Royal Troon – Men Only, Please

The last time I was at Troon, the Clubhouse needed a new slate roof.  That was an expensive one million pound proposition.  And the membership — all male — had decided that instead of adding the assessment to their monthly dues, it would be better to just sell the ladies clubhouse next door and use the proceeds for the new roof.

Of course, the women objected.  There were nasty verbal tussles, subtle taunts, quiet jeers and smirking ridicule; but eventually cool heads prevailed, the rhetoric subsided and the men swallowed the dues increase.

But those men at Royal Troon are still dragging their feet.  They won’t admit women to membership.  Along with Muirfield, Troon is the only Club hosting a major golf tournament that doesn’t have women members.

A photo posted by Royal Troon Golf Club (@royaltroongc) on Apr 12, 2016 at 9:24am PDT

Augusta National and the R&A of St. Andrews have caved, but not the Troon men.  …Well, they have promised to ‘comprehensively’ review the issue.  Give them that.  I’m not sure that that’s good enough though.  The Open Championship will be played at Troon this year.  Expect a war of words, as per usual.  Even though, as a sop to the ladies, the Troon men have agreed to co-host it with the The Ladies’ Golf Club.

That’s something, because when I was there women could not even enter the front doors of the Clubhouse!  They had to go around to the back.  Where the deliveries were made.  I kid you not!  The back door!  Now there are usually a number of American couples visiting the course in order to play.  So you can imagine the backlash that that might cause.

No matter, the Troon men insist, women around back.  And, oh, they can’t play the Championship Course either.  They’ve got to play the Portland Course, the women’s course.  The Championship Course is men only.  Okay?  Yikes, you don’t want to get caught in the middle of that.  Just mosey over to the first tee and wait for your caddy.

I hope whatever controversy arises doesn’t take away from the course itself, because it’s a beauty.  The epitome of Links golf: nine out with the wind, nine in against it.

The front is not all that intimidating.  You’ve usually got a three club wind at your back.  Like you’re hitting a seven or eight iron to the 210 yard par three fifth.  But let me tell you, when you turn for home and the cold starts to bite, and the occasional rain drops sting your cheeks, and your eyes tear up from the wind, and the blind shots and the broom and the gorse and the ‘fairways’ start to break your will, that Clubhouse seems like it’s nine miles away.  It’s a heavy slog.

There is one up wind hole on the front and that’s the Troon signature hole, number 8, The Postage Stamp.  It’s only 123 yards, the shortest hole in Championship golf.  But the wind is usually howling making it a punched five or six iron to that itty bitty glass topped roller coaster of a green.  Not easy.

A photo posted by Royal Troon Golf Club (@royaltroongc) on Mar 28, 2016 at 9:08am PDT

Neither is what follows: ’Murderers Row’, holes 10 through 15, the hardest stretch of holes in Open golf.  These holes areimpossibly difficult.   All the particulars conspire against you.   They raise the paralyzing fear that your ambitions might just exceed your capacity; that you simply don’t have the ability, that you’re not the player you thought you were and not the player that you want to be.

This is the seminal experience of Scottish golf: everything goes against you and you come apart at the seams.  I ran through the excuses as I trudged along: the wind is howling, it’s cold, my feet are wet, I can’t swing with all these clothes on, the rough is thick, my grip slips, the gorse is everywhere, good shots wind up penalized, the bunkers are unfair, the sand is too heavy, the holes are all blind and impossibly long, the ball bounces funny.

I remember standing on the Thirteenth tee, looking at the name of the hole: Burmah.  “Burmah?” I thought, “it should say, Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here!”  You just can’t believe what they’re asking you to do.  You’re up against it like never before.  You’re facing life’s fundamental choice: either meet the challenge or quit; either realize the talent that you have or admit that you have nothing; either discover what your full potential is, or retreat into self pity.

I was two nanoseconds from the moment of quitting when it hit me: ‘Hey!  This is what it is!  Your choice is, to man up or to chicken out, to play or not to play.  Who are you, anyway?’  That moment was something of an epiphany.  I stopped feeling sorry for myself and just faced it.

Shot by shot, I gave Troon everything I had.  I tried to meet the challenges of ‘Murderers Row’ head on.  I found a way throughthe pain, and in the process, discovered a dimension I didn’t know I had.  In that short stretch of time, I like to think I became a better man.

I don’t know whether or not this has anything to do with the Troon ‘men only’ theme.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But personally, playing the ‘Row’ full out gave me a shot of metaphorical testosterone.  It was transformational, too.  I had a new understanding of who I was.  (Or who I could be, anyway).  I felt like a conquerer.  My step quickened.  I held my head high.  And parred the final three holes in a breeze.

A photo posted by Royal Troon Golf Club (@royaltroongc) on Mar 30, 2016 at 9:06am PDT

The wind is easily 25 knots.  In your face.  The green is 483 yards away, somewhere beyond that last gorse bush on the left.  That’s the Railway line on the right, O.B.  The brown fairway is hard as baked adobe and your tee shot is going to hop around like a Mexican jumping bean on a hot grill.  Good luck.

Cover Photo via Instagram