Lahinch, The Old Course with Chip & Tim

THE DAY AT LAHINCH GOLF CLUB. Chip and Tim up at 6:30 and a quick breakfast of cereal. We gathered our equipment, donned golf gear and headed for the course about 7:45 for an 8:40 tee time on the Old Course. Clouds, wind and sporadic rain as we pulled in to the parking lot just before 8, where there was little activity. Pro shop closed, one car in the lot. We staggered around and found the starter who was setting up, couldn’t have been nicer, and said he’d get us out quickly, and gave us course books, without which we would have been completely lost. We rented two pull carts, met Andrew on the first tee, a newly-wed from Virginia on his honeymoon, squeezing in a round before more moon. So, we started out safely off the first tee with good drives and began a day of barely acceptable golf, punctuated by some wonderful shots, escapes from pot bunkers, and huge greens. Andrew, being an excellent golfer, politely left us after a few holes and roared on ahead, alone. Roughs were impossible tall thick grass, but we only lost a few balls. The course was perhaps the most stunningly beautiful we both had ever seen, maybe surpassing the great Cruden Bay in Scotland. It is a virtually unchanged natural dune landscape discovered and launched in 1892, redesigned by the legendary Tom Morris in 1894 and changed again in 1927 by the famous Alexander MacKenzie. The drama of beautifully designed holes against the backdrop of the beach and big surf, with the sun highlighting sections against the background of dark storm clouds and rainbows was hard to believe. We were blown off course, rained on, but rescued by swift weather changes every few minutes. We took pictures to try to capture this magic place, but kept moving, although we were never pressed from behind all day. Tim almost made a hole-in-one on the fifth hole, a blind par 3 designed by Tom Morris. On the 8th, another par 3, Tim drove the green with 8 iron within three feet and sank the birdie putt. The one picture showing the two balls near the pin is that hole. Tim's ball closest to the pin, and Chip's the result of a spectacular bunker shot, shown in the preceeding picture. After a few mulligans and mercy shots, we stumbled home after about 4 ½ hours with a 97 and a 106 for 18 holes, Tim the winner. We repaired to the clubhouse for a beer and excellent potato leek soup overlooking the first hole. The clubhouse featured walls of beautiful silver trophies in glass cases. After a visit to the pro shop for souvenirs for our golfing mates, we returned to the car, running into Andrew and his bride, who were glad to see us and asked us to snap a picture of them with the Lahinch Club sign, which we did. We wished them luck and headed back to Ashgrove Cottage.