Sport I

Old Course, St Andrews
Photograph by Islay McLeod

Open house

Barbara Millar

Starbucks in St Andrews will be opening at 5am for the next couple of weeks. I hadn't realised that, at an hour which still seems to me like the middle of the night, someone might be champing at the bit for a flat white or a skinny latte with an extra shot. But, then, all normal assumptions have to be suspended for the next wee while – it's The Open, you see. And a different way of life has come to town.
     You may never have been aware of wanting one. But discovering that a gallery in St Andrews is flogging marquetry golf scenes, fashioned by the famous hands of 1969 Open champion Tony Jacklin, may make you suddenly look at that space on the dining room wall in a wholly different light. A portrait of Old and Young Tom Morris, created out of 15 different shades of wood, could provide just the talking point you need. (And someone should tell Andy Murray there may be a career move in re-creating Wimbledon's centre court out of macramé, once all this tennis nonsense is dispensed with).
     Or perhaps you hanker after a faded sketch of the Royal and Ancient clubhouse – still unrepentantly flying the flag for male chauvinism – or a dog-eared biography of the game's Mr Sulk, Colin Montgomerie? Fear not, these are on offer in the local charity shop – you'll find them just below the photographs of hungry African children.
     There is no escaping golf here. It permeates the very air. It is in snatches of the conversations that waft by on the streets. It is in the menus in the restaurants and cafes, the drinks in the bars. Everything has a golf theme. You may as well just go with the flow.
     Even the window of the St Andrews Citizen, a venerable journal, contains a hotchpotch of hickory golf clubs, sepia prints of Opens of yore, a strange assembly of ancient golf balls and a plethora of advertising for 'An Evening with Old Tom Morris'. Not that he's been resurrected especially for the occasion, I hasten to add. It is but a one-man theatrical soiree, at the Byre Theatre: Old Tom reminiscing about the days when it was glory enough to win the competition and the accompanying ten-bob note, or half-crown, or whatever was the prize money before they started dishing out cheques with so very many noughts.
      And talking of cheques with noughts, almost every property owner in St Andrews and its environs (and even way out of its environs) seems to be de-camping for the period, and letting out their little castle for a king's ransom. Whether it is a three-bed semi (20 mins walk to Old Course, £2,500 for 10 days) or a five-bed Georgian pile (£8,000), a luxury cottage in Leven (£2,000 – but, forgive me, does putting the words luxury and Leven in the same sentence constitute an infringement of the Trades Description Act?) or an apartment in Dollar (not exactly on the doorstep but a bargain at £795 a week), everyone appears to be on the make. Ah well, the tax(wo)man will be pleased, should s/he ever get to hear of these lucrative deals.
     The most expensive let I’ve so far seen was on offer for £22,500 for the 10-day Open period. Okay it was overlooking the Old Course. Well, it was when it was advertised. It is now overlooking the stands erected for the paying spectators on the Old Course – not quite as attractive a view as it might originally have appeared.
     Ah, the spectators. Arriving in a drip-drip effect this week, but already those of us who live and work in the town are finding the usual central car parks out-of-bounds as we are shoved ever towards the periphery. By next week I am expecting to have a major hike to my desk.
     Big yellow signs steer us out of town. And even bigger blokes enforce the new rules. Next week the police will be out in large numbers – and even the army will be lending a hand with security, it has been rumoured. But, on the bright side, there are even more bagpipers setting up their pitches and Gary Player, the 'Black Knight' himself, will be in town signing his new book.
    St Andrews is making the most of its 'home of golf' soubriquet. And golf will be paying St Andrews back in spades.

Barbara Millar is a journalist. Her big secret is that she's getting
to interview Gary Player