Scotland Trip Report (May, 2011)

[mjf]

It was my buddy's 40th birthday this year and he decided he wanted to go to Scotland and play many of the big courses over there. A group of 5 guys (plus 2 significant others) went over in May. We started off on the West coast of Scotland and played Prestwick, Turnberry and Royal Troon. Then we headed to the East coast and played Muirfield, St. Andrews Old Course, St. Andrews New Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie. Finally, we drove several hours North and played Brora and Royal Dornoch. All of these courses (except Brora) are ranked in the top 20 course in Scotland
(http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/h...ntry3.asp?id=3).

I've posted pictures of the trip on Flickr which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/mfarqu...81098222/show/
(click on 'Show info' in the top right corner to see my description of each picture)

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Here are some of my thoughts / memories of each of the courses:


May 7th -- Prestwick (http://www.prestwickgc.co.uk/index.html) £125

Started off in light rain, then no rain, then light rain, then no rain, then heavy rain for about 5 holes, then really nice weather for the last 8 holes or so. After the QUAD I took on #1 (3 shots to get out of a fairway bunker), I thought it might be a long day but I ended up with 10 pars along with a couple of doubles and triples for an 85. Quirky golf course... #5 - 206 yard par 3 completely blind to an elevated green and over a 50 foot high dune. #15 called 'Narrows' - it's a pretty short hole with an obscenely small landing area. #17 - on the tee I could see where the fairway was... but not the green. Turns out it was another completely blind shot over a dune. Anyway... Pretty cool course and some very friendly and laid-back members.


May 8th -- Turnberry Ailsa Course (http://www.turnberry.co.uk/) £175

This is where Tom Watson almost won the British Open in 2009. We started off with about 20 mph wind for the first couple of holes that went up to 30-40mph for the rest of the round. Holes 4 thru 9 were all pretty much downwind and boy does the ball ever bound and roll! #4 is a relatively short par 3 of about 150 yards and the green is raised a bit above the level of the tee. Because the wind was so strong from behind, the only way to get a ball to end up on the green was to land it short and roll it up the slope. Anything that landed on the surface was gone off the back. #6 is another par 3 that played straight into the wind for us. I hit a good 5-wood about 170 yards (normally 230-240 for me). I 10 thru 18 were all either with the wind in our faces or straight across... Brutal.

I shot 90 with I think maybe 4 pars. Fortunately, I was driving the ball very well. Otherwise things would be (even more) ugly.

Gorgeous golf course... At the time I played it, it was my new #1 favorite course I had ever played.


May 9th -- Royal Troon (http://www.royaltroon.com/) £175

This course is actually quite close to Prestwick. Starting out, the wind was pretty strong in our faces... maybe 25-30 mph. The first couple of holes were something like 370 and it took a decent drive and a hybrid to get close. Then the wind got up to about 40mph sustained. #5 is a 183 yard par 3... I nailed a 5-wood (normally a 230-240 club for me) and ended up just short of pin high. #6 is a 518 yard par 5 also into the wind. I smoked a driver about 220 with lots of roll. For my third shot I had about 130 and chose 3-hybrid (normally 200-ish yard club). The wind was so strong it threw me off balance mid-swing and I hit it about 45 degrees right.

I stopped keeping score on about the 12th hole. Too much course and too much wind for me on that day. The rough was quite a bit more penal than the previous two courses. We talked to one of the members after the round and he informed us that the conditions (primarily wind) were pretty extreme... even for the locals. He said "Don't listen to what they say" regarding how the Scots will play in anything, etc.

I really didn't much care for this course. The views weren't great and you couldn't really see the ocean from most of the course because the dunes blocked the view. The only really memorable hole is the "Postage Stamp". We did have a nice, and relatively inexpensive, meal in the clubhouse afterwards though.

The £175 fee at Troon also included a round at the 'Portland' course. This course was very much a poor cousin of the main course but we enjoyed it all the same... although we only ended up playing 9 holes as we had a bit of a drive ahead of us to get to Muirfield for the next day's round.


May 10th -- Muirfield (http://www.muirfield.org.uk) £190

We expected this place to be pretty hoighty-toighty but the people we talked to were quite nice. The round started with very little wind but it picked up to 30mph or so at about the fourth hole. The greens here were significantly faster than the other courses we had played. It's a beautiful course with a lot of character. The rough here was tough. It
was at this course that I realized I have no idea how to judge what distance my punch shots travel into the wind. On one hole I had something like 80 yards into a 35 or so mph wind. Hit a 3/4 PW low and solid and came up 15 yards short. On the last hole I had about 110 into a similar wind and hit a similar type shot but with a 9-iron and went about 20 yards over the green. Ended up shooting 90. Given the conditions, my personal par would have been about 80... the best I feel I could possibly have shot.


May 10th -- St. Andrews Old Course (www.standrews.org.uk/) £140

We drove immediately from Muirfield to St. Andrews (about two hours drive) with the intention of signing up for the lottery for the next day's tee times on the Old Course but arrived too late (around 3:30 by this time). For the hell of it, we asked if there were any spots available today for the Old Course and... there were! I teed off at 4:40pm. I decided to get a caddie for 60 pounds (tip included). The course is actually better than I remembered it from when I played about 10 years ago. I think the caddie improved the experience and definitely helped my score. Conditions were the best we've had yet. A couple of holes with wind and rain but overall pretty reasonable. The last 6 or 7 holes were almost calm-ish. I had a birdie (drove a par 4 green) and ended up with an 81. Finished up at dusk... around 9:40pm. If I played really well, I could shoot even par on this course... in the conditions we had and off the 6500-ish yard tees we played. In high wind, I could have trouble breaking 100.

Memorable shots: Equatored my 2nd shot at #1. It appeared to hit two rocks in the burn and came back out. Pulled my tee shot on #17 so didn't really go over the hotel. Left my par putt 2 inches short and in the jaws. Just missed holing a 30 footer for birdie at the last. That would have been nice.

So overall, I spent over $600 Canadian to play golf on this day.


May 11th -- St. Andrews New Course (http://www.standrews.org.uk/The-Cour...ew-Course.aspx) £70

This was the first day I felt stiff / sore. Presumably due to playing 36 holes the day before. We decided to play the "New Course" which is still well over 100 years old. The course was decent...fairly easy off the tee and really very few memorable holes. We played with the guy who owns the B&B we're staying at. He can play any of the St. Andrews courses for a yearly fee of less than 200 pounds. I was helpful to have his local knowledge. The wind probably topped out at 20-25mph but was in the more manageable range for the most part. Shot an 81 here.


May 12th -- Kingsbarns (http://kingsbarns.com/) £185

The price for this round was 185 pounds or about $300 Canadian. Our B&B host said he could play it for 25 pounds. We were told this place was spectacular and more beautiful than Pebble Beach. I've never played Pebble of course, but I simply can't imagine any golf course being more beautiful than Kingsbarns. It's set on the side of a hill with views of the ocean from virtually every hole. The course is only 10 years old but it's a great and fun one to play. I recall one short downhill par 3 (#8 - 132 yards) that was playing downwind... we had to land the ball about 20 - 30 yards short of the green and a little bit right to let the ball release down to the hole.

One kind of odd thing happened here. On the 11th hole I had a 25-30 yard chip shot left into the green for my 2nd and both of my FCs had already hit their 2nd shots just short. I ended up hitting one of their balls and drove it onto the green about 40 yards away from where it started. My ball? It ended up further away from the hole than where the other
ball had started.

I ended up shooting an 84. Definitely glad I paid the $300.


May 13th -- Carnoustie (http://www.carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk/) £140

We were told by the starter on the 1st tee that "this is the hardest course in Scotland". It was definitely the hardest of the courses we played and would certainly be a beast if they didn't have "resort" rough. Most of the other courses we had played always had some place safe where you could hit off the tee but here you pretty much had to hit good shots
every time or you were in a bunker. Fortunately, I played my best round of golf on this day.

Highlight -- 18th hole. Hit a 310 yard drive (yes... downwind). Hit my 90 yard approach shot to about 25 feet and then drilled the putt into the back of the hole. It popped up into the air and dropped for a birdie. Take that Van De Velde! I ended up shooting 80.


May 14th -- Brora (www.broragolf.co.uk/) £50

We had a late afternoon tee time booked at Royal Dornoch and no plans for the morning so we asked around and were told that Brora was another very good course nearby. I remembered reading about Brora on-line and saw that it was ranked #33 in Scotland so we gave it a go.

If you put Brora in Ottawa, it'd be a goat ranch. However, in Scotland, right next to the ocean and with the highlands off in the distance it was quite nice. The thing about Brora that is particularly unique is that there are sheep roaming the course... and electric fences surrounding the greens to keep the sheep off. It was a pretty short course though and there was very little in the way of trouble. I shot a 79.


May 14th -- Royal Dornoch (http://www.royaldornoch.com/) £100

This course reminded me a lot of Kingsbarns. It's set on the side of a hill and you can pretty much see the ocean from every hole. Of course, Royal Dornoch has been around for well over 100 years! So I guess Kingsbarns reminds me of Royal Dornoch. I'd say that Dornoch looks a bit more natural than Kingsbarns.

There's one particularly brutal hole I recall. #6 is a par 3... 156 yards slightly uphill and into the wind. The green is about 12 yards wide with 3 bunkers on the left of the green and gorse to the left of those. To the right of the green, is a slope that carries the ball down the hill about 20 to 25 feet below the surface. I actually hit one of my few good iron shots of the week on this one. Of course, I picked the wrong club and went through the green into a gorse bush. Doh!

I can't find my scorecard for this one, but as I recall I shot 81 or 82. When we were finished I was talking with a local who runs golf tours and when I told him my score he was impressed I had done that well on my first tour of the course and in the conditions. I'll take a compliment any way I can get it.


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I've tried many times to rank the courses we played in Scotland but I really can't do it. Depending on what you're looking for, they pretty much all had their pluses and minuses:

Best Value - Royal Dornoch (if £100 can be called "value")
Best test of golf - Carnoustie
Most unique... or quirky - Prestwick
Most Scenic - Kingsbarns
If I could only play 1 again? - St. Andrews Old Course (Kingsbarns a VERY close 2nd)
Least favorite - Royal Troon


Other notes:

- We played a total of 10 rounds of golf on the trip. We had at least a bit of rain in each of those rounds.

- I'd say the 'normal' wind conditions we encountered were winds of about 15-20mph.

- Putting and chipping become extremely difficult after the wind gets to about 30mph. It's so hard to stay steady.

- Exact yardages are almost useless in high winds... at least for me. It's so unlikely that I'll hit the ball solidly enough for it to matter.

- Lies in the fairway are **so** tight. It's really important to trap the ball. I ended up hitting a lot of thin shots. One of the locals we played with said that it's actually beneficial to hit into the rough because it's generally easier to hit the ball!

- I think the most fun I had during the whole trip was playing mini-golf at the Himalayas putting course which is right next to the Old Course. I think it was 5 pounds to play.

- Most of the courses we played, there was no option of which tee to play from. You played from the tee for the day.

- Par 3's in Scotland are brutal... at least, they were for me. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I only hit about 10 solid iron shots the entire time I was there. It seemed to me that you couldn't roll the ball up onto most of the par 3's and, if you flew it onto the green, it would bounce and end up long.

- We were talking with an American guy at breakfast in one of our B&Bs. He has played every links course in Scotland and goes there a few times a year. Must be nice...

- I think I'm going to give up on my dream of winning the British Open. I have a whole new respect for what the pros do in the conditions they deal with over there. Incredible.

- There's a picture of me standing next to a gorse bush (yellow flowers). If your ball goes into one of these... it's gone because it's a really thick and thorny plant. I wish I had taken a close-up picture, but if you zoom in on it in the picture you'll see what I mean.

- The other unique 'hazard' on Scottish golf courses is called heather. It grows in with the rough in places and is very coarse / thick. The best way I can describe it is that it has almost the 'consistency' of a cedar tree. If your ball ends up in here, you need to take about 3 extra clubs to get the distance you want.

[big mac]

Sounds like you had a great trip Yep Scotland's courses are not what we are used to---they can really be a test----in golf ability and on your wallet !!!

I've been three times and thoroghly enjoyed it---going back in 2013 We have good friends on the east coast just minutes away from Trump's new golf mecca---it will be interesting to see if he has done any work yet.

[Kiwi]

To each their own, ... Home of my ancestors, but I'll not play there, thanks. Fail to see how poor conditions, and high rates equate to a good time. I think you nailed it when you said the most fun you had was at the mini-putt. If I can hit a 280 yard drive on a $20 course, I'm in heaven... guess that's my ancestry coming out.