The Pilgrim and the Scot

The Secret | Jim Hartsell

I was sitting on the deck outside my small cottage on Dunaverty Bay on a late-May afternoon. The sunlight and clouds moved over the calm water like a Seurat painting come to life. Across the beach, no more than 75 yards away, a herd of jet-black cows began to surround the fourth green at Dunaverty Golf Club, standing on the upper level of the hidden dell like celebrants in some ancient pagan ritual. My golf bag was sitting on the rocks by the water. I grabbed four clubs and a Tesco bag full of golf balls and walked along the sandy path to play my favorite hole in golf. It never seems to get dark in Scotland during the summer.

Dunaverty Golf Club, all 4,799 yards and par 66 of it, is in Southend, about 8 miles from the Mull of Kintyre. The Mull, forever celebrated in song by Paul McCartney’s band Wings, is the closest point on the U.K. mainland to Ireland. The name has come to encompass the entire southern portion of the Kintyre peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, in large part due to Sir Paul, who bought nearby High Park Farm in 1966 and has made it his Scottish escape ever since. In fact, the term is meant to describe only the rocky point on which the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse sits. From Southend, the drive to the lighthouse, along the coast of the Irish Sea and through the rocky headland, is breathtaking.

The links of Dunaverty was laid out by its founding members in 1889. The 1894 edition of British publication The Golfing Journal vividly describes the Southend offering, then still relatively new:

The course is of the most sporting character, there being an infinite number of hazards in the form of streams, hills, gullies, bent, and whins, all demanding the greatest skill to evade and calling into play every club the caddie carries. Thus, from the first hole to the last (there are 18), the interest and excitement in the game are fully sustained. The prospect from the links is extensive, and, on a fine day, even beautiful.

Called Dunaverty, the 177-yard par-3 fourth hole exemplifies the “most sporting character” of this remarkable place. It sits in the shadow of Dunaverty Rock and the remains of the Dunaverty castle, where, in 1306, legendary Scottish king Robert the Bruce once took shelter from incoming English forces. He stayed for three days before being spirited away on a boat by Angus Og MacDonald, Lord of the Isles. There is a persistent rumor among the oldest members that the hole was laid out by the great James Braid himself as he was passing through on a trip to the Machrie.

I have played the fourth at Dunaverty many times since my first golf trip to Scotland more than three decades ago, never quite unlocking the mystery of the tee shot. The hole is a brilliant puzzle in its seemingly straightforward concept. From the tee, only a few short steps from the third green, the fairway dips sharply down, then steeply up to an elevated dune ridge. A black-and-white-striped marker pole indicates the line to the punchbowl green, which is submerged in a natural bowl like a hidden Easter egg. On the bluebell-covered dune beyond sits a tall white marker pole, topped by a metal circle bearing the numeral four in an Art Deco–style font. Its functional simplicity is elegant and lovely.

On this peaceful evening I was alone on the links, save for the cattle. The cows stood across the top of the ridge in a line, resolute and unmoving silhouettes in the low golden sun. There was very little wind, so the hole was playing right at its published yardage. Generally, the idea is to simply carry the ridge at about 150 yards and let the ball funnel wildly down to the hole. The morning before, I had spent more than an hour standing on top of the dune behind the green, watching groups play the hole in a club competition. It was a revelation to watch how the incoming tee shots reacted once over the ridge. It seemed to me that balls starting well left of the marker pole had the greatest chance to funnel to the center of the small, rectangular (yes, rectangular) green. It had been fun to watch balls careen wildly down the slope, many of them narrowly missing the pin as they flew by, before rolling back down like the ball in a roulette wheel. The golfers on the tee in the distance were oblivious to every near miss.

The Tesco bag, which a friend’s father had given me in Lochgilphead a few days earlier, contained about 20 golf balls, including a yellow-and-black one patterned like a soccer ball. I arbitrarily picked out 10, including that neon orb. My plan was to hit a few to the right of the marker pole, a few straight at it and a few to its far left. Blind shots are the most fun shots in golf. Blind shots to a punchbowl green are a rare, even more enjoyable, subset of this genre. A few that come to mind are the famous par-3 fifth holes of both Prestwick and Lahinch, and the approaches to the 14th at Cruden Bay, 10th at Elie and sixth at Shiskine. The fourth at Dunaverty deserves its place in this small pantheon.

Alternating between a 7-iron and a choked-down 6, I launched the balls toward Dunaverty Rock and the Irish Sea beyond. This was near the end of a three-week trip through Scotland, so I struck most of the shots solidly. It is also possible that a pint or two of Tennent’s at the cottage during an afternoon of bay watching had loosened my swing. I saved the yellow-and-black ball for my final shot, which I played as far left of the pole as possible through a depression in the ridge. The strike came off the middle of the clubface and felt effortless, as only a perfect one does.

Despite the shots launched through, over and between them, the cows continued their silent, motionless vigil. The largest one, which I playfully believed was the leader, eyed me skeptically as I climbed over the ridge. I have always found the cows of Dunaverty to be friendly, but I still treat them with the deference and respect an animal of that size demands. The deep, hidden dell was noticeably darker as I descended the slope and started to look for balls. As I stepped over the electric wire fence surrounding the putting surface, I saw the multicolored ball about 6 inches from the hole. I ceremoniously marked it, then putted some of the other balls that were sitting 30 feet or more from the hole.

In the dim twilight of the dell, I placed the yellow-and-black ball on its mark near the cup and tapped it in. The largest black cow was staring straight at me from the top of the dune. I am sure it was my imagination, but she seemed to nod her head slightly in my direction. I had finally learned the secret to playing the fourth at Dunaverty. It only took me 30 years.

The Spirit | Angus MacVicar

Angus MacVicar (1908–2001) was a native of Southend, Scotland. A lifelong member of Dunaverty Golf Club, he published more than 50 books of nonfiction, fiction and children’s fiction. His son Jock was the golf writer for The Scottish Express for 46 years. Angus often played at his beloved Dunaverty with a childhood friend named Boskers. The following are two excerpts from Golf in My Gallowses, published in 1983.

Boskers and I discovered early that as golfers we were fated to encounter many barriers.

In our youth the Dunaverty clubhouse was of corrugated iron, about 25 feet long and 15 broad, built in a popular pre–World War I style called Spieresque. Magazines of the period, to which my parents subscribed, including Chamber’s Journal and Life and Work, were filled with advertisements containing illustrations of the various fancy erections—tennis pavilions, church halls and even public loos—which the enterprising firm of Spier was ready to provide with a minimum of delay. I think that Spier must have been among the originators of the “pre-fab” idea.

The clubhouse built by the firm for Dunaverty had windows so high that it was impossible to see out of them, unless you stood on the plain wooden table positioned carefully in the middle of the concrete floor. The inner walls were lined with lockers, and in a corner behind the door there stood a wash-hand basin. Beneath the lockers, about 18 inches above the floor, there projected a narrow wooden seat which ran round the whole interior, with the exception of the door space. The prevailing smell inside was of damp clothes, leather and pipe tobacco smoke.

One day, soon after we joined the club, Boskers and I essayed an entry. We had no lockers. Lockers cost more money than we could afford, and, in any case, as healthy 16-year-olds, we were perfectly happy to sling clubs on our shoulders as we cycled to and from the course. We were curious, however, to discover what went on within this curious, somehow secretive place.

As we opened the door we saw, sitting on either side of the table on a wooden seat, the four fairly elderly members who had completed their round a minute or two before us and, indeed, had inhibited our ordinarily speedy passage along the last few fairways. We knew them well, of course.

The day was cold, with slight showers from the southwest wisping over the course. All four still had on their ordinary cloth suits and hard collars in which they had been playing. The suits were already steaming a little.

One of the four was the “schoolmaister,” James Inglis Morton, burly and solid, with the bushy blond moustache which contrasted so interestingly with his scant dark hair. Another was “Dr. Jim”: James Niven, the parish doctor, a slim, wiry man with a narrow moustache and a bleak, inquiring eye. During our short lives Boskers and I had been attended to by both of them, receiving from one knowledge and discipline and from the other advice on the kind of medicine required to cure our juvenile ills and pains.

A third member was Boskers’ father, Captain James Taylor, TD, farmer and former officer with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders: a tall, handsome man with a kittle temper not unlike that of my own father. The fourth was Dick Gillon, an itinerant fisherman and rabbit-catcher whose sinuous build and dark complexion may or may not have been handed down by a survivor of the Spanish Armada. Both he and Captain Taylor had been founder members of the club. Indeed, Dick had been employed as one of the first greenkeepers. His engagement, however, had come to an acrimonious end when it was discovered that he was building tees with boulders and rubble concealed by only a thin layer of earth and clubs were “shattered in shard on shard.”

As Boskers and I went in we noticed at once that mingling with the smell of tobacco smoke was another aroma, that of what fastidious folk of the period called “spirits.” There was a sudden opening and shutting of the table drawer and a burst of coughing, accompanied by a shuffling and rustling of papers on the table. Inimical faces were turned in our direction.

Nobody spoke for a second or two. Then, in the sardonic, intimidating voice for which he was famous, Dick inquired: “Have ye lost something?”

The atmosphere was chill. Boskers and I mumbled a few inept words. We hesitated, but no intimation of hospitality was conveyed to us.

“Sorry!” I said. We left smartly, shutting the door behind us.

It was a long time before we collected enough courage to go inside the clubhouse again, even on competition days. We recognized our place in the scheme of things: a lowly place which could only be improved as we grew older and wiser and our golf better.

About two years later I applied for a handicap. To my surprise, Mr. Morton, who had become the secretary, himself played with me to mark the two cards I needed. The previous suspicious relationship between master and pupil, veteran golfer and raw beginner, was gradually smoothed away as, during the games, I absorbed much wisdom concerning golf.

By that time Mr. Morton’s physical powers were in decline, while my own were burgeoning. Occasionally I outdrove him by 50 yards, but this never worried him. There was no reason why it should worry him, because my pitching and putting were simply no match for his.

At the short fourth, on our first outing, I found my tee shot in a clump of bent not far from the greenside. As I slashed my way out with more enthusiasm than skill, I saw him stroking his big moustache and smiling. “You remind me of the time James Braid played the course, advising us on the positioning of some of the greens—particularly this one. He was in some bent not far from where you are now. But he got the ball out with one easy swing of his niblick, and it landed and stopped inches from the hole.”

That was one lesson I learnt that day, “easy” being the key word. Even now, when I remember, the word is magic.

Dusk is falling over the links of Dunaverty. In the clubhouse, lights are going on. Jock suggests that to end the day I should tell the true story of the happy golfer from Oban. I point out that I have told it before, in a book.

“It was in all the newspapers as well.” He leans back comfortably. “So never mind. It deserves a repeat.”

“All right, Jock. Here goes.” Old Machrimore is working well.

With 11 club-mates the happy golfer from Oban came to play a match against a local team at Machrihanish, over the hill from Dunaverty. After the golf a pleasant evening was enjoyed by everyone. Eventually, however, goodbyes had to be said, and at a late hour the Oban team climbed aboard their bus and began the long journey home.

Alas, in the excitement of departure a miscount had taken place. The happy golfer, unnoticed by his friends, was left behind, under a sofa.

Some time after midnight he woke up, alone in an empty clubhouse. At first he was upset. Then the natural resilience of a faithful golfer asserted itself. Clubs slung on his shoulder, he climbed out through a window and began to walk to Oban, a hundred miles to the north.

The night was dark, and before long he lost his way. Undaunted, he strode on, unaware that he was now entering the huge security complex of the NATO airbase at Machrihanish. On all sides were 8-foot-high barbed-wire fences, snarling guard dogs and eagle-eyed police, but he remained oblivious of such formidable obstacles. The human and canine patrols remained oblivious of him.

Suddenly he saw in front a large vehicle. Exhausted after a long day, he probably thanked his lucky stars that against all the odds he had overtaken the Oban bus. He clambered in and found a seat near the back, deposited his clubs on the floor and settled down to sleep.

Hours later he opened his eyes. The bus was moving, but was it merely the state of his head that caused its engine to sound so rough?

In need of a cigarette, the happy golfer approached the driver and politely asked for a light. Equally polite, the driver handed over his lighter with the remark: “May I ask who you are, sir?”

The happy golfer was caught unprepared. “One of the Oban golfers,” he said. “Isn’t this the bus?”

For the pilot and crew of the Hercules aircraft bound for a secret destination in England, the moment was traumatic. Entering the plane, ready for takeoff, they had seen the happy golfer asleep at the back, his clubs beside him. Imagining he must be a VIP with official clearance, on his way back to play golf with friends in the south, they had decided not to disturb him. Now they knew better. Were they face-to-face with a hijacker, or even an international spy?

The great plane banked round, teetering on one wing. As it roared back to Machrihanish radio signals buzzed and crackled in the air.

The Hercules landed. The happy golfer’s dream was over. Bothered and bewildered, the sound of sharp questions and police sirens echoing in his ears, he was arrested, dragged down the gangway steps, thrust into a Black Maria and, later, clapped into gaol in Campbeltown.

In the outcome, of course, he was released. Nothing at all happened to him. The whole thing was what Sir Robin Day might have described on radio or television as “an almighty cock-up.”

But I salute the happy golfer. He proved once again that even in these days of cold business endeavor and callous bureaucracy, camouflaged by mind-bending propaganda, not all the King’s horses and not all the King’s men can defeat the innocent human spirit.

Which, I believe, is the spirit of golf.