Scotland Spring 2016: To the Golf Course

With apologies to my sane friends, those who aren’t bitten by the golf bug, this post is about the wonderful and often unknown or unheralded golf courses we played on this past trip to Scotland.  Even if you are not a golfer, you might enjoy the photos and the scenery around the courses as well as some of the details about them.  I’ll present the courses in approximately the order we played, and while this wasn’t the only golf we played, they do represent a fair sample of Scotland’s golf tracks which don’t belong to The Donald.

St Fillans GC in St Fillans, about 12 miles from our home base in Crieff.  The 9-hole course, nestled between Scottish mountains (nice sized hills to us) and at the south end of Lochearn, was built in 1903 by famed Scottish golf architect Willie Auchterlonie of St Andrews.  We are members of the club and it has become our go-to golf home when in Scotland. It was the first course we played on this trip and in late April we played in the cold and sometimes blowing snow.

Locals on the Course

Teeing off on the second and dressed smartly for the weather, I might add.

Watching the snow shower come in on the seventh.

Montrose Medal GC in Montrose on Scotland’s east coast north of Dundee.  Called the Medal Course, meaning the championship track of the two courses at Montrose, it is listed by several sources as one of the Top 100 golf courses in the world.  Golf has been played on this ground since 1562, at least 450 years.  The present course is about 130 years old and again we struggled with snow showers scattered between periods of warm sun—an on-and-off day for rain gear. 

Beautiful when not snowing.

Teeing off during a sunny period.

Durness GC in the far northwest corner of Scotland.  Just a baby, having been built in 1988, Durness is one of the truly great small courses in the world.  Laid out over ancient sand dunes, Durness GC is sited along Balnakeil Bay with spectacular views—some of the most dramatic vistas in all of golf.

Cold and windy as always in the far north.

View south from the course.

The ninth hole and eighteenth play over the sea.

Stromness GC on the main island in the Orkneys, called Mainland, north of the mainland of Scotland. When we first saw the course from the ferry over to Orkney we thought it wasn’t going to be much of a course.  We were pleasantly surprised at how wrong we were.  The design, fairly modern but I don’t have dates, is interesting and challenging even on calm days which are rare in this part of Scotland. 

The second is a lovely but tough par 3 at 210 yards.

The land in the background is another Orkney Island, Hoy --- only accessible by ferry.

The mounds left and right are World War II defensive bunkers.

Nairn Dunbar GC in Nairn on the Moray Firth and the North Sea.  Listed as one of the Top 100 Courses in Scotland, the 1899 track plays in the linksland and dunes.  During World War II the beach beside Nairn Dunbar was really out of bounds, since it was fully mined in case of invasion. 

The yellow bushes are gorse and very unforgiving.  Ask Winnie the Pooh.

Anne gets out of the sand well...lots of practice.

Muir of Ord GC in Muir of Ord north of Inverness.  Designed by James Braid, famous Scottish golf architect and winner of five Open Championships, the course plays on two sides of the railway and next to the Glen Ord Distillery.

A foggy start to our round.

The sixteenth heads right for the distillery.

Maverston GC in Urquhart village near the Cathedral city of Elgin.  This eight year old moorland/parkland course will one day be a real stunner.  It just needs a little maturing.

Moray Old GC in the village of Lossiemouth next to the Lossiemouth RAF station. Another Top 100 in the World course, Moray Old was designed by St Andrew’s profession Old Tom Morris in 1889.  The gorse-lined course is a challenge even under the best conditions.  We love to play this lovely course and take every chance we can to visit with the club’s pro John Murray and his assistant, Derek.

Lossiemouth Lighthouse in the background.

Several holes play along the sea.

NATO jets practice take-offs and landings directly over the course.

Carrbridge GC in Carrbridge near our second home in Scotland, Aviemore in the Highlands.  This 9-hole track offers plenty of challenge and this year presented some interesting wildlife as well.

Oyster Catcher on her nest on the course.

We heard several and saw one fly before I got this photo of an elusive Cuckoo.

Cairngorm Mountains in the background.

Arbroath GC in Arbroath just north of Dundee on the east coast.  Playing in the flat linksland off the North Sea, the course is an easy walk, but it’s not an easy course.  Burns cross numerous fairways and the rough can be score damaging.

The east coast commuter train (between Aberdeen and Dundee)  runs next to the course.

Near the course is Arbroath Abbey where the Declaration of Arbroath was signed in the 1300s establishing the nation of Scotland.

Crail Balcomie Links in Crail on Neuk of Fife about 10 miles from St Andrews.  Golf has been played on this ground since 1786 and the club is the 7th oldest in the world.  Old Tom Morris designed the World Top 100 course in 1895 and it’s stayed fairly consistent to his design since.  We love this venerable course and play it so often that we are well known to the pro Graham Lennie and his assistant David Snodgrass. 

The green of the fourteenth hole.

Back to St Fillans GC.  We always like to end our trips with a round at our home course, St Fillans.  This trip if our last round wasn’t darling, it was at least deer.

Teeing off on the third.

On the third.

Red deer.

Our clubhouse, humble but comfortable.

NEXT: The Best of the Rest

Travels in Scotland: Part Four--Home Again, Home Again

     We are now back at home in Canby; we are not yet in this time zone, though.  It seems it’s getting more difficult to adjust from jet lag—thankfully, we still have a couple of weeks before we switch the clocks out of DST.  As wonderful as our travels are it is still nice to get home, though we already miss our Scottish family, the Cliffords (John, Jacky, Jonathan, and Ailsa).

Speaking of our trip, it is time to do a trip summary including a mention of the “Bests” of the trip.  I’ll also continue to showcase the best of my photos from the trip.  To the summary:

We drove a little over 2000 miles in our rented Toyota Auris hybrid automatic.  

Sitting in the glen in our nice Toyota Auris.

Except for some difficulty getting in and out of the driver’s seat, the car was brilliant—easy to drive, enough power, and wonderful mileage.  We got better than 50 miles to the gallon (best mileage of any car we’ve rented) and petrol costs were some of the lowest in years—we paid an average of about $6.00 a gallon.  

This trip really was a golf trip.  We played 21 rounds in 28 days on 17 different courses (4 were 9-hole courses and the rest 18-hole).  Five of the courses were new to us and they will be included in Golf in Scotland: The Hidden Gems when I revise it this winter. Our favorite courses of the trip were Moray Old, 

The 18th and the clubhouse at moray Old GC.  John Murray's pro shop is to the left.

Peterhead, and St Fillans (where we’re members).  Of the courses new to us we really liked both Maverston 

Anne tees off at Maverston GC near Elgin on the north coast.

and Inverurie.  

Not all our time was spent on the courses.  We managed to visit 29 various visitor attractions—7 were of nature (waterfalls, etc.), 

Fall colors begin to show up along the River Tummel at the edge of the Highlands.

6 were historic harbours or villages, 

Crovie Village--only residents can drive down to the village established during the Highland clearances.

5 were ancient sites, 

Loaned of Davit stone circle was created about 4000 years ago and was probably used for astronomical and ritualistic purposes.

4 were religious, 

Greyfriar's Kirkyard in Perth, central Scotland.

and the rest commercial.  Some of our favorites from the trip were “old favorites” (the historic villages of Pennan and Crovie along the north coast, the small harbors of Collieston  and Portsoy, and Perth’s Branklyn Gardens) while others were new to us (downtown Glasgow which in 26 trips to Scotland we’ve spent very little time, and Glen Lednock only 12 miles from our home base in Crieff but which we had never visited).

Glen Lednock about five miles east of Comrie village is only 12 miles from our home base in Crieff, but this was the first time we'd ever driven up the glen.

And, of course, we ate well like on every trip.  We did do plenty of cooking at home when we spent two weeks in self-catering (timeshare), but we also had lunches or dinners out about 25 times, mostly in tearooms or cafes (lunches), but we did eat dinners out in 8 restaurants and 4 pubs.  Quite few of the eateries were new to us, with our favorites being The Three Kings Inn in Cullen, Bread Meats Bread in Glasgow,

Waiting for a table in Glasgow's Bread Meats Bread, from the right: Jonathan (who is now working at a resort in Costa Rico), Anne, Aisla (a freshman in a Glasgow uni), and Jacky Clifford.

 and Hansen’s Kitchen in Comrie.  

Great sandwiches in Hansen's Kitchen in Comrie.

Our best meal, though, was at one of our all-time favorites, Anderson’s in Boat of Garten 

Andderson's in Boat of Garten (near Scotland's Cairngorm National Park) is an affordable fine dining restaurant only about 15 minutes from our timeshare condo in Aviemore.

(always outrageously good).  

The final summary of the trip is the photographic summary—the rest of the good pictures from our fall 2015 trip to Scotland:

Anne tees off at Cullen GC (built in 1870) on the Morayshire coast.  We stayed in a hotel across the road from the course and saw that the course was almost empty on Sunday morning.  We couldn't resist.

Tomnavarie stone circle is high above Tarland GC.  We had visited the circle on our very first Scotland trip.

The river runs through the area known as The Birks of Aberfeldy after a famous Robert Burns' poem.

In the area around Aviemore in the Highlands are lovely stands of birches.

Early morning fog and mists near Crieff.

The Buchan Ness Lighthouse was built in 1827 by Robert Stevenson, father of author Robert Louis Stevenson.  You can now rent the light keeper's quarters for a self-catering vacation.

Hay tractor driving though the main road in front of our B&B in Crieff.  they are super difficult to pass on the small Scottish roads.

The River Braan near Dunked.

Scottish robin singing to us as we put our golf clubs in the car at St Fillans GC.

These boats were put up for the season at Findhorn Bay.

Interested local in Glen Lednock.

Tiger Lily in Perth's Branklyn Gardens.

I never tire of photographing the packhorse bridge in the village of Cartridge.

Hieland Coo (aka. Highland Cow).

But then we had to go home.  Our flights from Edinburgh to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Portland were good flights--on time, fairly comfortable, not too bumpy, a few decent movies.

Got a nice view of the Iceland coast on our flight.

And Fionabeg (our house's name meaning "little white" house in Gaelic) was waiting for us, already decked out in fall colors.

Fionabeg in Canby.