Scotland Has a Good Course in History

The road back to our sporting soul begins on, well, a road.

A regular road, one lane, paved, black and straight, filled with footsteps and tire squeals and life.

The road was once used to haul boats between the North Sea and this tiny medieval town. It is used by families walking to the beach, children kicking soccer balls to school, motorists taking the scenic route.

It’s called Granny Clark’s Wynd, and there’s nothing too special about it, with one exception.

It cuts directly across the first and 18th fairways of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

“The road is in play,” explains Alan Duncan, a wrinkled and tobacco-stained caddie. “The ball hits a car, it’s in play. The ball hits a person, it’s in play. The ball stops on the blacktop, pull out an iron, it’s in play.”

And thus this week, a most splendid bit of sports history is in play, the British Open returning to golf’s crooked cradle, delivering a midsummer postcard about how sport began.

Wish you were here, indeed.

The world’s best golfers competing for the sport’s most historic title on the Old Course at St. Andrews is a bit like the NBA championship being held in a Springfield, Mass., gymnasium with peach baskets.

Errant shots could easily break glass in the homes and businesses that line the 18th fairway -- already there are boards over a window on the second floor of Rusacks Hotel.

One important shot must fly over a shed. Several key shots must avoid blacktop and parked cars.

Although Granny Clark’s Wynd is closed during the tournament, shots must also account for citizens’ picking up the newspaper from their front stoop or walking the dog.

The city is so close, one could stand on a public street next to the 18th green and speak to the golfer in a loud whisper.

This is surely the only course in the world that contains a permanent sign, “Danger: Golf In Progress.”

Unlike most U.S. courses that are secluded from the masses, this one wraps around the city like a worn comforter, its boundaries marked by coastline and building, its final nine holes the equivalent of driving directly into downtown.

On most courses, caddies will instruct a golfer to aim for a certain tree.

This may be the only course in the world where, on the finishing holes, the caddie can reasonably point to an ancient downtown church and advise, “Aim for the steeple.”

Sucking on hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking Tennents Lager with other caddies at the nearby Dunvegan Hotel, Duncan grins.

“This is golf as it should be,” he says. “None of that manicured stuff like they have in America, eh?”

It is certainly golf as it was, dating back more than 500 years, when shepherds hit balls now struck by Woosnams, into holes made by rabbits instead of filled by Tigers.

Although Scots were not the sole inventors of the game -- the Dutch also played a game where a ball was advanced with a club -- it was at St. Andrews where it was first taken seriously.

One of the first recorded golf clubs -- which has become the Royal and Ancient -- was formed here in 1754.

The reduction of the game from 22 holes to 18 holes occurred here in 1764.

“And since then, not a whole lot has changed,” says Duncan, shrugging.

The course is still little more than a huge grassy area that links -- thus the term “links” -- the town and the sea.

The bunkers are just deeper, fortified versions of the sandy holes dug by shivering sheep.

The greens, many of them shared by two holes, are rolling, dipping, flattened versions of the fairways.

There are no trees, because there were never any trees.

There is no water except for a natural stream that runs across the first and 18th holes and is spanned by an ancient bridge.

There are no cart paths, because, well, c’mon.

And the rough is roughly everywhere. In front of a green. Surrounding a bunker. In the middle of a fairway. Wherever it grew centuries ago, it probably grows now, giant clumps of heather and gorse, scattered like hieroglyphics on an ancient wall.

Standing on the 14th green this week, for the first time in my life on a golf course, I was completely lost.

I couldn’t find the 14th fairway behind me. I couldn’t find the 15th fairway in front of me. The swales and hollows and bushes had turned the course into an incomprehensible puzzle, the rough too prickly even for the tattooed caddies to endure.

“You know what we do when somebody wants us to find their ball in there?” asks John Cochrane, a 30-year veteran who is drinking with Duncan.

He pulls out a bottle of pills, holds it low, and shakes it.

“We do this and people think we’ve come upon a rattlesnake,” he says. “That’ll get them to take a drop, I’ll say.”

But nothing is more scary than the weather, which, blowing in from the sea, changes quicker than prices in a tartan gift shop.

“We have all four seasons here,” Duncan says. “In the same round.”

Duncan remembers once walking in from the ninth hole when the course was closed because of snow. By the time his group reached the landmark clubhouse, it was sunny, and they finished the round.

The weather is the only thing that can shake this week’s veterans, leading to the sign on the Dunvegan pub walls that reads, “The Lady needs the wind to perfect her charm. ... Blow wind blow.”

The history, however, gets everyone else.

It’s a public course, so anyone can play. But few can relax.

“On the first tee, people look around, realize where they are, and start shaking,” says Duncan, his hand quivering for effect. “We have a lot of shanks off the first tee.”

Initially, golfers can’t believe that they may have traveled halfway around the world to hit their first shot ... over a city street?

“I yell at people, make deals with people, anything to keep them from getting hit,” Duncan says. “My favorite is when a little child going to the beach walks up to somebody’s tee shot, grabs their ball, puts it in his little pocket, and keeps going.”

He shrugs. “In that case, we give them a drop.”

Golfers are also so excited to cross that ancient stream, the Swilcan Burn, that they sometimes try to leap it.

“Bad move, it’s wider than it looks on TV,” Duncan says. “I’ve seen ‘em fall right in.”

Once settled into their game, the average golfer’s biggest problem is with the bunkers, all of which have names, like favorite pets or horror movies, from Beardies to Hell.

The other day, on the 14th fairway, I climbed down into Hell.

It’s bigger than the average Southern California backyard, with room for a pool and deck and barbecue. It’s deeper than my 6-foot-2 frame, as I couldn’t see out.

Duncan says he’s frequently been stuck in bunkers 20 minutes or 20 shots, whatever comes first.

“We tell them to hit out behind the bunker, but nobody ever listens,” he says. “They usually take three or four shots and then just throw the thing out.”

Walking down the 18th fairway, whether it has taken 80 or 160 shots to get there, golfers typically stand and pose for photos on the tiny Swilcan Bridge, the stately stone Royal and Ancient clubhouse in the background.

“It’s a feeling you get out here, it’s much more than golf,” Duncan says.

It’s knowing that the first of 26 British Open winners here, Tom Kidd in 1873, was a caddie.

It’s knowing that the second St. Andrews winner, Bob Martin in 1876, was a shepherd.

It’s knowing that the Open trophy is little more than a drinking mug, the Claret Jug, so named because the early golfers often wagered a wine known as claret.

It’s knowing that at least one sporting venue on Earth was created as much by nature as by man, for no other reason than for sport, something truly royal and ancient and magical.

In Duncan’s quarter-century of rounds, one makes him smile.

It was played by an American woman whose late husband loved golf.

He never played here, so, shortly after his death, she brought his clubs to play in his memory.

She had never golfed before. She played every shot as if it were the most important sporting event of her life. The round took more than six hours.

“She shot more than 200,” Duncan says. “But I never told her. And she never asked.”

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BRITISH OPEN

Thursday-Sunday

Old Course at St. Andrews

Par 72, 7,279 yards

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.