As we ready for the British Open at Royal Portrush and fall in love with auld links golf all over again, two hot new destinations in the United States remind us how differently we play the game—when it comes to drinking, that is.
At the private and exclusive Fall Line Golf Club in the Georgia sand hills, a dedicated beverage cart can stay with your group the entire round, its operator trained in both mixology and how to linger just so on the periphery. At The Lido at Sand Valley—C.B. Macdonald’s lost gem of classic templates recreated in Wisconsin—alcohol is not permitted on the course. An advance email apprises guests of the policy. Post-round libations are available in the member’s bar, and beer is sold on the resort’s four other courses, but the idea was The Lido warranted a more special experience.
You know, like one you’ll remember.
“The design is so unique and challenging to navigate, guests really don’t need other variable conditions, especially walking on a hot day,” says Tom Ferrell of Dream Golf. Safety and sanctity aside, the pace of play across the resort is 15 minutes faster (!) since liquor was eradicated from on-course stations. Ferrell is all for free-spirited fun, but describes the playing atmosphere of Sand Valley as “less alcohol-forward.” In this attitude, he says developer Chris Keiser probably feels even more strongly than his pioneering father, Mike, who built Bandon Dunes, an exceptional American facility in more ways than one.
Far be it from me to assume anything like a lecturing stance on booze. From a young teenager to present, the stream of my life has never run dry, including a real puddle of two years I studied in St. Andrews, Scotland. Yet, in all my time there, it was very rare to encounter a golfer playing with a drink in hand. That golfers in the British Isles contain their drinking to the clubhouse and Americans only everywhere they’re permitted is the largest differentiator between the two golf cultures. The best golfer on our university team—now a physician practicing in Edinburgh, father and well-traveled mid-amateur—sums it so: “Here, I can count on one hand the number of rounds I’ve played with a drink, and in the United States I can count the rounds I’ve not!”
Appropriate that in golf the grass should be greener on the other side.
AN INSIDE GAME: True links golf tends toward drinks in the clubhouse, not on the course. (Photograph courtesy of Getty Images)
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The same way an American tourist grows misty recalling a trip when he went around an ancient links with a colorful caddie, my physician friend also gets that faraway gleam in his eye talking about his recent holiday to Grove XXIII in Jupiter, Fla. With drones and servants on motorbikes delivering refreshing cocktails at top speed, he and his mates rarely went longer than three holes without ritual. “It was brilliant! Though not sure I could do it every weekend,” he says. When in Rome, they say, especially if your group has hired a driver. For what it’s worth, this man is the only doctor I’ve met who, after seeing him chip, you’d still welcome his operating on you.
With golf and drinking, it helps to know the protocol so you can prepare. On a few occasions in Scotland, rather than a tee time I was told when to meet in the bar for a “sharpener.” Once, in a match where the social element outweighed the competitive, a host club tricked us into thinking we were playing 36 holes, and we arrived early for what was revealed to be an extended sharpening session before just one round. But never did the drinking spill outside.
Of course, there are many on both sides of the Atlantic who never mix golf with alcohol. They stopped reading this in disgust after the second paragraph. But if you’re still with me, note that for a game exported to America not 150 years ago, it’s remarkable that we now need rules. Beyond the example set by The Lido, the club where I play keeps going back and forth on “airstrikes,” or golfers phoning drink orders from the course. Currently, I believe they’re outlawed—such is the cyclical nature of politics. The point is, same as most cases of questionable drinking, the issue has reached the level it can no longer go unexamined.
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So, why is it the golf customs of America and the British Isles have diverged so widely, especially given the latter’s fondness for drink is so storied? (Think of your favorite Irish drinking joke because I can’t write mine.) Five reasons:
CLIMATE. Weather is an obvious and powerful sociological force. We know the first golf was played in winter when fields were fallow and there was little work to be done. Even in short daylight, the popular goal of the early golfing societies was two quick rounds of alternate shot divided by lunch with wine and kümmel. You might wobble a bit on the first tee but your insides were warm, as were your pocketed hands free of beverage management. The booze was walked off by the time you came up No. 18 again.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF DESIGN. Many courses built in America in the 1920s and 1930s followed a principle espoused by Alister MacKenzie—that both nines should lead to the clubhouse. So was set into motion a rhythm of greater convenience and opportunity than the out-and-back layouts of the mother countries.
A top teacher I know thinks his students might be better off showing up to lessons drunk, if that’s the way they’re going to play.
GOLF CARTS. Shortly after fighting alongside our golfing brothers in World War II, some of Uncle Sam’s nephews had the idea to repurpose surplus electric military vehicles as golf carts for the disabled. Two decades later, enter the purpose-built beverage cart with coolers, and it’s not a long line to follow to the current tech race of who can mold the most cupholders in a dash.
THE BOTTOM LINE. Economically, the last century has been a birdie binge for the United States. Coinciding with all this plenty, American clubs developed levels of service that far outpaced British clubs. Incentivized to bring in more revenue to cover growing food and beverage operations, club managers operated accordingly, introducing contactless payment systems and “complimentary” kegs, bars and smorgasbords. Never forget, “free” and “included” are not the same.
PERFORMANCE. Both real and perceived. But for a few sad outliers, we know the best tour pros in the world compete soberly and with full athletic discipline. We also know we are not them. Among us flawed and tortured hacks, many entertain theories that they score their best with just the right amount of swing lubricant administered at the right intervals. These personal histories tend to be inconclusive, but that’s golf. A top teacher I know thinks his students might be better off showing up to lessons drunk, if that’s the way they’re going to play.
I hear that the halfway house at Royal Portrush, in keeping with a trend of overseas destinations that cater to American clientele, has much improved its supply. Whether our influence should be celebrated, I’m not sure.
Allow me a quote from the author Pete Hamill, whose father emigrated to Brooklyn from Ireland the day of the stock market crash in 1929. “The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love.” He damn well could’ve been talking about golf, though he wasn’t. On the inward nine of Hamill’s life, after he quit drinking, he remembered more of his friends’ good times than they did.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com