Monarchs House Drawing Room
Every year after the Open Championship is played on the Old Course in St Andrews, there is renewed interest in the town and all it has to offer. Our experience at Monarchs House only extends to 2001, after Tiger Woods won the Championship and in 2006, after Woods repeated in 2005. Our booking diary was chock-a-block then and early indications suggest that if you want to come to St Andrews and stay at Monarchs in 2011, it is time to book now.
Monarchs House is your turn-key solution for golf or touring. The price for a Saturday to Saturday let is $13,500 for 8 people. This price has held steady for 4 years and includes breakfast, 3 dinners, your first bar-setup and the services of our General Manager, Kevin Low. Kevin will arrange your golf, caddies, transportation, dinners outside of Monarchs or anything else you may need. While these “extra” are not included in the weekly price, the headache of planning a trip is not yours.
We hope to see you in the Auld Grey Toun in 2011. Slainte. 
On September 2, 2010, the Links Trust, administrator for the Old Course and 6 other St Andrews’ links, announced that 2011 demand for advance Old Course tee times was at a record setting level. If you’re thinking of a trip to Scotland, we would encourage that you book early.
Friend or Foe?
One of our favourite bloggers, Larry Olmsted (www.larrygolfstheworld.com), recently wrote of a dilemma he faced when he used his iPhone on a trip to Mexico. Larry incurred a $1400 data charge despite his diligent efforts to manage his usage. Read the story by clicking here: The same thing can happen here in Scotland but we have a way to mitigate the problem for you.
AT&T as the sole USA mobile operator for the iPhone, uses their market position to take advantage of clients. There are services that will resolve your problems but finding them in the deep chasm that is AT&T is the problem. AT&T has a service that provides unlimited data for any country in the world, domestic or international, for a fee off $65 per month. Yes. We said unlimited. If you travel extensively (or even if you want a domestic unlimited data plan) you have to get this. Here’s what you need to do:
- Find out if your company has a FAN number. You can check by inputting your email here. Check EMAIL here. FAN means Foundation Account Number. It signifies that you have a premier account. They don’t charge you more but they do give you a little better customer service. You will need that number. Most companies will gladly help you with this.
- Call AT&T and tell them you want to link your account to your company and give them the FAN number. This does not mean your company will be charged. It only means you will be able to get the discounts offered by having a linked account.
- Third and last step. Tell the AT&T representative that you want to sign up for Soft (or Feature) Code IRPZ. (IRBP for BlackBerry) By adding this, you can remove many other features on your phone so that the additional fees are nominal.
If your company doesn’t have a FAN account, try your alma mater or any other affiliation you may have. This will save you gobs of money.
Watson Bids Farewell
Every five years, the Open Championship returns to St Andrews and the Old Course. As you might imagine, the town teems with visitors and brims with excitement. Patrons are 5 deep at the Dunvegan, a popular local restaurant and pub. And that’s on the pavement! Golfers, locals and visitors mix as one. There is no other place and no other event like it.
While on course drama was lacking in this year’s Open, we still took away many wonderful remembrances (and a few we would like to forget!). Here are some of our memories for the 2010 Open Championship:
- The Road Hole – The golfers proved why this hole, the 17th on the Old Course, is one of the most interesting and famous holes in golf. The lengthening of the hole only added .04 strokes this year versus 2005 but produced more words from scribes then anything else. To quote Shakespeare, it was ‘much ado about nothing.” The R&A deserve kudos for making the hole the centerpiece of the Open.
- Miguel Angel Jimenez – It seemed fitting to us that a Spaniard would find a way to execute a near impossible shot on the Road Hole (see video). Clearly, Jimenez paid attention to his countrymen, Ballesteros & Olazabal, the original wizards of shot making.
- Louis Oosthuizen’s surgical play to win the Open Championship – It wasn’t flashy but Oosthuizen did some things that allow one to win Major Championships. Oosthuizen hit 16 out of 16 fairways on Friday( while belting it an average of 330 yards ), the day the course closed for 66 minutes because of high winds. He 3 putt only twice on the Old Course’s colossal double greens. Congrats to Louis on his outstanding play to win the Open and for his opening remarks upon winning where he wished his former President, Nelson Mandela, a happy 92nd birthday. Color us impressed.
- Rory McIlroy’s opening round 63 - OK. His second round wasn’t pretty but his opening round score of 63 was pure dead brilliant. He hit 17 greens in regulation, had 1 eagle, 7 birdies and 10 pars. Flawless. But temporary. Fear not though, Rory is 21 and he will be back.
- Friday’s scoreboard – Hopefully we weren’t the only one who found the humour in the Scoreboard announcement of the course closure on Friday. “Play suspended because of high winds. LOL ” It is an Open after all.
- Tom Watson’s farewell – While he will likely play in more Open Championships, Tom Watson will be 65 years old when the Open returns to St Andrews. His walk down 18 on Friday night in the waning light was likely his goodbye to the Auld Grey Toon. Tom Watson, a 5 time winner of the Open Championship, will long be remembered in St Andrews. As an aside, it seemed to us a classy move by Justin Rose, Camilo Villegas & Tiger Woods to allow Watson to finish his round by waving him up as darkness began to set preventing Watson’s return the next morning to finish the last hole.
- The Weather – Just like St Andrews to deliver a little bit of every kind of weather imaginable. Perfect for an Open Championship.
- Arnold Palmer in town again – You know how we are about royalty and seeing the King in town puts a smile on everyone’s face. His visit coincided with the tournament but he was in St Andrews to receive an honourary degree from the University of St Andrews. The one thing we can tell you is this: the only other people to command attention like Arnold Palmer were John Kennedy and Winston Churchill. Powerful stuff indeed.
- The Old Course – Once again the Old Course was the biggest winner of all. It is a special place that everyone loves immediately or learns to love eventually. There are other great courses that make up the Open rota but nothing compares to the wonders of the Old Course (and St Andrews).
- John Daly’s attire – How can we view him as a contender again if he doesn’t take himself seriously?
18 Greatest Scottish Golf Holes
We love golf books at Monarchs House. We especially love golf books set in Scotland.
If you have been to the house, you know that our drawing room book collection attests to this. As a result, we are often asked for our suggestions on starting a library related to golf here in Scotland. We waited long enough. Here are our suggestions.
If you wanted to start a library of golf books that would remind you of your trip to Scotland, you should start with the classics:
Scotland’s Gift: Golf by Charles B. MacDonald – MacDonald left America to visit his grandfather in Scotland at age 16 and thought the game of golf “stupid & silly.” Then his grandfather brought young Charles to St Andrews and changed everything. Scotland’s Gift is an epoch piece by America’s first professional and one of its greatest course architects.
The Great Triumvirate: Taylor, Braid and Vardon
James Braid by Bernard Darwin – Darwin, England’s best golf writer, tells the story of James Braid, part of the triumvirate with Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor, who elevated the game of golf from Scottish curiosity to the nation’s most popular sporting endeavor. You can see Braid’s architectural work in the layout of the championship course at Carnoustie.
The Spirit of St Andrews by Dr. Alister MacKenzie (our personal favourite) – If you ever wondered about the psychology of course design, this book is for you. Dr. Mac, architect of Augusta, Crystal Downs, Cypress Point and others, was also a consulting architect for the Old Course. MacKenzie writes about the Old Course, what makes a great hole, the golf swing and the rules. His musings are as relevant today as when he shared them back in the 30s.
We would also include these contemporary gems:
Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy – This is usually the first book a visitor to St Andrews reads if they want to embrace the “spirituality” of golf in the Kingdom of Fife. Slide into the pew and meet Shivas Irons, the mystical and charismatic golf professional of Burningbush Golf Club. After reading Golf in the Kingdom, you will be convinced that golf possesses deeper mysteries beyond that of a mere pastime.
To the Linksland, a Golfing Adventure by Michael Bamberger – While Murphy found golfing nirvana on the east coast, Bamberger found it on Scotland’s southwest coast at Machrihanish. One will be mesmerized by Bamberger’s search for the perfect swing and all it entails.
Two Years in St Andrews: At Home on the 18th Hole by George Peper – Monarchs House exists because 8 friends wanted a home at the home of golf as did George Peper. The difference is he wrote about it with poignancy, humour and warmth.
If you like coffee table books we have 3 suggestions for you:
Where Golf Is Great: The Finest Courses of Scotland and Ireland by James W. Finnegan – This is a wonderful book that works like an elegant guided tour of the glorious links of Scotland and Ireland.
Scottish Golf Links: A Photographer’s Journey by Ian MacFarlane Lowe – This is an exhilarating pictorial of 50+ Scottish courses by St Andrews own, the inestimable Mr MacFarlane Lowe. Another St Andrean, David Joy, provides the historical observations and notes. Brilliant photography!
The last book is something rather special and very exclusive:
18 Greatest Scottish Golf Holes by Gene Brooks, Craig Morrison and Andrew Ross – This strictly limited edition (3000 copies) book is a bespoke offering that makes you feel like you are lost in the memory of Scotland’s greatest holes. It is beautifully printed and bound befitting the glorious John Kernick photography and illustrations by Siobhan Royer-Hardy. The book’s treatment of the Old Course’s Road Hole further renders the layout indelible in your mind’s eye. You will imagine the route you took and better still, the ideal path to par.
Monarchs House is pleased to be selected as a retailer of 18 Greatest Scottish Golf Holes. This is an incredibly beautiful remembrance of one’s trip to Scotland. It is equally perfect for anyone who dreams of a golf trip to Scotland. You can find it on our coffee table at Monarchs but should you want more information about purchasing this treasure, you can email us on info@monarchshouse.com and we would be happy to put this lovely book in your hands.
Recently, we welcomed our first residents of 2010 at Monarchs House. It was a group lead by Boston-based Bryan Anderson, Tom Baxter and Bill Maffie. This triumvirate were deeply involved in the planning process and decided to visit St Andrews in April.
We talked to Bill about why the group chose the month of April, not considered high season for the area. He said,
A lot of our thinking revolved around weather and the ability to get on the courses we wanted to play. We figured that while school was still in session and it was early in the year, golf tourists would be at a minimum. It worked exactly as planned. We played the “Old” and all of the other great courses on our list.
But what about the weather?
It was fantastic. We had a little bit of everything but mostly it was blue skies and warm. It was like we dialed it in.
Bryan Anderson was sold on Monarchs House and St Andrews. He remarked,
I want to make this an annual pilgrimage. I have talked to the guys and everyone agrees that this was the most enjoyable trip ever.
Bryan, we appreciate the kind words and would be delighted to welcome you any time. Most of our residents are repeat visitors, some staying with us bi-annually.
Visit Monarchs House, your home at the home of golf.
From L-R: Mike Charland, Dan Pimental, Bill Maffie, Monarchs House Chef Kevin Low, Curtis Mueller, JR McDonald, Bryan Anderson, Tom Baxter
As a lad, David Forgan of St Andrews was a fine golfer but before the age of sixteen, he chased his older brother, James, to Nova Scotia. Ultimately, he moved west to settle in Chicago where his newly honed banking skills led him to become the President of National City Bank in 1907. Forgan’s expertise was such that he was often asked to give speeches about banking but it was his speech at the Chicago Golf Club awards dinner in 1899 about golf (soon after Forgan won the Western Amateur) that has never been forgotten.
Forgan’s Golfer’s Creed, for us at Monarchs House, encapsulates everything one would want to know about the wonderful game of golf. We would like to share it with you here.
Golf is a science, the study of a lifetime, in which you may exhaust yourself, but never your subject. It is a contest, a duel, or a melee, calling for courage, skill, strategy and self-control. It is a test of temper, a trial of honour, a revealer of character. It affords a chance to play the man and act the gentleman. It means going into God’s out-of-doors, getting close to nature, fresh air, exercise, a sweeping away of mental cobwebs, genuine recreation of tired tissues. It is a cure for care, an antidote to worry. It includes companionship for friends, social intercourse, opportunities for courtesy, kindliness and generosity to an opponent. It promotes not only physical health but moral force.
It is as true today as the day Forgan spoke these words over 110 years ago.
Forgan Family Golf Works of St Andrews circa 1900
Old Tom Morris by Sir George Reid
St Andrews’ own Old Tom Morris was golf’s first professional. In addition to winning four Open Championships, Old Tom was a greens keeper, club maker, ball maker, shopkeeper, instructor and course designer; he was involved in every possible aspect of the game.
A replica of a portrait of Thomas Mitchell Morris is feature prominently at Monarchs House and is displayed here. The original painting by Sir George Reid hangs in the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
In 2008, Golf Magazine published the story, Old Tom’s Rise & Fall marking the centenary of his death. We are happy to reprint it here. The author, Kevin Cook, wrote a wonderful book about the Morris Family and in particular about Tom’s son, Young Tom. A link to the book can be found here. It is highly recommended reading for those wishing to learn more about the beginning days of professional golf.
Old Tom’s Rise & Fall
By Kevin Cook
On a Sunday one century ago, Old Tom Morris got up to go to the loo.
He was 86, a gray warhorse who had lived from the age of the featherie golf ball — a leather pouch stuffed with goose feathers — to the age of automobiles and aero planes.
Now he spent his days sitting by a window overlooking the Old Course at St. Andrews, letting the sun warm his bones as he reminisced.
He often remembered the first Open Championship. That was back in 1860, 48 years before, when only eight players showed up. One of them spent the night before the tournament in jail, sleeping off the whisky he’d drunk that day.
Several were illiterate — they signed the players’ register with X’s. The golfers looked so shabby that the host club gave them matching jackets to play in, checkered coats that made them look like lumberjacks.
Tom was the runner-up in that first Open. He lost to Willie Park, a long-driving tough whose go-for-broke style would make John Daly look like Chip Beck. Park grew up poor, swinging a tree branch he’d carved into a golf club. As a boy he beat the local baker in matches played for pies. Later he took out newspaper ads daring any man to play him.
Park also liked to sneak into Scottish towns where no one knew him. He’d play the local pro while hopping on one leg, swinging with one hand — and take every shilling the man had.
Morris and Park won seven of the first eight Opens but got more attention (and money) for their one-on-one matches. Golf was interactive in their day: Fans shouted and hissed; stood in greenside bunkers to watch the players putt; bumped the competitors while they swung.
During one riotous match, Park’s supporters kept kicking Old Tom’s ball backward. “This isn’t golf,” Morris said. So Old Tom walked off the course, sat in a pub and sipped a drink while the crowd howled.
His son Tommy, the Tiger Woods of the 19th Century, won four Opens in a row — a feat no one else has matched. Bold, dashing Tommy teased Old Tom about his yips (“You’d be a fine putter, father, if the hole were always a yard closer”), and always teamed with him in foursomes matches.
One day they played Park and his brother Mungo at North Berwick, across the Firth of Forth from St. Andrews. A telegram arrived: Tommy’s wife was in labor, in danger of dying.
Old Tom kept the news from his son while they finished the match. This is usually portrayed as an act of mercy: Don’t tell the poor boy. But it was a big-money grudge match, and Old Tom likely delayed, in part, because he was dying to win.
And win he did. The Morrises rallied to beat the Parks, then commandeered a boat and sailed all night. But they got home too late. Tommy’s wife was dead, her child stillborn. That seemed to knock the spirit out of Tommy.
Three months later, on Christmas morning, 1875, Old Tom found his 24-year-old son dead in bed.
Golf ‘s “Grand Old Man” carried on for 33 years. He made rulings on balls stuck in golfers’ beards (drop, loss of stroke) or smacked through top hats (buy the man a new hat).
He laid out famous courses including Royal Dornoch, Royal County Down, Machrihanish and the New Course at St. Andrews, though his £1-a-day work wasn’t what Tom Doak does today.
Morris would walk the links, saying, “Put a green there, a bunker here,” and finish by lunchtime. All the while he kept his son’s memory alive, sometimes giving an important visitor a holy relic: “Take this,” he’d say. “It’s Tommy’s last putter.”
Of course Old Tom, the game’s best publicist, had a locker full of Tommy’s “last” putters.
After he retired in 1903, the R&A commissioned a portrait. When the famed painter Sir George Reid asked him to strike a golfing pose, Old Tom stood with his hand on his hip. Reid asked what he was doing. “Waiting for the other man to begin,” he said.
That portrait still hangs in the R&A clubhouse, but the real Old Tom preferred his sunny corner at the comfy New Club.
“I have not lifted a club for a good while now,” he wrote in 1901, after turning 80, “though I still take a great interest in the game, which I think is the best that men — aye, and ladies, too — can play.”
On that spring Sunday in 1908, he trudged from church to his stiff-backed chair overlooking the Old Course. After tea, he made for the loo. Stepping into a dark hallway, he faced two doors.
One was the toilet door. The other led to a stone staircase to the cellar.
He opened that door, took a step and fell.
They heard the clatter upstairs. They carried him up and laid him out on a table, but Old Tom had fractured his skull. With his passing, the dawn of professional golf was over.
Kevin Cook is the author of Tommy’s Honor and the upcoming Driven: Teen Phenoms, Mad Parents, Swing Science and the Future of Golf, both from Gotham Books.
Old Tom with employees in front of his shop
The Royal & Ancient Golf Club and the 1st Tee & 18th Green of the Old Course
If you have ever dreamed of playing the Old Course, you might be pleased to know that this year could be the year for you to make that dream come true. Monarchs House has learned that the Old Course has guaranteed tee times available in April. It just so happens that Monarchs House has availability in April as well. The confluence of these two great pieces of news may be just what you needed to get thyself to the home of golf.
Monarchs House has availability between April 17-24, 2010. We show that there are Old Course tee times available on April 19, 20 AND 21st. Contact us if you and your group have interest and we will do everything possible to make your dream happen.
This update from the Links Trust: All of the advanced & guaranteed tee times are now sold out through October.
The daily ballot remains as the last opportunity for those looking to play a round on the Old Course in 2010.
Bald Eagle Falconry
If you cannot live with golf alone, St Andrews and the surrounding area offers an endless array of outdoor activities from relaxing to challenging. Whether you prefer to be on foot, horseback, wheels or water, Monarchs House can set stage for your favourite pastime or perhaps introduce you to a new one.
Our guests have walked the Fife Coast Path, a 150 kilometer seaside path. We have also arranged ghillies (a Scottish fishing guide) for those wanting to try their hand at fly fishing in Scotland. Guests have also off-roaded in 4x4s and quad bikes, shot skeet and clay pigeons, tried their hand (arm really) at falconry and so much more. You might prefer to walk the West Sands Beach and experience its breathtaking shoreline and massive tide.
Horseback on the West Sands
If you want to visit some of Scotland’s historically significant sites, we have dedicated an entire tab for you under activities. In short, if you are thinking of a visit to Scotland and St Andrews, we can keep you as busy as you want to be or provide the perfect setting for a relaxing holiday.
The 12th at Kingsbarns
Golf Week Magazine just released their list of the greatest modern and classic golf courses in Great Britain and Ireland. Leading the way on the modern list is Kingsbarns. And the number two course on the classic list is the Old Course in St Andrews (trails Royal County Down of Northern Ireland). Nine courses from both lists are no further than 30 minutes away from the front door at Monarchs House.
If you are planning your 2010 trip to Scotland, there is no better base camp than St Andrews. And no better place to call home than Monarchs House – your home at the home of golf.
