Watches and Golf, The Links

A hobby I’ve loved forever, a town I’ve loved for four years, and a sport I’ve only just fallen in love with - all three have something in common.

I live in the small seaside town of St Andrews on Scotland’s East Coast where I have just graduated from university. But although St Andrews is well-known for it’s 15th Century university (the oldest in Scotland and third-oldest in the English speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge) readers probably know St Andrews better for being the ‘home of golf’. It was on the sandy, windy grasslands off Scotland’s East Coast (terrain called ‘Links’ in the Scots language) where farmers, shepherds and everyday punters started whacking pebbles from one field to another with bent sticks. The pebbles became balls, the sticks became clubs and the fields became courses. It is on the Links at St Andrews where the first golf course was cultivated and kept - aptly named The Old Course. Strictly speaking, the origins of the great game of golf are contested. Chuiwan (Chinese for ‘hitting a ball’) is a game which resembles modern golf, reported to have been played as early as the 8th century. Nonetheless, the St Andrews Links are still hailed as golf Mecca.

It is graduation week here in St Andrews and the town has been bustling with gowned graduands and their visiting parents, including mine! However, this intimate little Scottish town has also been filling-up with another kind of visitor: golf lovers. This is because in only a matter of weeks the Old Course at St Andrews will host the 150th Open Championships - by far the oldest major golf tournament taking place at by far the oldest course. Now, I’m a runner, meaning that until very recently, I have ran on the Links courses and exchanged funny looks with golfers when I’ve darted across their game. But this is totally allowed here; in fact, the Old Course is closed to players every Sunday so that walkers and picnickers may safely graze. I used to brandy looks with golfers here, why waste a lovely walk hitting a ball with a stick? It wasn’t until another member of my cross-country running club invited me to play that my perspective shifted. We went to play 9-holes at the Balgove Course - the course at St Andrews right next to the Old Course usually reserved for children and beginners. Needless to say, I was well over par on every hole that first time round, but after a few more evening sessions I got the hang of it. I have now become hooked on the brilliant pastime of golf, and given the long summer evenings here in St Andrews, a night at the Balgove Course has almost become part of my daily routine (Scottish weather permitting).

Every time I arrive at the course, I take off my watch and put it in the little pocket of my shorts, appropriate given that this wee pocket is originally designed for a pocket watch. For whatever reason, I’ve grown to love bringing my watch with me to play golf even though I cannot wear it - shock is among water and magnetism as the top three killers of mechanical watches - the more I played, the more I realised how connected watches and the game of golf are. Audemars Piguet’s endorsements with big players and Jack Nicklaus’s presidential day-date came to mind.

But why do golfers want to associate watches with something that might destroy them? An immediate answer to this question might be found in the fact that high-impact and shock can mangle the inner workings of your watch. Water necessitates the dive-watch, magnetism necessitates the anti-magnetic watch, so shock necessitates the … golf-watch? In recent years, Omega have pioneered a golf-specific version of the Seamaster Aqua Terra, making use of titanium, in both the case and movement, to achieve a lightness on the wrist which won’t interfere with the player’s proprioception.

But for a diver, the watch is (or at least was) a necessity. You needed an unfailing way of knowing your dive time such that you can calculate the amount of air in your tank or time decompression intervals - your life depended on your wristwatch. While on a golf course, however, knowing the time isn’t really life or death. So why would the likes of Omega make the effort to accommodate the dangers of a golf-swing? Maybe it’s money. Rich people paying over the odds for course memberships and for $300 putters are bound to have high-end watches marketed to them. There are even Rolex clocks on almost all the clubhouses and hotels around the St Andrews Links; reminders of the brand’s omnipresence in golf, much like the Roman sundials erected in the Forum to let us know who’s boss - or king.

I believe the ties go deeper than that. I’m a run-of-the-mill student who’s just looking to knock some balls around for a laugh. I’m using old clubs and come dressed in t-shirt and shorts, and even I feel that same connection between golf and a mechanical watch. Other non-flashy golf lovers feel the same, and I think a clue to the missing link between golf and watches lies in the expression that golf is a ‘pastime’. The etymology of the word, as you probably imagined, is pass… time. The reason we golfers like to wear a watch on the course is the same reason farmers and shepherd began playing this game in the first place - as a pastime - to experience and enjoy the passing of time. It’s why we do any hobby we do. From taking the dog for a walk, to a Sunday picknick, diving a shipwreck or climbing Ben Nevis. To have our pastimes accompanied by the calming, steady, unfailing sweep (or tick) of a seconds hand makes passing the time a whole lot sweeter.

Fan-Fiction Watches in Jason Heaton’s Depth Charge