Alyth GC Pee Wee Course - Course no 677

Alyth GC's 18 hole course has for many years been one of my favourite heathland courses in Scotland, with a great layout that's always been in excellent condition any time I've played it.  I'd known for a while that the club also had a 6 hole Par 3 layout, the "Pee Wee Course"  but I'd never had the opportunity (or inclination) to play it on my previous visits to the club. One of the other guys I know who's trying to play every course in Scotland, Paul Connor, reminded me about the Pee Wee a couple of weeks ago so with the weather set to be fair, warm and sunny, I set out on 28 October 2024 to play this little course.  I knew the route quite well, but I thought I'd test the sat nav on my recently bought Toyota Rav 4. I keyed in Alyth GC OK, but for reasons that may be best known to Toyota, their name for Alyth GC was Benbecula (Alyth) Golf Club.  For any readers not familiar with Scottish geography, Benbecula is part of the chain of west coast islands known as the Outer Hebrides, a long, long way away from my planned destination.  Indeed, I've played the Benbecula course and can testify that it's nowhere near Alyth!. Since I knew the way anyway, I let the sat nav run, so it was quite amusing to be told, as I pulled into the Alyth GC car park, "you have now arrived at Benbecula Golf Club, the route guidance is now finished." 

I'd also played the former Glenisla GC's 18 hole course many years ago, a course that lay on the other side of the road from Alyth GC's clubhouse. I also knew that when the Glenisla GC ceased trading a few years ago, Alyth had taken over Glenisla's back 9 holes (with the front 9 of that course going to new housing). I'd not played Glenisla since that change so my visit on 28 October was also an opportunity to see what had become of the former Glenisla course.  There are 9 greens on the revised Glenisla layout, but it can be played as an 18 holer, with the front 9 played from the yellow tees and the back 9 played from the whites.  Although the design of the 9 holes looked to be unchanged, the running order was different, since the hole I remembered as Glenisla's 18th is now the 4th/13th. Since I played the "new" Glenisla layout before tackling the 6 hole Pee Wee, I'll cover Glenisla first.

I only played from the Yellow tees, so Glenisla's "front 9" course now starts with a 365 yard Par 4, requiring a slightly uphill and blind tee shot.  This is a view of the green.
 

This was a simple enough hole but I'd been driving for a couple of hours to get there, didn't warm up properly and bogeyed the hole as a result.

Next, a slightly downhill 146 Yard Par 3, with a stream to the back right of the small green, as shown here, with the white building in the background being Glenisla's former clubhouse (and more about that shortly). 

I'd just missed the green to the left side but a good pitch left an easy tap in for a first par. 

The 3rd hole was a very tricky 383 Yard dog leg right Par 4.  The tee shot was slightly uphill and didn't go far enough to get past trees at the corner of the dog leg, so I'd a double bogey.  This is an even more difficult hole off the white tees, a further 11 yards back!  This is a view of the approach to the elevated green.

I thought that the 4th was the best hole on Glenisla, a 342 Yard Par 4, with the Alyth Burn cutting deeply across in front of the green, as shown here. 

The fairway was a bit soggy so my drive didn't get much run and I had around 140 yards to the flag, with OOB close behind the green. I understand that after the Glenisla club closed, someone ran the clubhouse as a restaurant before that business also failed. The still vacant building looked as though it would make a fabulous country house, particularly for someone interested in golf, but I digress. I missed the green long and left with my approach shot.  The green slopes quite steeply from back to front so another bogey was reasonable result.

The 5th was a very flat 351 Yard Par 4 that I imagine will in time be overlooked by the new housing being built on the former front 9 of the old Glenisla layout.  A pond short and left of the green comes into play for approach shots but I was on in regulation for an easy par. The 6th fairway was particularly soggy so this dog leg right 405 Yard Par 4 played longer than it looked.  I'd forgotten that there was a deep bunker just short left of the green, so another double bogey on the card.  

The 7th hole is named "The Monster" and at 587 Yards from the Yellow tee and 612 from the White, (and a meaty 563 from the Ladies' red tee) this hole is aptly named!  Although I suspect that the hole is unchanged in length since Alyth took over Glenisla's back 9, this hole really doesn't fit well alongside the others.  I managed to get within a few yards of the green in 3 blows and make bogey from there, but I didn't really like the hole.  The Glenisla course is otherwise very playable but the 7th seemed to be far more difficult. This is a view of the approach to the green, with the Alyth clubhouse in the background. 

The 8th was a 90 degree dog leg right Par 4 of 359 yards. For me at least, the corner of the dog leg was well beyond my driver's landing zone, and with mature pine trees to contend with on the inside of the dog leg, this was very tricky hole.  It might have been easier if my drive had not been so close to the right of the fairway!  This is a view from where my drive would have been if I'd hit it 280 Yards down the middle! I was happy enough with a bogey here.

The 9th was a 140 Yard Par 3, with a large pond coming into play front left of the green.  Another bogey and I was round the course in an unremarkable 44 shots, with 17 putts.  Glenisla was in generally very good condition, with smooth running greens that were faster than I'd expected.  Some the fairways were soggy but that's what you tend to get inland at this time of the year after recent rain. It's a flat and easy walking course and apart from the 7th, is probably slightly easier than Alyth's 18 hole main course.  I enjoyed it anyway and had an absolute bargain at a mere £18 for the 9 holes. 

I'd taken around 80 minutes to play Glenisla and it looked though it wouldn't take much time to play the Pee Wee course, a mere 643 Yards total Par 18 for 6 holes, ranging from 70-155 Yards.  Some readers might wonder whether such a short layout should count as a self-standing golf course and be included in my target to play every Scottish course.  For me, a golf course can have any number of holes i.e. 2 or more and be whatever length suits the owners, as long as it has fixed tees and greens.  Others might think that there should be at least 9 holes with a minimum length e.g. 100 yards, but I disagree.  Indeed, the Asta GC course (as recognised by Scottish Golf with an official slope rating etc for handicap purposes) includes a Par 3 that is significantly shorter than even the shortest of the Pee Wee course.  I'd need to do some research but I'm pretty sure a few other registered courses have such oddities. 

Anyway, here are a few photos of the Pee Wee course.

For the record, I went round in 19 strokes, with 8 putts and a tap in birdie at the 70 Yard 2nd Hole.  Please don't ask whether a hole in one at a course like Pee Wee should count! I suppose it should but I suspect some might disagree. As I'd expected, Pee Wee was pretty basic in terms of difficulty, but for beginners and young children it's a decent test and was in remarkably good condition. It certainly counted as my Course no 677. Not hugely memorable but I'm afraid I could also say that about certain other courses I'd gladly not revisit. 

Old Milton - Course No 676

Regular readers of the blog will know that the challenge that Craig, Stu and I set ourselves was to play anywhere with fixed tees and greens, maintained for the purpose of playing golf, irrespective of whether the course was private or public., and whether or not it had Scottish Golf affiliation, an official scorecard, course rating or slope index. It would have been far simpler to aim at courses that had been officially recognised by Scottish Golf and had been officially rated for handicap purposes, as a few others have done. However, we opted for the far more difficult task of playing everywhere we could find where golf was played, meaning we also tried to play private courses, children's courses pitch and putt courses and even practice courses that had fixed tees and greens. That of course led us to searching out locations that simply weren't listed anywhere and the more we played the more difficult it became to find new courses that we should try to play.

I've known for some time about a small handful of unofficial courses that I still need to play and I've been monitoring the progress of new developments under construction such as the second course at Cabot Highlands (Castle Stuart in former times) and the new 9 hole Par 3 course that will be built at Dunbar GC, one of the clubs where I'm a member (the other being Glen GC in North Berwick). Some months ago now, my close friend Douglas Mill (who earlier this year completed his own "every Scottish golf course" challenge) told me about a very private course he'd come across at Old Milton, near Kingussie that I'd not played and that, if I got lucky, he might be able to get me access to play.  I'll spare you the details but the way was cleared for me to play this course on 16 July 2024.

Some of the private courses I've played are relatively basic and since the owners clearly know their own layouts, its pretty unusual for their courses to have clear signage, numbered tee markers and professional looking scorecards. And at some places I've been, it was pretty hard to get excited about the design, condition or playability of the layouts.  Not so at Old Milton, where the course is just excellent and was in outstanding condition, forming part of a former country sporting estate.  My host Drew, who was renting the entire place for a family holiday, thought the owner had designed and built the golf course around 10 years ago. The layout has 8 Par 3s and a single Par 4, total yardage 1310 Yards, Par 28. 

Drew had advised me against assuming that the course would be easy, since although it was clearly in great condition, the greens were tiny and severely sloping, that anything off line might be lost in high rough and that the holes tended to play longer than they looked. He'd heard the course record was a remarkable 29. His own score earlier on the day I played it was 37 and that sounded to me like a more realistic target.  This is me on the tee of the 91 Yard downhill 1st hole, looking as though my retirement from caddying earlier in 2024 isn't doing much for my waistline. 

An easy lob wedge and a couple of putts and I'd got my first (and only!) par at Old Milton. That was the easiest hole on the course, and greater challenges were to follow! The 2nd hole is the single Par 4, at a very modest 209 Yards, played blind over a ridge in the fairway. I'd taken a half set of clubs so my 3 wood left just a short pitch to the green, which was shared with the 8th hole. Sounds easy enough, but the green had something like a 10% slope from front left to back right, hence the bogey 5.

Next, the tricky looking 130 Yard Par 3, 3rd hole, as shown below. I got away with a lucky bogey after just missing the really heavy rough to the right of the green (even more steeply sloped).

The 4th was slightly uphill and at a mere 98 yards didn't look too demanding, but there was a false front to the green, making the green play even smaller than it looked. This is a view back down the 4th, from beside the 5th tee. That was the first of several climbs on the course.

This next photo is a view from the elevated 5th tee. The 5th is called Traigh (Harder) the joke being that Traigh is pronounced "Try" and at 171 Yards is a pretty meaty Par 3, given the small size and slope on the green. It's just too easy to stick with a local landmark or call the last hole "Home" etc, but I liked the humour in the name of this hole.  

The 6th at Old Milton is significantly more difficult than the others, at a meaty 178 Yards, played steeply downhill, as shown below. I don't think I've mentioned this in the blog to date but for the past 7 years or so I've been working for Scottish Golf as a course rater, meaning I lead teams that assess the difficulty of golf courses for handicapping purposes by reviewing course rating and slope index numbers.  We look at a wide range of factors that influence the playability of each hole, such as effective playing lengths, topography, the visibility of greens, recovery and rough, the severity of bunkers, crossing and lateral obstacles, trees, green sizes and green surfaces. All of the data collected on course surveys feeds into a matrix that potentially generates adjustments to rating and slope indexes.  The 6th would score as an extremely difficult challenge, even for those lucky enough to play Old Milton regularly. 

The small green lies behind the mound to the left left of the first photo below. I'd noticed on my way up the 5th that a stream runs right in front of the 6th green, meaning that the shot from the 6th tee had to fly that mound and the stream behind it. I'd only 3 golf balls in my bag (a potentially serious omission there!) so I chickened out of that severe challenge by laying up, leaving a short chip under tree branches and hopefully clearing the stream. A double bogey there was pretty feeble but this was a tight course and I'd little margin for error ball-wise!

The 7th was a steeply uphill 141 Yard Par 3. This a view of the 7th green from the 8th tee, with the main estate house in the background. I'd missed the green with my drive and a fluffed chip from the rough led to another double bogey.  There was a note inside the cup, reading "almost there, only 2 holes to go, and some crisps and a soft drink if you're lucky." I suspect that the message was meant to be shared by the family on holiday there and playing behind me, but I couldn't complain, I was just very lucky indeed to have the chance to play the course.

I'd need a couple of pars to beat my target score of 37, but it wasn't to be.  The 8th Hole is called MacPherson's Rant, presumably since the course is located in ancestral Clan MacPherson country, but I was just enjoying myself on a quality course. "MacPherson's relaxing stroll" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Anyway, the 8th is a steeply downhill 154 Yard Par 3, with a green shared with the 2nd., as shown here. Another predictable bogey was the best I could manage but it didn't bother me, I was just enjoying the walk and surely I couldn't lose 3 balls on the last hole.

The 9th is a final steep hill at a mercifully short 138 yards, with a band of ball losing rough right in front of the green. I'd hit a 6 Hybrid that normally flies 160 or so, but that drive finished just short of the rough leaving just a short pitch to the elevated green.  However, the green is tiny and my short pitch found some of the heaviest rough on the course immediately behind the green, just short of mature pine trees. A closing double bogey was a bit disappointing but I REALLY DIDN'T MIND, HONEST! I'd gone round in 39 with 17 putts, so that wasn't a great score, 2 over my target. Thank you again to Drew, my generous and kindly host. It was also a thrill to meet his son in law, a former Scottish rugby internationalist.

I'd only heard about Old Milton pretty recently but I'm really glad I did, because this is one of the best private courses I've played on my travels around Scotland. Play it if you get the chance, but take more than 3 balls - you may need them!