application process, I was adamant that I would not stay in Colorado, much less even consider a school west of the Mississippi. Logically, I chose the University of St. Andrews, a 600-year-old institution in a fishing village on the East Fife Coast. For me, it was the natural and obvious choice.
I have been coming to Fife since before I can remember. My father grew up in Glasgow, and my uncle lives in Elie. Elie is where a coalition of Perrys — my cousin Scott, my dad, and my uncle — introduced me to golf. It was here that they instilled the fundamental swing flaws that are responsible for my wipey, not very powerful fade that I play. More importantly, Elie is where I fell in love with the game. While the big course at Elie is a fantastic course, I grew up playing the Wee Course — a nine-hole loop where a week’s ticket sets you back 45 quid. Not a bad deal for a kid who regularly played 36 every day.
St Andrews is just 20 minutes from Elie, and while the Wee Course seemed like Heaven on Earth, the courses in St. Andrews held a mythical status in my younger self’s mind. I distinctly remember yearning to join my dad, Uncle Jack, and Scott going off to St. Andrews for the day, but the closest I got was the Himalayas.
The myth of St. Andrews only grew in my mind after I heard a rumour — which I now can confirm is true — that the students at the university receive virtually free access and reign over St. Andrews’ seven courses. As a golf-obsessed 7-year-old, I could not imagine a university like St. Andrews existed; it was a year-round Elie for big kids. Although the initial seed had been planted, it would lay dormant for 10 years, waiting to germinate.
Fast-forward to my junior year of high school, when I was just starting to look at potential universities. A trip to the 2015 Open doubled as a “college visit.” Admittedly, my visit to the university consisted of me wandering around town, scouting out the student-friendly pubs (in other words, any establishment except The Keys), and watching copious amounts of golf. This was enough to reignite the myth of St. Andrews. When I began the endlessly fun university application process — I won’t regale you with the details (I enjoyed the process nearly as much as my so far fruitless post-uni job search) — St. Andrews was firmly on my radar. Then one of my cousins got married in St. Andrews in Fall 2016 on the weekend before the Colorado State High School tournament, but a trip to Fife couldn’t be missed. Instead of playing the practice rounds with my teammates back in Colorado, I was playing practice rounds on Kingsbarns and the Old. That week in St. Andrews confirmed my love of the town, and it quickly became one of my top choices.
In January, St. Andrews was the first university I was accepted into, which led me to confidently proclaim, ‘“I am going on a four-year golfing holiday!”’ After being convinced to at least see which other universities offered me a place, the decision came down between Denison — a small liberal arts college in Ohio where I could play Division III golf — or St. Andrews. At the time, it was a dead heat between the two. Denison was the comfortable choice; I knew what I would be getting into — whereas St. Andrews was an elite university in a foreign education system that came with a thousand question marks. Over an agonising dinner weighing my options, my mother gave me the best advice I have ever received when she said something along the lines of, “‘I always wanted to go to Oxbridge, just go to St. Andrews. Give it a shot.’”
Encouraged by Mom’s wisdom, I paid the deposit, and knew two things: although technically I would be an Oxbridge reject, I had just secured my Links Ticket for the next four years.
Going to St. Andrews was essentially an experiment with the worst-case scenario being a very expensive gap yah (year). Despite all the unknowns, I knew before Freshers’ Week was over I was in the right place. Everything about the town and university felt natural and oddly familiar. Instead of running out of the house to play the Wee Course, I was running out of McIntosh Hall to play the Old Course. Somehow St. Andrews surpassed the images I had conjured up as a kid in Elie.
. . .
Sans golf, the University of St. Andrews is a storied institution. Founded in 1413, it is the third-oldest English-speaking university, behind Oxbridge. It has been the seat of Scottish Parliament. And it boasts the oldest student golf club in the world.
Just your average “dark” time.
To call the University Golf Club — formerly the Men’s Golf Club (MGC) — a golf club is a gross mischaracterisation. It is a drinking club with a golfing problem. I was introduced to the MGC on the Wednesday of Freshers Week at 7:29 p.m. prompt in the Hams Hame. As with any respectable society, there are rules — and when broken they are punished with impunity. One such rule made it particularly difficult for my year: the MGC strongly dislikes the number between 20 and 22 — an unfortunate coincidence for a student graduating this year.
At my first MGC social, I broke more rules than Patrick Reed at the Hero World Challenge. But fortunately, there were plenty of members eager to “correct” my mistakes. My blatant lack of understanding, coupled with a relatively low alcohol tolerance, leaves my memory hazy. What followed is a staple of a good night out; having met a study abroad student and fellow rookie, we decided to sober up by playing the 18th only a few steps away from McIntosh Hall. Four swings later, I was in for a par up the 18th of the Old Course at half past two.
Although by the time I had made it to St. Andrews I had played all the courses on the links, never did I have unfettered access. A quirk of the Scottish university system is that your first two years do not count toward your GPA; in other words, class is effectively optional. With only three real contact hours per week (weekly tutorials), I had a bit of free time.
For us six freshers in the golf club, we learned more on Wednesday nights between 7:29 p.m. and last call than in any first-year module. Although the MGC’s rules are neither black nor white, the six of us freshers hailed from around the world which helped us learn the indecipherable language that can be heard spoken on Wednesdays. Like toddlers learning to speak we watched, imitated, and every now and then bravely attempted to participate. Throughout first semester, us freshers could have been mistaken for cryptographers at Bletchley Park trying to crack Enigma. Thus by the time second semester rolled around, we knew why “ones” can be “twos” just as “twos” can be “ones.”
Outside of Wednesday nights and the blur of the first semester, it happened to be one of the mildest winters on record. This lulled us into a false belief that Scottish winters were not really that bad. The mild weather and early sunsets created the perfect conditions for the infamous Jigger Challenge. To complete a Jigger Challenge, one plays the first 17 holes of the Old before hopping the fence to sit in the Jigger Inn. From there, you have 30 minutes (some people claim an hour) to finish n+1 pints of ale to the number of shots you will take up 18. For example, if you have five pints you better make a four. Five for four is quite doable, but four for three is near impossible.
The punishment for failing to complete a Jigger Challenge is a barracuda in the Dunvegan. I won’t say what a barracuda (or barry) is, but I’m sure one can ask either Mark or Luke at the Dunvegan, and they will happily make one for you.
Antics passed off as quirky traditions — like the Jigger Challenge — help make St. Andrews a university town more than a tourist town. Additionally, they help you pass the time during the cold dark and very wet winters.
Throughout February and early March, the ballot is rarely full, and the pubs always have seats. When the calendar ticks over to April, the town comes alive. The sun returns, and you can finally venture outside in something other than your heaviest Barbour. The longer days also means the return of tourists. The kind ones are more than happy to buy you pints, but you might sacrifice free choice of tee times — that is, unless you play when no one else plays.
In the 18 hours between 6 p.m. on May 23, 2018, and noon on the 24th, a close mate and I played 54 holes that can only be surpassed by Roger Goodell’s tour of Pine Valley, Augusta, and Cypress Point. It started with a 6 p.m. dark time on the Old, from which we strolled straight into the Union bar, golf bags in tow. A few pablos and messy bombs gave us the brilliant idea that a 2:30 a.m. tee time would be the perfect opportunity to play a friendly foursomes round. So, equipped with a bag of yellow balls and a drunken selection of clubs, we made the half-two tee time while American tourists were queuing to get in the singles line of the Old Course (surprisingly, the starter did not ask to scan our tickets this time). Although the memory is hazy, the video evidence is clear. We “shot” a tidy 78 alternate shot, finishing at 4:45 a.m. as the sun was rising. The coup de grace came three hours later, with a 7:40 time for our third round in a little over 12 hours.
Could playing the Old at 2:30 have gotten our Links Tickets revoked? Yes, but we didn’t get caught. Also, when the entire links property is effectively our playground, it is hard to see why we might get in trouble for simply playing golf. After all, King James II has been dead for nearly 400 years.
. . .
The now-infamous Hoylake match.
When second year rolled around, we had learned the ins and outs of Wednesday nights and might claim to read the greens better than the caddies. For all intents and purposes, the MGC was cruising along at 30,000 feet without a worry in the world. Like an airliner leaking fuel, though, we had little clue of the impending trouble we were about to face.
An annual fixture against Royal Liverpool Golf Club happened to coincide with Ladies’ Day at Aintree. Fancying ourselves a day out feeding the ponies, we set out for Liverpool in our Saints Sports Athletic Union (AU) van. Eight blokes in their finest tweed jackets and coloured chinos pilling out of an AU van at half past 10 on a Friday morning to Aintree seemed to be a fantastic visual at the time; in hindsight, it probably confirmed the worst stereotypes of St. Andrews students. Nonetheless, we enthusiastically plied the bookies with the Queen’s finest pound sterling and ourselves with pints.
The trip was ostensibly for golf, yet the main event was actually the lunch at Hoylake. For a 16-person lunch, it was punctuated with eight bottles of Wolfschmidt’s finest kummel. Otherwise known as putting mixture, one glass of kummel is plenty — half a bottle is lethal. Following a good lunch, each group went out armed with an extra bottle of port for good measure, in case any competitor became dangerously sober. The MGC narrowly avoided a whitewash by stealing half a point in the last match. Since we had failed to polish off the club’s stash of kummel at lunch, it was decided that a putting contest was needed. Having an ample supply of kummel and whatever else was stashed behind the bar, the competition was simple; the last person to make a five-footer would have at best a barry and at worst a silver bullet coming their way. Unbeknownst to anyone, we had chosen the unmakeable putt: a five-footer along a spine the width of a ball. The slightest push or pull meant that, for 16 people, it took nearly an hour to settle.
The UK golf world is a small circle, and word eventually got back to the University that we’d had too much fun at Hoylake and may have tested the limits of the AU van. The charges levied against us were for drinking on the golf course and taking the AU van to Aintree. Clearly, not a single person in the Athletic Union had ever been invited to a proper golf fixture. Furthermore, despite the university priding itself on cultural diversity, the AU clearly had never heard of cultural exchange trips. Our excursion to Aintree was a true immersion trip to understanding the Scousers. The fun police had come after the world’s oldest university golf club.
The MGC: a drinking club with a golf problem.
Luckily, the nature of the MGC means that we have a few well placed connections in the golfing world. Our local de facto sponsor and benefactor found himself seated next to the Principal of the University’s husband at a black-tie university dinner. We also explained our predicament to the Ladies’ Golf Club, to which they suggested in the worst-case scenario we would rebrand as the University of St. Andrews Ladies Golf Club Men’s Division. Fortunately, and much to the astonishment and annoyance of the AU, the entire golfing community in St. Andrews was behind our cause. Because the AU had been too eager to shut down the MGC, they had brought their case without sufficient evidence — which, combined with the support of St. Andrews golfing community, led us to reorganise as the University Golf Club, having both men’s and women’s sections.
Although the name has changed, the UGC has remained a drinking club with a golfing problem. Yet the past 18 months have potentially reoriented the priorities of the UGC. Our fixture list has been cancelled — which means we have not had a proper lunch in over a year, nor has the Jigger Challenge taken place, and the 18th has not seen as many students drunkenly stumbling up its fairway at 4:30 a.m.
. . .
The last year and half has not quite been the send-off us fourth-years had hoped for. But in many ways, it revealed to us why we came to St. Andrews: to play the Old Course as much as we can. Since golf reopened in Scotland in May 2020, I can safely say I have played the most golf of my life. Online classes meant that once again, like in first year, classes became flexible. While there have been many disappointments in the last year, it is impossible to have a bad round on the Old. As students, we regularly take our Links Tickets for granted, but now all of us are savouring these last few loops around the links.
That is the magic about the Old Course: even after 150 some odd rounds, the walk up the 18th and over the Swilcan is still just as special as the first time you play it.
Andrew Perry is recent St. Andrews graduate now living in London. When not filling out job applications or playing golf, Andrew enjoys lurking around Golf Twitter.
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