The Last Queue

In March of this year, one of golf’s last analogue adventures quietly closed shop in the dignified shadows of the Royal & Ancient clubhouse. For decades, golfers with varying levels of sanity, desperation and bladder control dutifully joined the Singles Queue, camping all night under the eaves of the starter’s pavilion for the chance to chase their dreams on the Old Course. Having never experienced it, I made the journey for the Queue’s final night. Along with a group of strangers who would become friends, we lined up to find out what was being lost.

The Singles Queue started in the 1990s as a way to manage the increasing demands of golf tourism. For those who plan well ahead—often more than a year in advance—there are various ways to sign up and play the Old Course. But the Links Trust of St. Andrews also recognized that many stray tee times also became available nearly every day, and the Queue seemed a fair enough way to fill them. It quickly became an institution and a rite of passage. For many, you hadn’t really ‘done’ St. Andrews unless you had sat overnight, huddled on the benches. It was both meritocracy and ruthless triage, sifting through the hordes of casual bystanders to find the real golf psychos. If you were crazy enough to wait all night, often in the cold and wet, then it was clear you deserved the joy of a coveted tee time. 

The thing about crazy is that it loves company. The Singles Queue was never just about stoically waiting. It was about communion with others just like you. Casual golfers would pass through St. Andrews, give a wistful glance at the course and continue on their way. But the crazies saw an opportunity. Just the act of joining the Queue, of committing to it, distinguished you as a fellow fanatic. The congregants came from around the world, sharing the same devotion.

As did I. And so I made the nine-hour drive up from London the night before and found my friend Scott, a local resident and fellow romantic who had also never experienced the Queue, and who refused to let it pass into history without giving it a go. On this near-frozen Monday evening, we walked up the 18th hole of the Old on our way to the starter’s pavilion. In summer, golfers arrived before midnight and the line would eventually snake around the pavilion like a strangling scarf. We showed at 2 a.m., and we were not the first. Owen, from Newcastle in Australia, had beaten us to it. He had been nearby and heard this was the last Queue, but his determination was not born of nostalgia or sentiment. Owen was simply trying to get an Old Course tee time before the opportunity passed.

And he was not alone. In total, 11 people stood the Queue that night, among them Ted from Houston, Ike from Seattle, Danny from San Diego and Will, a newlywed from New Orleans on his honeymoon who had clearly made the right choice, as his wife was apparently happy to let him stand in line with a bunch of strangers on one of their precious first nights together. Of the hardy 11, only a few of us were there because it was the final chance. For some it was a happy coincidence, and the rest had no idea.

There are many obvious reasons why shuttering the Singles Queue and moving it to an online ballot makes sense. For a start, it’s the 21st century. Why waste the man hours dealing with cold, hungry, sometimes overserved golfers first thing in the morning? Also, a case could be made that the Queue was non-inclusive in a world where inclusivity is ever important—not everyone is physically able to sit out all night. It had also become a victim of its own success, as word of the Queue spread across the wastelands of golf social media and it went from a dozen people a night to sometimes nearly 100, most of whom had zero chance of getting on. And that many people came with additional problems. They were arriving earlier and earlier in the evening and sometimes the day before, they were creating rubbish and, perhaps most important, they were creating an eyesore for R&A members leaving the clubhouse after a late supper. Something had to be done. 

But the tragedy of replacing the Queue with the dull indifference of an algorithm is similarly clear: That defiantly old-fashioned system allowed anyone with enough determination to succeed. Your money didn’t matter. Your status didn’t matter. Nor did your game, your luck, or your rolodex. If you were committed enough to get there early and sit out all night, you could walk the links of Old Tom Morris, James Braid, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros and Tiger Woods. And there was honor in that. You deserved the spot because you did what others would not. They were in bed, asleep. You were awake, in the cold, dark envelope of the Old Course, waiting with hope in your heart. That proved your mettle. That was enough. 

The new system allows anyone to walk into the clubhouse and put their name into a tablet. Which everyone from touring golf groups to passing couples to the mildly curious will do. Why wouldn’t you? It costs nothing. It requires nothing, other than the luck of the draw. And, alas, the winners will have proven nothing, other than that luck was on their side. And while luck of the draw and the bounce will always have a place in golf, the Singles Queue was refreshing in that it was a place where purity of focus could be enough.

On that final cold night in March, we kept ourselves busy exchanging war stories. Some of us had played the Old before and answered the questions excitedly fired at us by those who had not. As the minutes ticked past, the conversations turned to our lives and families. Our hopes and fears. Five hours is a long time in the dark. Initially, there was a macabre bit of selfishness in the Queue—no one knows how many lots would shake open, and it would be devastating to wait in line and come up one short. But by the time the doors of the pavilion opened and we filed inside to discover our fate, we were genuinely rooting for each other.

And all 11 of us got in.

None of us ended up playing together, but one of the myriad beauties of those grand old links is its out-and-back routing, and the long views it affords across its rippled interior. And so, like so many of those who waited before us, we found ourselves spotting each other later in the day, waving from different fairways, trying to surmise if it had all been worth it. Judging by the smiles, it seemed to me that no matter the cold, the exhaustion or even the quality of their golf, for those who had made the sacrifice, it always had been.