u/crndwg

A few months ago I posted here that I had finally stopped saying “one day I’ll go to Scotland” and booked a solo golf trip to Fife for my 50th birthday.

A bunch of you gave advice, encouragement, course suggestions, and a few very kind personal offers to meet up or play a round. I genuinely appreciated every one of them.

In the end, after some significant personal loss and a pretty heavy stretch of life, I decided I needed to do this one completely solo. Not because I didn’t appreciate the offers. I really did. I just realized this trip had become something bigger than golf, and I needed to see what would happen if I went alone, figured it out alone, and gave myself a week to breathe.

Well, I did it.

Landed in Edinburgh on my 50th birthday, picked up the rental car, immediately learned that driving on the left is less terrifying than expected, and made my way to a small Airbnb 15 mins from St. Andrews. My hosts were incredible. Kind, generous, and exactly the kind of people you hope to meet when you’re far from home and pretending you’re not overwhelmed.

I played Crail Balcomie. I played the Jubilee, Eden, Strathtyrum. And somehow, against all odds, I got on the Old Course.

I shot 86.

I cleared the hotel on 17, on in 2 and then three-putted for bogey because apparently golf still needed to remind me who was in charge. On 18, I hit a leaking drive, nailed the Rusacks Hotel off a window, bounced back into the fairway, missed a 12-footer for birdie, and made par.

I am not making that up.

It was stupid. It was perfect. It was golf.

I walked the town. I stood on the Swilcan Bridge. I wandered around the Old Course on Sunday when it was closed and felt like I was walking through a painting I’d been staring at my whole life. I visited the St Andrews Golf Club clubhouse thanks to a generous invite from a member. I drank whisky with my Airbnb hosts. I walked something like 110 km in five days. I played more golf, saw more coastline, talked to more strangers, and felt more alive than I have in a very long time.

There was also one moment that had nothing to do with my scorecard and everything to do with why this trip hit me so hard.

I was standing near the 1st tee of the Old Course, chatting with some guys heading out. I asked one of them the usual dumb golf question: “So, you nervous?”

He said, “No, I’m dying.”

He was my age. He had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He was there with his family for one big family round. I watched him walk to the tee, hug everyone, and hit his opening drive.

I went for a quiet walk after that.

That moment changed the trip. Maybe it changed me a little too. It cut through all the noise. The money, the planning, the anxiety, the score, the bucket list pressure, all of it. What rang through loudest was gratitude. Gratitude that I was there. Gratitude that I could still walk those fairways. Gratitude that I had stopped waiting.

So, to anyone who commented on the original post, thank you. Your advice helped. Your encouragement helped. Even the ridiculous “blame the wind” energy helped.

And to anyone still saying “one day” about whatever their version of this is, I’ll say what a few of you said to me:

Maybe one day is now.

Remember the wise words of Grampa George.
"There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there's only five of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money."