ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- The invasion begins.

I arrive in town, and sportswriter muscle memory takes over: drop off bags, pick up credential, head straight to a bar. I walk up to the Dunvegan, a pub two blocks from the Old Course, and see the folks I've come to meet. My guys. The three Scotsmen standing amid an ever-growing mass of visitors. They lean near the taps and watch the hordes take over their town.

Dave Coyne, a longtime caddie, orders me a Guinness Extra Cold and whispers for Red to charge him the locals rate. Willie Tait, the man to know around these parts, catches me up. He's a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which has turned its hulking stone clubhouse over to the pros this week. Normally, proper men wear ties and sip drinks in comfortable leather chairs. Now? The preening, primping circus is in town.

"They've got hair gel in our changing room," Tait says, laughing.

He looks me up and down, finally fixing on the baseball cap I'm wearing. I sheepishly slip it off; my father would have reamed me for that. Tait asks why Americans insist on hats indoors.

"I watched people walk into my club today," he says. "It's the oldest, most prestigious prize in golf. You walk in and you don't take your hat off? It's a manners thing."

He takes a sip of beer.

Another group of golfers walks through the door.

"There's a Texan," he says. "Justin Leonard. There's another Yank."

The bar fills up, people from every country imaginable. Once every five years, the circus comes to St. Andrews. During the winter, when the town is empty, you'd find this bar sleepy -- except for Tait and company.

Tait was born in Kenya -- his dad worked in the foreign service -- but his roots are here in St. Andrews. The Taits are legends in the Scottish golfing world. They all play and play well. His great grandfather, a bona fide war hero, was the first person to break par on the Old Course.

"They're not many members of the R&A," he says, "who can say a picture of their relative is bigger than the portrait of the queen."

The crowd raises the temperature, and Tait pulls off his jacket to reveal the exclusive R&A logo on his sweater. I look down at my Augusta National pullover, then back at his blue sweater and laugh.

"You out logo'd me!"

He grins.

"Sorry, old boy."

We settle in. A good bar night has a pace to it, a slow build, of stories and group jokes and private conversations. A feeling comes into the room. The outsiders mix with the residents. There's no loud music. We are the music -- every accent you can imagine. A man curses in Spanish at the television. A South African sits on his bar stool and complains that he can't see. There's New York rush and Southern slow. A guy in an R&A sweater says hello, and I hear something in his voice.

Where are you from?

California.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm from the South and I thought I heard something.

He smiles.

I lived in Ocean Springs, Miss.

The beers flow. Coyne tells about caddying for Justin Timberlake and Catherine Zeta-Jones. David Joy, a local who is best known for his Titleist commercial impersonation of Old Tom Morris, sends me a glass of water -- "a Coors Light," he says with a flourish as it's presented. They tell me about Tait's personal jihad to have Tennents, the national beer of Scotland, served in the state of Texas so he can have it while visiting friends.

"Coming to a dry county near you," Tait cracks.

I make the mistake of referring to the "British Open," and the boys are on me, provincial, screaming about how it's the Open Championship and the winner is simply the Champion Golfer.

"F---ing colonial," Tait says.

The room fills up.

My friend and co-worker Scott shows up, and we move down to the end of the bar. We tell stories and look out the window at the strange St. Andrews light, still bright at 9:15 p.m., making the entire place look like a movie set. The late evening, just before gloaming, is make-believe yellow. Outside, people check into hotels and stroll along the 18th fairway, taking it all in. The brass hooks on the flags ping off the poles, a quiet high-hat keeping time over the entire show. Dave hands me a new Guinness.

"Black Gold," he says.

"Texas T," his friend Ian says.

The owner of the pub, an American named Jack, stands by the door. I see some folks I know from Oxford, Miss., walk in; I saw one of them on our town square just a few days ago. Guys from Memphis, Tenn., who play golf with my uncle Michael come in. More professional golfers arrive, including Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, who sits down in the back with Tait to watch the World Cup final. A little boy at the table gets ice cream with chocolate sauce, and the grown-ups sip on pints.

The Spanish football team pushes the ball down the pitch, and just over my shoulder, a Spanish golfer named Gonzalo jumps up and cheers with Willie, a Scottish Englishman who was born in Kenya. There's spilled beer on the table, and nobody cares tonight.

People trickle onto the sidewalk. We leave the Dunvegan, me and Scott, Willie and Gonzalo, my friends from Mississippi, the sun finally settling over the old stone streets. The quiet is gone, and in the darkness, I can hear the echoing laughter of friends, old and new.

It doesn't feel like an invasion any longer.

This week, we are all St. Andreans.