Scotland's Best Nine Hole Golf Course

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.

2nd Green

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.

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.

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. 

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.

The 7th Fairway with the neighbor's cottage in the background.

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.

 

St Fillans Clubhouse & Tearoom

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. 

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.”

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.

Fall 2014: Scotland

       Since arriving in Scotland on September 8 we have enjoyed some lovely weather and played five rounds of golf already.  What we haven't had time for is much touring; therefore, not much photography.  Our trip will get more visually interesting after next week when we head to the Highlands and then the far northwest corner of Scotland and out to the Isle of Skye.  In the meantime, here are a few items to share--with a few photos of interest.

Ryder Cup Flag Raising

       St Fillans GC, where we are members, has received some money from the local promoters for the Ryder Cup matches between the US team and the European team (held at Gleneagles GC later in the month).  Some of the money was used for two new flag poles for the club.  I was there the day after the poles were installed and the club manager, Gordon, asked me to represent the American team while he represented the European team.  This was the first flag raising on the new poles.  

After our mini ceremony I went down to the local bookmaker shop, Ladbroook, and placed a £40 pound wager on the Americans to win at 7/4 odds.  Go USA!

Doors, Perth

Shrooms on the Golf Course

Photo Rant

In Canmore, Alberta, Canada we wandered into a photographer’s gallery to look at his photos.  They were quite good.  His very nice images were mostly wildlife and landscapes well-mounted and framed.  But along with the photos on the wall and in the display cases were signs: “No Digital or Photoshop Images,” “All Images from Film,” “No Digital Used.”

I have a problem with this “elitist” attitude.  Digital in today’s photography is not a dirty word.  Photoshop should not be either.  To make an implied claim that images are better because they come from film, rather than memory, is a false claim.  The “film is better” claim comes from the assumption that it is more natural or realistic than images from digital.  Wrong.  

The images in this particular photographer’s gallery are manipulated images just as images which come from a digital memory chip.  How are film and digital photographs manipulated?  First, the photographer chooses which film to use.  Kodak, Fuji, Ilford and other brands have individual reproduction characteristics.  Some are softer, some more contrasty, some shift to the blue.  Kodachrome has a different color profile from Ektachrome--both from Kodak.

Image by Ansel Adams

Second, most photographers (film and digital) use filters (UV, polarizer, neutral density, etc.) on their lenses which change, enhance, or distort natural colors.

Image by Edward Weston

Third, digital photographs are manipulated on computers with special programs, such as Photoshop which some professionals such as Annie Liebowitz have called “today’s darkroom.”  Film is also manipulated in the darkroom through developing, use of filters, burning and dodging to change light values.  Photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston spent hours working in the the darkroom to get their prints to turn out just the way they wanted--not necessarily to simulate the reality of the scene.  That’s photographic manipulation.

Too much manipulation?

Granted, all manipulative techniques can be overdone or abused, but that’s what art is about.  And some art we love and some we hate.  Don’t let a photographer play the “Purer than Thou” card just because they choose to use the medium of film rather than digital memory.  

Pony, Comrie Village

Window, Burleigh Castle

YES/NO, The Scottish Election

September 18 is the VOTE--an historic day.  That’s the day Scotland votes for independence or to remain a part of the United Kingdom.  A YES vote will start a eightteen month propcess ending with Scotland being the world’s newest nation--the first nation established since the breakup of Yugoslavia.   But according to the NO campaign, a YES will be the beginning of a severe recession (the D-word has even been used) in Scotland and perhaps all of the UK.  For myself, a Scotophile, the lead up to the vote has been quite interesting.  As a former debate and argumentation teacher the campaigns have been a study in propaganda/persuasion techniques.

The YES campaign literature relies heavily upon emotional appeal--remember Mel Gibson’s William Wallace (Braveheart) yelling “Freedom!” as his entrails are ripped out.  Plenty of stories and anecdotes about how a YES vote will save my aged mother from the ravages of London’s money policies.  These are mixed with arguments of 

The YES campaign at a Crieff street market.

“could...would...should” become “will” with a YES vote without much in the way of real plans to accomplish goals.

The NO campaign which is far less vocal--although getting more so as the polls tighten--spouts London policy, London economists, and London politicos which, of course, are given very little credibility except by those who believe the 300 year old union should remain intact. 

A NO campaigner happy with the latest polls.

The NO campaign presents evidence from business and banks with very little thought given to the emotional intensity of those seeking dis-union.

One very astute young lady we know summed up the debate this way: “My heart says to vote YES, but my head tells me to vote NO.  I don’t know what I’m going to do.” My own take on the election campaigns  is that they have already become divisive and that Scotland will take a long time to recover from which ever way the vote goes.

Vale of Leven GC, Alexandria

We had lunch in Scotland's oldest licensed pub, The Clachan Inn, Drymen.