Shadow  |  Joey Harris  |  Portmarnock Hotel Links  |  Portmarnock, Co. Dublin, Ireland  |  2010

My friend and neighbor Gene McClure recently told me about a lecture he once attended by Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange.  In the Q&A session that followed, a student asked about what kind of a commitment it took to be a writer.  Burgess’ reply was that “the only commitment required of a writer is the commitment of ass to chair”.  And so it is that I can now offer the story of Day 2, nine days after Day 1, and a full 41 days after it actually took place.  At this pace, it may take months to recount Twelve Days In Golf, but I shall work on my committment.


Day 2 promised a luxury that would not be enjoyed again, the opportunity to sleep in.  With the rest of our crew arriving this morning, our tee time was not until noon.  There was just a little concern when I woke up with a knot in my left calf that felt like a hunk of steel under my skin, but it eventually worked its way out as I limped towards the breakfast buffet for the day’s first serving of ham.

The nine new arrivals brought with them all the energy and excitement that we had felt just a day before, although it was pretty easy to tell who enjoyed the peaceful luxury of first class and who spent a sleepless night in coach and would soon hit the wall.  One of my playing partners would be a man called Tennessee, a man whose most impressive talent in golf is to talk himself out of any possibility of success before a round is ever played, the anti-Zig Ziglar.  And Tennessee was at his beautiful best before he even arrived at the practice green, among his many worries being the tight turf, the high rough and how his “problem feet” could handle ten days of walking 18 to 36 holes.  I made it a point to coach my friend up, not letting on that I myself had carded a 98 just 24 hours ago in my first Irish attempt, and I’m an optimist.

Sometimes you have to redefine success, so it was without one bit of shame that I teed up a Top Flight on that first hole.  I had lost so many balls the day before at Royal Dublin that I wasn’t sure I would finish the round, much less the trip.  So when a particularly wayward shot led me to a patch of hillside rough that no other golfer had likely ever ventured too, I found the motherload of disregarded balls.  I was like a kid at an Easter egg hunt, and I think I ended up with seven new balls, or at least they were new to me, including one lucky Top Flight that I actually played the last six holes without losing.  So it was now my lucky (brownish) ball, knocking my sparkling new (and white) Titleists and Callaways from favor.

Our round at The Portmarnock Hotel Links started with a bang as, wouldn't you know it, Tennessee birdied the very first hole.  I looked on with the pride of knowing that my pep talk was key, although I would probably not take credit for his language and club tossing that would soon follow, as entertaining as it was.  The course was visually stimulating and much more playable (easy) than Royal Dublin.  I was surprised and impressed to learn that the course was designed by Bernard Langer, never knowing he had joined the odd fraternity of player/architects, and fairing better than most.

The round ended in bizarre fashion, as the shaft of my pitching wedge broke in two at the top of my backswing on a hundred yard shot, and I swung at the ball holding only a grip as the shaft and clubhead went flying.  It wasn’t until we were sitting in the pub enjoying a round of pints and some afternoon ham that I began to wonder if I had earned a penalty.  After all, I did swing at the ball and missed.  An international call to the above-mentioned Gene McClure, who is also a USGA rules official, led to a lengthy and expensive (at 99¢ a minute) rules discussion, where he ultimately gave me a favorable ruling.

One foursome went out in the late afternoon, and I joined them with only a camera, taking advantage of the brilliant afternoon light.  I met a man and his grandson who were just walking around the course (try that in America), and he educated me on everything from Tiger Woods to American and local politics.  The grandson even brought up the division between the Protestants and Catholics, a theme I was surprised to hear a ten year old discuss, having thought this issue had been left in the past.

We spent another long night in the pub where I enjoyed a cheeseburger for dinner.  After the occasional tough bite, I removed the bun to find (you guessed it!) a layer of ham between the burger and the cheese.  What is up with all the ham?

view more photos from the Portmarnock Hotel Links

Day 1 could really be considered two days in one, or maybe just the longest day of my life.  A ten day trip to Ireland with friends, sixteen of us in all, had been planned almost a year in advance, and already paid for with precision in monthly installments.  So naturally, two days before departure, I would go and mess with these perfect plans and tack on an impromptu jaunt to St. Andrews at the end of the trip to meet another group of friends.  So the two days I should have spent packing for Ireland were instead spent making complicated travel arrangements that would eventually take me from Old Head to St. Andrews in a series of cabs, trains, planes and buses.  So as the faster the clock moved towards our 7:30 flight that evening, the more I recognized that I might not make it.

Against the odds I did make it for the flight, arriving well in advance, and with the pride of surely being the lightest-packer who ever left home for two weeks.  For me, this was as much a photography trip as a golf trip, and when you're traveling with laptop and camera gear, plus golf clubs, the travel bag needs to be lean.  Surely they do laundry in Ireland.

I had always planned to leave a day early on this trip.  I can't sleep on an airplane, so I wanted time to adjust before our first round.  However, that sort of backfired, as seven of the sixteen ended up going a day early, and a morning round was planned.  So we flew out of Atlanta on a Thursday night, arrived in Dublin Friday morning, boarded the bus that would become our rolling men's grille for the next ten days, and drove straight to Royal Dublin Golf Club for round one.

Royal Dublin- wrong place, wrong time.  Imagine acres of knee high, nasty rough with tiny strips of fairway cut through it, usually no more than twenty paces wide.  I'm not talking about the wispy high stuff that you can still get a good club on, I'm talking the kind of rough that you can barely advance a wedge out of...if you find the ball at all.  Having just stepped off a trans-Atlantic red eye with no sleep, I simply wasn't up for the challenge, something my caddy quickly recognized and did not particularly appreciate.

His name was Tony, 69 years old, looked twice that.  Picture "You're my boy, Blue!" from Old School and you have pictured Tony.  Tony was interested in one thing this day: a quick and jolly eighteen hole stroll down the middle of the fairway.  What he got was a dizzy, tired two-way-misser and a slew of ball searches.  Each one of my shots was seemingly worse than the one before, and Tony's common (and not muddled) refrain became "Jesus Christ!".  That was eventually replaced with the more accurate and appropriate "You're in the sh*t again!".  When the shot called for a layup on a par-5, Tony handed me a 7-iron and the direction to aim at a group of fairway bunkers.  Upon impact, he immediately shouted "Not those bunkers!".

98 blows later, Tony and I said our goodbyes, both weary and worse-off than when we started.  For all I know, Tony may have said goodbye to golf forever, so certain was I that he had just spent the most miserable four hours of his caddy career watching me in a futile battle against Royal Dublin.  I came to Ireland with the energy and spirit of the glory of golf, and I had just begun by butchering the game to a bloody death. 

But this journey would not be defined by a total number of shots, but rather by the variety of shots attempted.  In fact, this journey may not even be defined by golf at all, or even photography.  It would be defined by laughter and friendship, and pint after pint after pint of goodwill.  Yes, I shot a 98 at Royal Dublin, and I couldn't wait to get to the pub to celebrate every moment of it!  Tony was in my head all day, and we laughed all night about every hilarious thing he said that would piss off almost every other golfer on earth, but only strengthened my bond with the game.

Having not slept in two days now, you would have thought that turning in early would have been the wise move.  But instead we established a theme that would define our new existence: drink late, rise early, play golf, eat ham, laugh your ass off, and then repeat.  Was this Ireland, or heaven?

view more photos from Royal Dublin GC

Amid the circus-like chaos that Dustin's Atomic Dustbin created throughout the golf world, I, like so many others, forgot to send out an important, well-deserved and hard-earned message: Congratulations to Martin Kaymer, 2010 PGA Champion.

It was indeed a shame that yesterday's exciting final round of the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits ended in such a state of chaos, with Dustin Johnson receiving a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in what may or may not have been a bunker.  One of the popular notions going around is that it shouldn't be considered a bunker if the gallery is standing in it, and that you would never see the gallery standing in a bunker at The Masters or the U.S. Open.  While not exactly on the same level, here is an image of Tiger Woods' approach to the fifteenth green from a fairway bunker in the Monday playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.  I count at least 10 members of the gallery and media with their feet in the bunker.

There's a lot of blame to go around in yesterday's scenario, but the blame probably has to start with Dustin Johnson.  At the end of his post-round interview, he even admitted that he should have read the local rules sheet better.  More shame lies in the fact that Whistling Straits had sort of redeemed itself as a major venue yesterday, inspiring bold, exciting and dramatic play that defined the first seventeen holes of the final round, only to have that goodwill undone at the end.  You had it all- young and old, precision and power, and everything from eagles to triples.  But I feel, and I know that I'm not alone, that the eighteenth is just an awful hole that is out of character with the rest of the course (it would be out of character with any course in the world I guess) and ultimately ruined a great championship.  The PGA returns to Whistling Straits in 2015, but the earth movers and bulldozers should return even sooner.  There's still work to be done there boys.

Whistling Straits is a course that is certainly full of surprises.  It's also surprising that this photo was taken on the coast of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin rather than somewhere in the tropics.

I've always held the notion that any photograph plus fog makes it better, but you need to be able to at least see a little bit of something through the fog.  As the PGA at Whistling Straits has been delayed by fog for the second day in a row, I find myself wishing I was there for the moody morning landscapes more so than the action that follows.  I did photograph the 2004 PGA at Whistling Straits, and it will always remain one of my favorite courses to photograph. 

The above image shows the ninth green at Old Head in Ireland two weeks ago.  The ninth green is near the driving range and, as usual, I took the opportunity to photograph rather than warm up.  Assuming play would not be allowed until the thick fog had burned away, I was surprised when a ball almost hit me on the head while standing on the green.  I could not believe that a group was already nine holes into a round when you could barely see a few steps in front of you.  When I returned to the range I found that my group had already been ushered to the first tee and that I would be "playing blind" myself soon enough. 

So you now know what my excuse was for an alarmingly bad round.  I have to blame it on something, otherwise I'd have to admit that it was me.

The 2010 PGA Championship has started with a fog delay at Whistling Straits.  This is the scene from the first tee at Old Head just a couple of weeks ago in Ireland.  I was shocked they sent us off in that fog, and it made for very tough conditions when combined with high winds and a fear of heights.  It was certainly not ideal for my "strategy" of aiming way left and working (slicing) a drive back into the fairway.  Whistling Straits and Old Head sort of remind me of each other, in that both courses were built in the spirit of Irish links golf but actually play more like American courses.  Both are visually spectacular...once the fog burns away.

I am particularly proud to post this photo of the day.  It's not as if this is the first photo ever taken of The Swilken Bridge...but it is my first.  Stay tuned for more daily photos from my two week trip to Ireland and Scotland, including images from great links courses such as Portmarnock, Waterville, Ballybunion, Carnoustie, The Old Course and many more.  It was two weeks that changed my life, and not just as a golfer and photographer.  I look forward to sharing this "adventure of the spirit" in the days and weeks ahead.

The Robert H. Martin Trophy  |  The Landings  |  Deer Creek  |  Savannah, GA  |  Georgia Amateur Championship  |  2010