ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - On Friday evening as I was meandering - alone and among fans at the Open Championship - a young Scottish gentleman stopped me.
"Where are you going? Why are you so quiet?"
I replied that I was merely walking around, taking in the sights and sounds. While that was the truth, it wasn't necessarily the whole truth. I was quiet because I was observing (eavesdropping?) fan interactions at the Old Course.
Some conversations were mundane (I'm glad that your taxi was on the way). Some included expletives (OK, more like "a lot included expletives"). Some included inaudibles (Are we certain the Scots speak English?). A mixed bag, to say the least.
Here are a few of the phrases I overheard Friday at the 144th Open Championship:
"I told you you'd never get in the (expletive) Jigger!" - Drunk friend 1 to drunk friend 2 when drunk friend 2 was turned away from the Jigger Inn. (Each night at 5:45 p.m. it closes to the public and is for hotel guests only.)
"Do you know what banter is? B-A-N-T-E-R." - One young Scottish male to a female. (She confirmed she did know what banter was, although I'm not certain he did, because their back-and-forth stopped there.)
"Apparently, suddenly, everything is my fault." - One male to another male. (It was not confirmed whether or not everything was, in fact, his fault. My hunch is that it was.)
"Get your waterproof umbrellas!" - Man with an affinity for unnecessary words.
"You're my best friend." - Drunk friend 3 to drunk friend 4. (Sweet, really.)
"(Inaudible, expletive, inaudible, inaudible, inaudible, expletive, inaudible)." - Old Scottish drunk man. Or maybe he was sober. Yep, he was definitely sober.
"I need to wash the champagne down with a warm ale." - My kind of man.
"Why do I look like such a knobhead?" - Scottish man taking selfie, upon seeing himself on his iPhone, looking like a knobhead.
"That's lunacy. That's pin high." - Man watching a drive settle pin high on the par-4 18th. We say "that's crazy" in the U.S., but lunacy? Sure. Let's go with it.
"We were supposed to play Gleneagles this morning, but it was pissing down rain." - Man: 0 ... Mother Nature: 1.
