North Berwick is my happy place. It’s become many golfer’s happy place, but it started for me when I was 7 years old. That’s when my family would drive east from Edinburgh in the summers and set up camp steps from the seventh green North Berwick Golf Club.
The first “true” golf course I ever played was North Berwick. I learned the game on the kids’ course that plays alongside the 15th and 16th holes of the main course. Then, once I was 9 or 10 and able to at least get the ball airborne consistently, I played my first couple of rounds at North Berwick. I was in love immediately.
I love the course, I love the beach, I love the town. I couldn’t really love it more.
That was until 10 p.m. on Tuesday night.
A friend invited me for an evening round, teeing off at 7 p.m. I was nearby, covering the Genesis Scottish Open for Golf Digest. The Renaissance Club is five minutes from North Berwick G.C. The forecast looked ideal, the schedules lined up. Perfect.
It was a friendly round with three of my best friends. Sure, we’d have a match going, but I wasn’t there to grind. This was pure enjoyment. For that reason, and the historic nature of the course, which dates back to 1832, I decided to bring my hickory set.
Turning back the clock.
Five years ago, my wife gave me a bag of old clubs her granddad had used, a half set of hickory-shafted niblicks, mashies and cleeks. I had them restored at the Jack White shop, just down the road from North Berwick in Gullane, and began using the set in the winter months.
Playing hickory clubs is like driving an old car in manual versus a modern SUV in automatic. It’s all about feel. It’s both an insight into how the game was played in the late 1800s and a lesson in tempo and finding the middle of the clubface. Mishits aren’t just punished, they hurt.
On Tuesday morning, I drove back to the Jack White shop once more in need of a new hickory driver. The head on my previous one had snapped off last year, traveling about as far as the ball I hit, on the fourth hole at Montrose Golf Club, up the road in Fife.
After a few waggles and some advice from Boris, the shop owner and hickory golf connoisseur, I left with two drivers to try out. Both with tiny, meticulously crafted wood heads, hickory shafts and long, felt, red-colored grips.
Hickory driver technology at its finest.
I arrived at North Berwick and looked at both drivers in the boot of my car. One had a little more loft, and I knew distance, despite the hickory set, would be needed to score on the 6,500-yard layout. I chose the lower-lofted option, wrapped it in its tartan headcover and strolled to the first tee.
Dropping my worn leather brown bag on the first tee, half full of hickory clubs, my friends laughed although they knew this was not out of character for the “golf guy” in our group. Off we went.
On the first hole, an “interesting” sounding strike with a 4-iron on the tee, an 8-iron (from what I can tell) onto the green and two putts with a blade that resembles a butter knife you’d find in the dining room at Muirfield resulted in an opening 4.
Conditions were great, the sun was out and despite playing into the wind on the way out, spirits were high. A trio of pars to start, three bogeys in a row in the middle of the front nine and a topped driver-off-the-deck on the eighth hole, saw me turn in 40 shots.
My trusty blade putter.
We summited the tee at the short 10th hole, felt the wind at our backs and confidence seemed to naturally rise. The same iron that found the green on the opening hole followed suit here on the par 3 and the celebratory yell I uttered when the 30-foot putt dropped could likely be heard at the many surrounding courses.
A par followed at the par-5 11th, then another birdie on the 12th and a string of pars across the famous stretch of holes from 13 to 17. We arrived at the 18th hole about 10 p.m., with just enough light to finish our round, and out came the new driver once more.
The famed 13th hole at North Berwick.
North Berwick’s closing hole is often compared to that of the Old Course at St. Andrews, just 90 minutes away. A short, straight par 4 with a large, wide putting surface and a shallow short of the green that swallows any ball without the correction momentum on it.
As the lights of the clubhouse shining onto the green, I aimed just left of the pin with the idea of a smooth, low driver rolling up and through the shallow and perhaps onto the green. The strike didn’t hurt; in fact, it felt great. The ball started at my line, faded five or so yards and barely apexed higher than the clubhouse beyond. We couldn’t see where it finished, but I was more than happy with the execution.
Two of my three playing partners, complete with modern, 460cc-headed drivers, hit similarly accurate tee shots. We walked towards the green, laughing and soaking up the final moments of a thoroughly enjoyable round. We saw one ball on the green quickly, soon identify by its colorful logo. That wasn’t my ball.
Walking a little farther, the base of the shallow short of the green came into vision, revealing another ball. That, too, wasn’t minl.
I walked on the green and to the back edge, searching, but couldn’t see anything. The green is large and surrounded by a large area of fairway grass on all sides. It should be easy to spot a ball that trickled over the back of the green.
I stopped. We were all thinking it but didn’t want to say it.
“Should I check the hole?” I said to my mates.
“One hundred percent!” shouted Pete, the member and friend hosting me.
I walked towards the hole, my heart rate quickening as thoughts of both glory and despair entering my mind in equal measures. I could see the far side of the base of the cup, nothing. Then I arrived fully at the hole and there, resting on the near side of the hole, with the scuff mark from a hickory wedge earlier in the round, was my Titleist 2.
A hole-in-one, an albatross.
Wow.
I screamed, pulled the ball out of the hole, perhaps carelessly put my bag down on the green and chest-bumped my friends, who seemed equally excited and shocked. Shouts of “no way,” “what?!” and “unbelievable” were mixed in among hugs and high fives. There’s not really an instruction book on how to act in such situations.
I took the obligatory photo next to the hole, my ball and hickory driver in hand, then shook hands with my playing partners and headed to the clubhouse. It was nearly 10:30 but surely the bar would still be open. There’s a tradition to uphold. We had to celebrate.
“It’s customary to buy a bottle of whisky from the club and offer a dram to everyone,” said Chris, the bar manager at the club. I happily agreed and offered a pint or alternative to the 15 or 20 people still in the clubhouse bar.
“One other thing,” Chris said as I began skipping back to my friends, who settled into a table overlooking the hole of the heroics just moments before.
“I was actually taking a video of the sunset, and I think I might have got the moment you saw the ball in the hole!”
I couldn’t believe it. He unlocked his phone and we watched as our group walked up to the green, identified the first two balls and then watched as I walked to the back of the green, turned to my friends and stepped towards the hole. It captured it all: retrieving the ball, the chest bumps, the dancing, the yelling and the obligatory photo moment by the flag.
We watched it over and over, raised our whisky glasses and shook our heads. Total disbelief.
Not simply a hole-in-one, an albatross. Not simply any hole, the final hole at one of my favorite courses anywhere in the world. Not simply a three-under-par score, it meant I carded a one-under-par round with my hickory set. Disbelief.
The fact that North Berwick’s final hole is drivable for many has always made me think of the unthinkable. What if someone made a walk-off, albatross to finish their round?
I just never thought it would happen to me.
The BBC asked me to do a radio interview later in the week at the Scottish Open and talk about the shot. After we got off air, the producer said to me “I think you may want to find another sport. I’d say you just completed this one.”
And with a hickory driver!
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
