A postcard from North Berwick
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland – The first time I came to play North Berwick Golf Club (West Links) was in 2016, part of a golf media contingent from the Northwest that included my old friend and mentor, former Register-Guard and Seattle Times columnist/editor Blaine Newnham.
Blaine had golfed in Scotland before, so of all the wonderful courses we were playing this time, he was most looking forward to the last round, a new course for him, North Berwick.
And he woke up that morning with excruciating pain in his neck. Slept wrong. Couldn’t swing a club, could barely putt. A golfer’s nightmare. He walked with us, though, and said that it gave him a better appreciation for how wonderful the old course was, to see it without trying to conquer it.
That was classic Blaine. He didn’t want to make our last day about him. And he loved golf so much, the history of it, and the ethics, that he could appreciate a great, ancient course even without a club in his hands.
Blaine passed away last year, at 82, and I thought of him on Monday playing North Berwick with eldest son Jason and two affable Scotsmen, who had driven 100 miles to play it, and their Scots caddie. It was my third time playing here, second with Jason, and I thought, what a gift.
Well, literally, as Jason had paid the greens fee, 285 British pounds per high season fare, or more than $400. But also because this is one of golf’s special places in the world.
I mean, I won’t say that it wasn’t a bit frustrating to have a few blow-up holes late on the back nine that led to a 101 from the red tees that played 5700-plus yards, after a solid-for-me 48 on the front.
(Jason’s 103, from the blue tees that play 6168 yards, included a half-dozen bunker shots and also three pars, including No. 14, “Perfection,” a par 4 that required a perfect tee, a blind-shot 7 iron to 6 feet.)
But, well, the course wants to win, too, and this is a course that throws challenge after challenge and has since the 19th century, if not longer.
The North Berwick Golf Club (West Links), on the Firth of Forth 45 miles east of Edinburgh, was founded in 1832, but certainly there was golf here before that.
Wrote the late James W. Finegan: “Golf, more or less as we know it, has been played on this stretch of links land for at least 175 years.”
He wrote that in “Blasted Heath and Blessed Greens, A Golfer’s Pilgrimage to the Courses of Scotland.” It was published in 1996, so add 30 years to that number.
“Remarkably, for more than a hundred years the best holes have been changed very little. This is a course on which dunes, beach, blind shots, and stone walls are the order of the day….For sheer golfing pleasure — pleasure bred of variety, unpredictability, challenge and proximity to the sea — few courses surpass North Berwick’s West Links. Admittedly it is old fashioned and, on occasion, even odd. But it is irresistibly old fashioned and irresistibly odd.”
At least a couple holes have been oft-imitated elsewhere, most notably No. 15, called Redan, a par 3 protected by a huge menacing bunker front left, smaller bunkers right and playing between 173 and 190 yards.
As summarized by Links Magazine:
“A host of designers have copied the strategy of this hole and its green design in particular (sometimes in reverse form), including C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor, and others. It’s one of golf’s great “template” holes.” (The 12th hole at Old Macdonald at Bandon Dunes is a Redan hole.)
Monday my tee shot, with a 3-wood, was pulled left into “the big boy,” as the caddie put it (not unsympathetically) and the deep sheer face of the long, narrow bunker proved impossible for me to escape without surrender.
Another memorable hole is No. 13, a par 4 where the green is protected by a low stone wall. On my previous trips, my approach shot hit the wall; Monday, I cleared with a pitch from 45 yards or so, but that was after muffs from 160 and 90 and the result was an unsatisfying triple.
Oh well, on a day with just a couple fleeting drops of rain, and moderate wind, it was a special round of golf, and I managed a couple of pars, including a well-played par 5, and a birdie. Those were for you, Blaine.
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