SCOTLAND – BE BRAVE
TOURING THE COUNTRY THAT GAVE US GOLF IS MORE THAN JUST A LESSON IN THE ROOTS OF OUR SPORT, IT’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHAMPIONS AND TO AVOID THE PITFALLS THAT BEFELL THE VANQUISHED.
Touring the country that gave us golf is more than just a lesson in the roots of our sport, it’s an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of champions, writes Steve Keipert.
The most magical aspect of playing golf in Scotland in midsummer is God-given, as the only darkness you’re likely to encounter is in the deepest realms of one of the country’s innumerate menacing pot bunkers.
The sun rises before you each morning and likely lingers until after your head hits the pillow, these northern summer days providing an outrageously long opportunity to cram in several rounds of golf. With eight days in which to pack in as much as I could in Scotland last July, I set myself the ambitious task of playing 15 rounds – 36 holes every day bar one, when my travels necessitated a half-day drive. Yet as I tapped in for par about 9:15 on the nal evening, having just completed walking my 270th hole precisely 180 hours after I’d started, I had but one regret: that I didn’t play more.
With 18 or more hours of daylight in June and July, you can feasibly arrange tee-times for 6am, 11:30am and 5pm in the same day that cater for travel between courses or slow play. And there would be no threat of darkness cutting your late round short. The winters are long and draining in this part of the world but the enchanting summers are the payoff, so make the most of them.
My journey began at Gullane, a terriffic little town east of Edinburgh that will host next month’s Scottish Open. Sadly, my timetable didn’t allow me to tackle any of the three courses at Gullane Golf Club but I wish it had. Instead, my primary reason for visiting lay at the other end of town as a day at Muirfield kicked off an unforgettable trek to the far north of Scotland, which would include stops at some of the great Caledonian golf courses – new and old – along the way.
IN GOOD COMPANY
The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Muirfield, is outstanding, one of Scotland’s best with its constant changes of direction – a rarity among links courses that tend to turn only once or twice. But if
the layout is a must-see then the ‘Muirfield experience’ takes any visit to another level. Foursomes is the usual format at Muirfield, often 18 holes in the morning followed by lunch and 18 more in the afternoon. The pace is swift, to the point that two-and-a-half hours for golf is not only expected but also do-able in the alternate shot format, while the impressive buffet lunch can (and does) take just as long. Members refer to it as ‘two-and-a-half, two-and-a-half, two-and-a-half’, timeframes spanning the morning golf, lunch and the second 18. And the foursomes is played properly with no ‘hand-holding’ by partners. The non-striking pair will walk forward to the landing zone to keep play moving. It’s almost like a ball is constantly in motion, and the Muirfield rough is full of subtle narrow tracks to allow fast passage from green to next fairway.
A jacket and tie is customary inside the clubhouse. Don’t view that as an obstacle, though. Instead, embrace it and enjoy this formal side to the visit. You don’t have to don your best suit. In fact, the mismatched colours and shirt-and-tie patterns I saw among the members on the day I visited included some true crimes against fashion. Yet a practice that from the outside might appear stuffy at worst or just plain austere at best is anything but on the inside. The members joke, laugh and share tall tales like at any golf club. It’s just that the setting and procedure carry a degree of formality and a drop of exclusivity. And in a good way. Non-members can play Muirfield on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a booking. Groups of four are easiest to arrange but chances are a single, pair or three-ball can nd a place at Muirfield if arranged through the appropriate channels.
The front nine loops around the perimeter of the property and the inward half circles within the loop created by holes 1 to 9 as no more than two consecutive holes face the same direction. The club added several new championship tees in time for the 2013 Open won by Phil Mickelson as standard practice for day-to-day play sees six forward tees, six back tees and six somewhere in between. Muirfield tests every facet of your game, also allowing for that famous links creativity around the greens. It’s difficult – and perhaps pointless – to single out a best or ‘signature’ hole. Instead, Muirfield overarching completeness from 1st to 18th is its hallmark.
All you need to know about North Berwick Golf Club is that whenever The Open comes to Muirfield, many of the architecture-savvy participants make a beeline to this classic links, four miles to the east.
The famous Redan hole 15th has inspired countless similar holes the world over. The 190-yard par-3 initiated the wide, right-to-left-angled green design that guides balls towards the back-left corner. With a bunker lining the left side, it’s a drawer’s paradise yet an artful fade with a longer club can hold the slope, too. The Redan’s brilliance in many ways lies in its simplicity.
The rest of North Berwick is the ultimate in quirky golf on a site along the Firth of Forth with eerie Bass Rock in the distance. Stone walls run across three holes and come into play on two of the three. At the long par-4 3rd the view of your second shot is obscured by one wall and while chances are you will y the four-foot-high structure on your approach, a drive that runs to close to it or a second shot that doesn’t climb fast enough risks a sickening ricochet. Later, the green of the par-4 13th is squeezed into a small parcel of space between another wall and the beach. Your second shot must y the wall or you’ll face a deft chip or pitch across it from a potentially impossible position if the ball sits too close. The shaggy bank left of the green can feed balls onto the putting surface for those shying away from the wall but that’s a dicey bail-out.
I loved this hole for two reasons. Firstly, the wall is a rare and remarkable feature that piques golfers’ grey matter in a way that bunkers or lakes don’t. (The course guide offers this terse rejoinder: “Don’t argue with the wall – it’s older than you.”) My second reason for loving the 13th is because I played it once but birdied it twice. To explain, I parked a neat 9-iron ten feet from the ag and rolled in the putt, then before moving ahead insisted on attempting a tough pitch shot over the wall. I dropped a ball on the opposite side to the green and casually ipped a lob wedge over the wall and stood in startled amazement as the ball trickled into the cup.
The 16th hole is another par-4 with a wall that’s too near the tee to be a factor so instead has a defence of a different kind. The Biarritzstyle green features two raised sections split by a dip and angled in such a manner that putting from one portion to the other resembles a rollercoaster ride.
Adjoining the 15th and 16th holes is the nine-hole children’s course, which works in reverse to most in that adults are only permitted to play if a child accompanies them. As Geoff Ogilvy put it when describing this perfect peculiarity of North Berwick last year, “When you see that children’s course, you realise the secret to growing golf has been sitting under our noses since 1888, when that course was built.”
North Berwick is short, unique and fun. Between the walls, the Biarritz green and a collection of other eccentricities, there is every chance the layout will serve up at least one shot unlike any other you’ve ever played before. That’s my kind of golf.
St Andrews and North Berwick are only 20 miles apart as the crow ies but by road it’s nearly two hours looping around Edinburgh and the rth to what is, for golfers, the game’s most sacred town. I played the Castle and Old courses in one day, gaining access to the grandest layout of them all via a late-afternoon vacancy in a cherished round already documented in these pages ( Golf Australia, November 2014).
The Castle course is the newest of the St Andrews Links Trust layouts.
Found a short drive south-east of the township, it sits on an undulating site atop cliffs with views across the bay towards town. As the seventh addition to the St Andrews golf scene, establishing a point of difference was the primary objective for course architect David McLay Kidd. So instead of wide fairways lined by gorse bushes and gently contoured greens, the Castle course features narrower playing lines (that appear tighter than they actually play) and wild movements along the fairways and greens. The site also climbs and falls more than its at siblings.
Several changes have transpired on the Castle course since it opened in 2008. Some green shapes were simply too harsh in an exposed location and have been softened either for fairness or to create more pin positions. And most fairways are dotted with numerous small, raised mounds where the grass is kept long but short enough to play from. This wasn’t the case initially as the shaggy mounds with their tall spiked grass became known as ‘Don Kings’ for their appearance. And they were equally controversial, so received a series of ‘haircuts’ to improve the look and soften the misfortune of nding your ball in one.
The best stretch of holes closes the front nine. The 6th to 9th bring the cliffs into play, starting from a mesmerising second shot to the dramatically downhill par-4 6th with the bay behind the green and continuing to two further strong par-4s sandwiching a cute but potentially nasty downhill par-3 at the 8th.
Good luck conquering the 17th, an intimidating long par-3 over a yawning chasm to a rippled green. The trouble is all short and right, and tee shots that stay left can and usually will bound down onto the green if they miss a lone, angled bunker. Armed with a 3-wood into the strong breeze on the 184-yard hole, I watched in horror as my intended soft fade turned into an ugly slice on the wind and sailed into oblivion in the gulch below. My re-tee took the safe line to the left but caught the sand, leading to a triple-bogey.
The Castle layout is a ne addition to the collection of St Andrews courses. It’s out-of-town location and contrived contours aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re looking for a challenge and a different form of seaside course with phenomenal views then take it on. Nearby Kingsbarns Golf Links offers a compelling mix of open holes, waterside holes and a couple that meander through a forest. The wing of holes spanning the par-5 12th to par-3 15th was my favourite, a secluded stretch culminating in a tremendous short hole across an inlet in the sea with a rocky beach short, right and below the angled green.
The Kyle Phillips design features terriffic green contours – far less dramatic that at St Andrews’ Castle course but undulating nonetheless. Kingsbarns is a superior example of a set of greens that rock and roll but don’t look artificial nor become impossible to putt on. Instead they’re fun, as Michael Phelps discovered.
Here’s a course that’s a shade young to be awash with the same history as its more storied neighbours, yet one moment at Kingsbarns stands out. The 18-time Olympic gold medallist became a YouTube sensation (something Old Tom Morris never had the chance to achieve) when he binned a 150-foot putt along the 6th green during the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. From just off the front-left corner of the