The following article was intended for publication in Pacific Northwest Golfer Magazine, but never got published--Covod-19 has disrupted many plans. I do want to recognize our course in Scotland, where we've been proud members since 2006, by at least presenting the article here.
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| 2nd Green |
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| Bluebells and the 4th Green |
Scotland’s True Hidden Gem : St Fillans GC, the Best 9-Hole Course in Scotland
The Old Course at St Andrews is recognized as the Home of Golf. The King’s and the Queen’s courses at Gleneagles may be golf’s royalty. Prestwick, Royal Troon, and Carnoustie represent golf’s heritage, but the gems of Scotland golf, the diamonds, sapphires, and rubies, have names like Fortrose and Rosemarkie, Boat of Garden, Shiskine, Crail, and Crieff. While the world may recognize and honor the grand courses of Scottish golf, golfers visiting the land of the Whisky Trail and the Castle Trail would be remiss if they didn’t seek out the gems hidden in almost every small community in Scotland. Here, on these little known and mostly unacknowledged courses, visitors will find interesting holes, challenging tests, friendly and accommodating staffs, eminently fair prices, and, unlike the big name clubs, Scots on the courses.
Preeminent among these hidden gems is Perthshire’s St Fillans Golf Club, recently voted 2019’s (no course was named for 2020) Best 9-Hole Course in Scotland at the Scottish Golf Tourism Awards [st-fillans-golf.com]. This wee gem is nestled in the Strathearn Valley at the edge of the Highlands just south of Loch Earn and only minutes from Perth. My wife and I first played St Fillans in 2003 and became international members of the club in 2006. The mostly flat course looks like it would be easy, but it isn’t. Easy or difficult, St Fillans will always be fun and friendly.
When we first played St Fillans we were researching our first book, Scotland’s Hidden Gems: Golf Courses and Pubs (2005). We quickly fell in love with the easy to walk parkland/heathland course. Besides being close to our home base in Crieff, St Fillans is lovely any time of year—surrounded with dramatic hills, cuckoos calling in the spring, stag deer bellowing in the fall. Each hole at St Fillans is unique and challenging.
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| From the 1st green we watch the rain falling on the surrounding hills. |
The first is typical of the play at St Fillans—it looks easy (and was for Vijay Singh who almost drove the green at the 321-yard par 4)—but it’s a challenging dogleg left start for most of us with trees down the left and an eyeball-shape raised green.
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| From the 3rd Tee |
The 3rd is a 276-yard par 4 which plays from an elevated tee (on St Fillans’ Seat, the only hill on the course). Even I drove the green here; once when I was younger and had a twenty mile an hour helping wind, but the hole usually plays into the wind and has trees left and right and three strategic bunkers.
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| The View Back from the 5th Green |
The Bothy is the 265-yard par 4 fifth where your tee shot is blind over part of the same hill you teed from on the third. The second shot is to a raised green with rough all around and steep drop off the back. On the sixth tee take a moment to look closely at the hill behind the green—Dundurn was a Pictish hill fort occupied from about 500 to 800AD. It’s here on one of our rounds with American friends, Helen and Grady, that the greenskeeper yelled at us to stop the cows who had gotten out of the neighboring field and were heading toward the green. Locals still tell the story of American city folk waving their arms trying to block cows from stomping the green.
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| The 7th Fairway with the neighbor's cottage in the background. |
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| John Clifford from Crieff tees off on the 7th. |
The 7th at 449 yards is reputed to be the longest par four in Perthshire. OB left, trees right, and strategic bunkers will make a five seem like a good score on this par four. On the day of “The Wedding” (William and Kate) all the local men skipping the televised event had the additional problem of teeing off on the 7th with two young red deer sharing the tee box—the photo made the front page of the next day’s (Glasgow) Herald.
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| St Fillans Clubhouse & Tearoom |
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| Members Gather for a Morning Competition |
Coming off the ninth, a well-bunkered finishing hole, be sure to stop at the pleasant clubhouse/tearoom—the food, whether sweets, a light lunch, or one of the special weekend dinners, is always excellent.
The history of the course is very much the history of golf. During one of golf’s growth spurts in the early 1900s when courses developed at Arbroath, Portpatrick, Powfoot, Walton Heath, St David’s City, Ralston, and many more, the local Lord Willoughby de Eresby gifted a plot of land for the building of a golf course along the River Earn and beside the mountains of Glen of Lednock. The Laird also hired St Andrews’ professional Willie Auchterlonie to design the nine-hole track. Lord Willoughby de Eresby officially opened the course on August 8th, 1903. While at first quite rough, St Fillans has developed into a finely maintained and conditioned course of 5520 yards and par 68 from the members’ tees—almost 600 yards longer for competitions and a hundred yards shorter for ladies.
The award by Scottish Golf Tourism is a recognition of the commitment of local members and the able stewardship of golf manager (since 1996) Gordon Hibbert. The course’s outstanding condition is a credit to Hibbert and to greenskeeper John Myles who came to the club a couple of years ago after more than 20 years at Gleneagles. Involvement in the Scottish golf community is also a feature of the course.
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| Gordon raised the European flag while I raised the Stars and Stripes before the Ryder Cup matches at nearby Gleneagles in 2014. |
St Fillans was one of only four official Ryder Cup Television venues in 2014 when the Cup was played for at Gleneagles. The golf and local community work well together every other year to support local charity through The Sandy Lyle Day Charity Competition held at the course. Masters and Open champion Lyle is a strong supporter of golf at St Fillans and calls the course, “My favorite inland Scottish course.”
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| An ancient Stuart family kirk and graveyard is beside the 7th fairway. |
On a tour of the great courses of Scotland such as Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, Royal Dornoch, and North Berwick, try to find a spot in your schedule for some low stress fun at one or more of Scotland’s fine village tracks, especially the Best 9-Hole Course in Scotland, St Fillans Golf Club.
NEXT; I'm just about done with an article for the blog on the effects of wars on Scottish and Welsh golf. It will be at least a two parter.
