ST ANDREWS IS ONE OF THOSE rare places in the world where you can walk down the high street with a golf bag slung casually over your shoulder without feeling in the least bit self-conscious. Pinehurst, North Carolina, would be another where golf is simply a part of the way of life. People don’t stare and the few that bother to look up as you stroll past are almost certainly only interested in the brand of clubs you’re packing. Not only that, but golf is the common language spoken here. Albeit in a variety of accents (and with varying degrees of fluency), people are talking golf. In the pubs, at restaurant tables, in hotels, everywhere you go there are earnest discussions taking place about the latest lob wedges, the Ryder Cup, spike marks and how quickly Tiger Woods is losing his hair. Nor need you ever be on your own

in St Andrews. Comfortable amongst their own kind, singletons can confidently latch onto any likely looking threesome whilst pairs frequently join other pairs in the certainty that they will be welcomed. Although you might well be asked your handicap, you will never be rebuffed. Being such a fiendishly difficult game that humbles and humiliates us all, golf is a great leveller. It therefore matters not how rich you are or if you draw or fade the ball, before the great golfing god we are all unworthy and incompetent mortals. The only distinction of any consequence you come across at St Andrews is that between residents and visitors. There’s no tension between the two, it’s just that residents are relaxed while visitors can sometimes appear rather anxious and agitated. It all goes back to 1123 when King

David the First (twice club champion) ratified that the links was common land belonging to the townspeople of St Andrews. With a touch more foresight he might have nabbed it for the royals thus ensuring a valuable revenue stream of green fees for umpteen future generations of kings and queens. As it is, it belongs to every Tom, Jock and Harry in St Andrews, which gives residents enviable playing rights that broadly mean that what they pay a year we, the residents of the rest of the world, pay for just one round on the Old Course. Even this apparent inequitable situation wouldn’t bother the 99.999 per cent of the world’s population that lives somewhere other than St Andrews if it were not for the fact that money alone doesn’t guarantee a starting time on the Old Course, hence the anxiety and agitation referred to above.