BRITISH OPEN: : THE COURSE : Game Is Same, Only the Names Are Different

Golf is golf, sure. But to fully understand and enjoy golf in Scotland, it is essential to learn the local terminology of the sport and the idiosyncrasies of the courses.

For instance, one handy phrase is sod-faced pot bunker. This can be directed at a bus driver who cuts you off in downtown Edinburgh, but it more commonly describes the most distinctive feature of this year’s British Open course.

The bunkers here--never called sand traps--are picturesque and sadistic. Plop into one with a slightly errant fairway shot and you may find yourself staring at a six-foot vertical wall of sod bricks, with a backward shot the only escape.

Stray slightly off the narrow fairways and you will find yourself in the rough, where you can lose your ball, your bag and your caddy.

The tall rough, growing two to five feet high, is gorse, but locals call it whum. It’s a thick, spreading, thorny bush with brilliant yellow flowers and no compassion.

The course also has buckthorn, similar to rose bushes, and heather, a low-growing, purple wild flower. Both are good on the eyes, bad on the lies.

The course itself is on the Northeast coast of the country, on the Firth of Forth, which is not a holiday but a body of water similar to a bay.

Nobody names their places as poetically as do the Scots. Bordering the Firth of Forth on the North is the Kingdom of Fife. Nearby are such places as Bucksburn, Kildrummy, Loanheads, Ladybank, Muthill, Weem, Spott, Edzell, Drem, Kirkton of Kingoldrum and Spittal of Glenshee.

But back to the course. Jack Nicklaus so loves Muirfield, the course and the name, that he named one of his American courses Muirfield.

Here, a hill is called a hummock, a brook is a berm, a caddy is a bag (as in “I’m Trevino’s bag”), a big bunker is a wee creviss, and when you’ve blown a shot, you have foozled or dufted it.

Spoon, brassie, baffy, mashie and niblick are old-time Scottish terms for golf clubs, and also, I believe, the names of Jack Nicklaus’ five children.

Now if I’m off by a letter or two on any of these words, it’s because I got them from local folks, many of whom speak English in a brogue thick as the gorse. Sometimes it sounds like a foreign language, which would be disconcerting to a visitor if not for the fact that whatever the Scots say is invariably delivered in such a doggone cheerful and charming manner.

The Muirfield caddy master, an elderly gentleman, told me a long and colorful anecdote of which I understood only three words-- Lord Melligan and bunker.

The course itself, site of the British Open for the 13th time, is steeped in tradition. It is the home of the oldest golf club in the world. The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers has evolved from the Company of Gentlemen Golfers that was founded in the 1700s. The Gentlemen Golfers set down the first set of golf rules in 1744.

Muirfield is tranquil and remote but not a picturesque course by American standards. There are no trees, no water hazards, no big hills, only distant and occasional views of the Firth of Forth.

Also, there are no modern golfing gimmicks here, such as dog-legs, garish golf costumes and sprinklers. “It’s just nature that decides how much water (the course) gets, a club official explained.

Honourable Company members, mostly upper-crust professionals, play golf in traditional plus-fours and knitted pullover sweaters in drab colors. In the clubhouse they wear tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, and dine on treacle pudding, mutton caper sauce and steak and kidney pie, chased by bumpers of claret and double kummels, whatever those are.

Membership carries great privilege and clout. The club’s first captain and champion, John Rattray, was captured in battle in 1745 during in a local Scottish war. When Rattray came to trial, the judge was a fellow club member. Instead of sentencing Rattray to the gallows, the judge set him free in time to play in the 1748 club tournament.

Justice still prevails at Muirfield. Erratic golfers are sentenced to wade through the gorse and hack their way back to civilization, back to the narrow fairways. This is said to be the most honest golf course in Britain, maybe anywhere. Good golfers do well here and bad golfers do poorly.

The best golfer will win this weekend, and the pretenders will stagger off the course looking like sod-faced pot bunkers.