"I have a question," she said as we trudged through the teeming rain. "I mean, besides the obvious one of are we out of our minds, or what?"
"You know you love it," I said. I knew no such thing and had no interest whatsoever in any question that anyone could ask on any conceivable subject.
In Northern Ireland, not even an impending storm can drive off golfers at the classic Royal Portrush Golf Club.
(David Cannon/Getty Images)
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"My question is, WWUOD?"
That is, What Would Uncle Ollie Do? She was referring to my ancestor and namesake, Saint Oliver Plunkett. We had begun our short golfing tour two days earlier by visiting Oliver's 324-year-old head, which is kept in a glass reliquary in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda, a town about an hour north of Dublin.
Oliver, the Archbishop of Armagh in the 1670s, was a victim of the anti-Catholic hysteria of the period. Falsely accused as a traitor to the crown, he was hauled to jail in London, tried, convicted and on July 1, 1681, put to death. The sentence was pronounced by Lord Chief Justice Pemberton: "You shall be hanged by the neck but cut down before you are dead, your bowels taken out and burnt before your face, your head shall be cut off, and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of as his majesty pleases." This was during the reign of Charles II, whose fun-loving nature gave rise to the phrase "Merry Olde England." Anyway, friends of Oliver's bribed the executioners to give them his head. To this day, it is preserved at St. Peter's. You can go there and see it for yourself. It's a leathery old thing, not too gruesome, but it does put you in a reflective frame of mind.
Even his enemies noted the grace with which Oliver handled the awfulness of his end -- he did not become bitter. His compelling example had become a kind of touchstone for Biz and me as we encountered the annoyances of travel. Road signs make no sense? Oliver would have trusted his instinct and been mild of heart on his third circuit of the roundabout. A Northern Ireland McDonald's requires pounds instead of euros for coffee? Oliver would have smiled, well, beatifically.
The loss of four balls in as many holes into the wretched gorse was another matter, however.
"I doubt that Uncle Ollie played golf," I said.
"But if he did," Biz persisted.
I teed up for No. 8, named Himalayas for the scale of the gorse-covered hills guarding the fairway. No way would Oliver have come in out of the rain. He was not one to back away from adversity, but this was our vacation and I needed to make the offer. I asked Biz if she wanted to go in.
