Denver couple narrowly gets out on St. Andrews before AIG Women’s Open

A trip a year in the planning came down to the final day

By Jim Bebbington

The  AIG Women’s Open tees off Thursday on the Old Course in St. Andrews, and one Denver couple nearly missed out on the round of a lifetime because of it.

Dan and Amy Bettinger, owners of Bettinger Photography in Denver, are in the midst of an epic Scotland golf journey this week: Troon, Carnoustie, Gullane, Turnberry.

But for a week they stayed close to St. Andrews, hoping to get lucky and get a coveted tee time for a round on the oldest golf course in the world.

By last Thursday, as they had played other courses, they had spent four straight days entering the daily and weekly tee time lotteries that the Old Course uses to fill in any last-minute cancellations or openings.

Each day, they got an email telling them they were not successful.

Dan Bettinger said they had begun to put this trip together more than a year ago, and with time running out they were losing hope.

“I’ve been thinking about it for years,” he said.

Then they got the news: They would tee off at 3:50 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16 – one of the last tee times that Friday before the course was closed for nine days for the AIG Women’s Open.

“It was awesome,” Daniel Bettinger said. “Of course it always looks different in real life. Weather conditions were pretty dry that day – pretty windy 20 to 30 mph gusts. We opted to not get a caddy – pushed our carts. It really was everything. It is like hallowed ground.”

He said the crowds of onlookers that pocket the course – the 6^th green, the 17^th tee box – were a new sensation.

But as they came to the end they posed for a photo together on the famous Swilcan bridge. “Overall it was everything I thought it would be,” he said.

And on the tee sheet for the oldest course in the world, beside the names of other players whose home courses are listed as some the most elite country clubs on earth, Dan and Amy Bettinger proudly registered as home-course members of Denver’s Overland Park Golf Course – the oldest operating golf course west of the Mississippi.

A former member of the city of Denver’s Golf Advisory Board, Bettinger, 62, said he was glad to be able to have his once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he said.

AIG Women’s Open

Denver’s Jennifer Kupcho is in the field for the 2024 AIG Women’s Open, which begins play Thursday Aug. 22.

How to Watch:  (All times Mountain Time)

Thursday, August 22: 5 a.m. to noon (USA)

Friday, August 23: 5 a.m. to noon (USA)

Saturday, August 24: 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. (USA); 10 a.m. to noon (NBC/Peacock)

Sunday, August 25:  5 a.m. to 10 a.m. (USA); noon p.m. to 2 p.m. (NBC/Peacock)

STREAMING : NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app