Have clubs, will travel....to Scotland

As will be apparent to my regular readers, one of the secondary objectives of this blog is to draw attention to the lesser known golf courses in Scotland and more generally to promote visits to such hidden gems.  Golfers the world over have heard about The Old Course, Carnoustie, Turnberry, Muirfield, Royal Troon, Gleneagles etc and many will, rightly, have ambitions to play such famous courses.  Inevitably, green fees at these courses are not cheap.  For example, the Summer 2013 green fees for The Old Course will set you back £155 for a round and at Muirfield you'll be forking out a cool £195.  You could even spend £300 for a round at Skibo Castle (well worth it, by the way), so a trip to Scotland focusing solely on the "trophy" courses could make a very serious dent in your bank balance.

 

However, as I've seen on my travels around Scottish golf courses, there's far more to golf in Scotland than just these world famous courses.  I suppose it's inevitable that some golfers will wish to play these courses, irrespective of the costs, but you won't understand what golf in Scotland is really about by playing only our prestige courses.  Scotland is a pretty small place and it's actually quite difficult to visit one of the prestige courses without passing other courses that could offer a great golfing experience at a fraction of the cost (and be more playable for medium and higher handicappers).  OK, so it's fun to get home after a Scottish golfing trip and share 19th Hole tales about how you almost broke 100 at Muirfield (off the Yellow Tees).  But how much better might it be to boast about how you broke 90 on one of the many wonderful courses almost next door to Muirfield that you discovered and enjoyed playing for a fraction of the Muirfield green fee?

By all means play one or more of our famous "trophy" courses, but have a look at what's available nearby.  For example, let's say you've based yourself in North Berwick, where I live, a 5 minute drive from Muirfield.  You'll find another 30 or so courses within an hour's drive, including a number of courses that are used for Open Championship Final Qualifying and offer outstanding value for money as well as an entertaining round of golf.  Alternatively, take the day off and explore Edinburgh, only 25 miles up the road by road or 30 minutes by train to the city centre.  From my job as a caddie in East Lothian, I remember being asked for advice on whether there was a good course on the way to Edinburgh Airport as my player wanted to squeeze in another quick round before flying home the next day. I was able to help easily enough, but in reality it could have taken him around a week to get to the airport!

 

There are any number of tour operators that will put a Scottish golf package together for you and that's fine by me if that's how you want to organise your Scottish golf trip.  However, you won't experience Scotland by looking out of tourist bus windows and playing only our world famous courses.  For me, one of the greatest joys in playing golf in Scotland is experiencing the diversity of courses that are available across the home of golf, from the great links to the humblest of rough courses laid out for pennies and still maintained by the voluntary efforts of dedicated club members. Equally, it's great to meet local golfers on my travels and learn from them some of the history of their own courses and how best to play particular holes.  As a typically tight-fisted Scot, I appreciate that a really cheap way of playing local courses is to enter open competitions.  All you need is a recognised handicap certificate, the knowledge of where and when these competitions are being held and the foresight to enter in advance.  The best free information source is www.scottishgolf.org, the website of the Scottish Golf Union, the body that administers the amateur game in Scotland.  You'll see a tag for Open Competitions on the Home page of this website, with listings for such competitions.  OK, so you put your handicap on the line, but you'll be playing with local members at a fraction of the normal green fees.  Indeed, most Open Competitions have entry fees well under £20 and the prize money can be worthwhile if you play well enough.

 

It might sound daunting to some, but travelling independently around Scotland following your own itinerary is really easy and will take you nearer to the real Scotland and its people and above all, the full diversity of our golf courses.  One of the "joys" of my challenge to play every course in Scotland is the internet and other research required to identify all of the courses in the first place (and please take my word for it, there is no fully comprehensive commercially available list, despite what various websites and reference books may claim).  Accordingly, I spend quite a time searching around on the internet, finding new courses to play, places to stay and eat, etc for my travels.  Anyone doing their own planning for a Scottish golf trip will of course need to do the same.  I don't get paid for product endorsements on this blog, but if any of my readers is thinking about planning their own golf trip to Scotland, I strongly suggest they start by going to www.golfnook.com, one of the best websites sites for independent golf travellers that I've come across.  Navigation through this site couldn't be easier and there's a huge amount of unbiased and completely reliable information that should give you the confidence to do your own planning.   Even if you don't have any immediate ambitions to come here to explore the diversity of our courses, golfnook.com is an entertaining site to visit, full of unexpected details and some straight-talking course reviews. 

 

I'm often asked what my favourite Scottish golf courses are.  A simple enough question, but I always struggle to provide a reasonably short answer.  It's always tempting to go for the usual suspects such Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, Turnberry, Loch Lomond, The Old Course, Royal Dornoch and Muirfield, but I suspect that doing so just reinforces peoples' views about golf in Scotland, where the best courses are the ones that everyone has heard of.  A more comprehensive reflection on my favourite courses would also probably include a mixture of lesser known (certainly outside Scotland) courses such as Rosemount, The Renaissance, Glasgow Gailes, Royal Aberdeen and Skibo Castle and some pretty obscure places, such as Boat of Garten, Stroma, Scarista, Durness, Stromness and Gatehouse of Fleet, before droning on about the wonders of my own course, The Glen GC in North Berwick.  Such lists are of course highly subjective, but are great fun to discuss over a beer or three in the warmth of the 19th.  If you ever visit Scotland for a golfing holiday, try asking a local golfer about his/her own favourites, and why, and be prepared for a long night!  Some of the courses mentioned above you might recognise.  Others you will come across on a golfing journey through Scotland you might even struggle to pronounce properly or even remember, but I'd be amazed if the personal memories that give rise to such preferences don't get your golfing juices flowing, big time. 

Now if only it would stop raining/snowing and being thoroughly miserable outside, maybe I'd get back to my travels around the remaining 89 courses on my own list of Scottish courses. Through internet research I recently found a 6 hole course on Fair Isle, a small dot on the map midway between the Orkney and Shetland islands must surely be the remotest course in Scotland, but I'll leave that trip for the coming summer, when at least the rain will be warmer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lochview Family Golf Centre - Course no 560

The Lochview Family Golf Centre is located in Coatbridge, an industrial town east of Glasgow and is a re-branding of the formerCoatbridge Golf Course, by its owner and operator, North Lanarkshire Council.  The centre consists of an 18 hole golf course, driving range and modern clubhouse.  I played the Lochview course on 17 January 2013 a bitterly cold day, with a heavy frost that thankfully had frozen parts of the course that would otherwise have been extremely boggy.  The Starter advised that although all of the course was open, most  members of the local Lochview Golf Club, which is based here, usually miss out holes 2-4, where drainage problems are particularly severe at present.  I'd started behind a couple of local members who were adopting that strategy, but since I was intent on playing every hole, this meant that I'd no one in front of me that I could follow.  I mention this because there were no numbers on any of the tees or flags, making navigation pretty difficult.  Temporary greens were in operation on some holes, reducing the course to something like 5000 Yards, Par 69.  However, the frozen ground meant that scoring was extremely difficult, particularly on the frozen greens.  This is the 5th, a 267 Yard Par 4 playing nearer to 250 Yards, with the driving range immediately beyond the OOB fence.  This is an easy enough hole if you hit your drive dead straight (as I did, thank goodness).  Otherwise, you can run up a double bogey or worse.

From here, advanced navigation skills were necessary to find the 6th tee.  There's a course map on the scorecard, but this measures under 2 square inches and with hole numbering at well under a millimetre high, is almost unreadable.  Indeed, I only noticed the map after I'd gone back to the Starter's Office to seek directions!  Holes 6-12 are on the other side of the busy Townhead Road that runs through the course, but you're then faced with a path that runs off in 3 different directions, with absolutely no signage to offer any guidance.  Nor was there any sign of the 2 locals who had started in front of me on the 1st.  The 6th was supposed to be a 165 Yard Par 3, but the flags on holes 1-5 had been Yellow, but there was a Red flag on the hole that looked to be a possible candidate for the 6th.  I gambled wrongly and ended up playing what turned out to be the 12th and then the 10th (with Yellow flags!), before stumbling upon the 6th, complete with its Red flag.  The North Lanarkshire Council has clearly spent a small fortune on the clubhouse and it's also done well  with extensive road-side signage to encourage public participation.  However, it's a real shame that no effort has been made to ensure that casual Winter visitors like myself can actually navigate their way around the course.  I imagine that signage is better during the Summer months, but there's really no excuse for the complete lack of any signage during the Winter.  Even some rudimentary numbering on tee boxes/litter bins would have helped and I do wonder how many potential newcomers to the sport have been put off by the lack of on-course signage. 

The front 9 holes were pretty short, at something like 2100 Yards in total, so my gross 39 (discounting the extra shots over Holes 12 and 10) was reasonable enough.  The back 9 is significantly longer and more difficult and I was happy with a homeward 42 for a total of 81 gross, net 70, with 35 putts.  This was only net 1 over par in really testing conditions, so not bad at all.  This is the 18th, a 345 Yard Par 4, with the clubhouse and driving range in the background.  The best hole is probably the Stroke Index 1 9th, a 372 Yard Par 4, played from an elevated tee and finishing with a good view of a small loch.  However, it was difficult to get enthusiastic about any of the holes, given my navigation problems.

Overall, Lochview is probably a decent enough parkland course during the Summer months, assuming that signage is improved and that currently boggy areas finally dry out.   I've played it once, but I don't imagine I'll ever want to play it again.

Cambuslang GC - Course no 559

I'd not played much golf at all since the games at Turnberry in November due to a really nasty bout of flu and a long spell of wet weather that led to the flooding of various Scottish courses in recent weeks.  So, it was good to get back to "the all-courses challenge" on 9 January 2013 by playing this good little 9 hole parkland course in the eastern outskirts of Glasgow.  Cambuslang is short at 2881 Yards, Par 35 off the Yellow Tees, and is pretty flat and easy walking, with only a couple of small hills to contend with.  A couple of temporary greens were in play and combined with forward tees on some holes, I guess this shortened the course to something like 2600 Yards overall. The Cambuslang course is laid out over a surprisingly small area, meaning that a 9-hole round shouldn't take long, but the downside of that compactness is that the holes are pretty close together, with quite a few fairways crossing each other.  For example, the 1st and 6th holes are crossed by the 7th and the 2nd is crossed by the 4th, so you need to be mindful of other golfers and the risk of wayward shots.  I just followed the guy in front as best I could and noted when he stopped to give way to other players, but it took me a while to notice all of these potential hazards and I completely missed the fact that the 1st is vulnerable from the right by shots from the 7th. 

The 1st is a 501 Yard Par 5 that played longer than it looked, with the green sitting at the top of a gentle upslope.  I'd hit a decent drive and with Cambuslang having a winter mats policy in place I'd another chance to test my new Mark 3 Rocket Launcher smart mat, from www.divotEND.com.  I've lost count of the number of old offcuts of astroturf etc that I've lost on various courses and I'm a mug for new gadgets of all kinds, but this new mat actually works and is a great improvement on anything I've tried before.  It takes a wee bit of getting used to but I'm sold on it as a Winter game improvement aid to the extent that I'll be using it even on courses that don't have a winter mats policy.  Anyway, a great connection with my 3 Wood left me with a short iron to the green and my opening par was easy enough.  The 2nd is a 306 Yard  Par 4.  Aim at the left of the fairway to avoid a stand of trees front right of the tee that might otherwise catch your drive and leave you looking at bogey or much worse.  Be careful on this hole though, as it might not be immediately obvious that players 2 holes ahead may be playing from the 4th tee, to the left and above the 2nd fairway. I managed a good birdie after a 9 iron to 3 feet, using my new mat.

This is the 3rd hole, a 132 Yard Par 3, with Polly walking ahead to assess the lie I'd left myself in the bunker, short of the green.  Easy enough as it turned out, but a costly bogey nevertheless.  The 4th is an awkward 352 Yard Par 4.  The drive is easy enough to a wide fairway, but the green sits at the top of a steep bank and your second will play far longer than it looks.  I'd 139 yards left according to my range finder but the shot played nearer to 160 and I only barely made the front edge with my 27 Degree Rescue.  The 5th is a 317 Yard Par 4 played from an elevated tee, semi-blind over some high trees.  The right side of the fairway gives a better line into the small green.  I'd hit a good drive and a punched 6 iron to within 15 feet.  The greens were slow and bumpy but still reasonably good for this time of year.  Another birdie after a good putt and I was 1 under par with only 4 holes to go.

The 6th at Cambuslang is a 413 Yard Par 4 and rightly the Stroke Index 1 hole.  The drive is easy looking as the fairway is initially generously wide, but the second shot is longer than it looks and the longer the fairway runs, the narrower it gets.  The fairway also dog legs to the right, so a tee shot favouring the left of the fairway gives a better view of the green. The 6th green is also quite small and has more slopes than most others, so  I was happy enough with a bogey 5.  I'll take level par with 3 to go anytime.  Another bunker to the left of the green and a repositioning of the existing bunker would make this hole even more formidable, but some might say the hole is tough enough already! This is a view of the 6th green and the clubhouse.

The 7th is a 344 Yard Par 4.  The small beech tree in the distance is a good line off the tee.  Another good drive and a 27 Degree Rescue set up another easy par.  The 8th is a 168 Yard Par 3.  A stream to the right of the green lurks ready to swallow a really wayward drive but otherwise, this hole looked to be pretty defenceless and I'd be adding some bunkers given the chance.  Another par.  The 9th is a 348 Yard Par 4.  The green sits in front of the clubhouse windows and a gully in front adds to the difficulty.  Unfortunately for me, a temporary green was in play, reducing the hole to a drive and short pitch, as shown here.  I suspect the 9th would be my favourite hole at Cambuslang and maybe one day I'll get the chance to play it to the normal green.  I hope so, since I liked this little course nestled inconspicuously between factories and housing.  OK, it's crossover holes are quirky and straight hitting is pretty important, but I liked the welcoming feel to the place and the friendliness of its members.

I managed my par at the 9th for a gross 35, even par, or net 29.5, with 13 putts.  A good score and a tough one to beat if I ever play the course again.

Turnberry GC - Pitch and Putt Course - Course no 558

With the sun already ominously low on the horizon and the air temperature plummeting, I'd just about enough time on 28 November 2012 to squeeze in a speedy round over the 12 Hole Pitch and Putt course that's laid out in front of the world famous Turnberry Hotel on the other side of the road from the Turnberry GC's clubhouse.

There was no scorecard available, but the course length was no more than 600 yards or so, with an average hole length of about 50 yards and a total Par of 36.  I'd only taken my 60 degree lob wedge and putter and with the sun sinking fast, time was of the essence.  This course is extremely short, but accuracy is vital, as the greens are tiny and invariably well protected by little pot bunkers.

Here are some views of the course, namely the uphill 2nd (with the imposing Turnberry Hotel in the background), the 3rd and the downhill 8th (both with the Turnberry GC clubhouse in the background) .

This little course was good fun.  I went round in 40 gross, with 21 putts and was only in 1 bunker, thank goodness.  I'll take a net 32.7 any time.  It had been a long day and I still had a 3 hour drive home - but at least I'd be sitting down!

Thanks again to Ricky Hall, the Senior Pro at Turnberry, for all of his help on the day and for his warm welcome, which made me feel right at home.  What a great, great place to play your golf.

Turnberry GC - Arran Course - Course no 557

I played the 9 Hole Arran Course on 28 November 2012 immediately after my round on the Ailsa Course.  The Arran is short at only 1996 Yards, Par 31 and was specifically designed as an extension to the Golf Academy at Turnberry to support coaching on all aspects of links golf and course management.  As such, its a great practice facility and is a real links course in miniature, with the same challenges e.g. undulating greens, tight tee shots, pot bunkers and thick, Scottish rough that you'll find on the Ailsa and Kintyre courses. 

It might be short, but don't be fooled into thinking that the Arran is easy.  I'd only parred the 281 Yard Par 4 1st after a good pitch and run and single putt from around 6 feet. This is the 2nd, an innocent looking 91 Yard Par 3.  An easy wedge/sand iron you'd probably agree, but I'd teed the ball up a wee bit too high, got under it and needed a great recovery bunker shot to leave myself a tap in for par.  I'd obviously had enough bunker practice earlier in the day on the Ailsa!

The 3rd is a 177 Yard Par 3 and also looks easy enough.  I under-clubbed from the tee, leading to a bogey.  This is a view up the 4th, a 316 yard Par 4, with my drive only just missing the first of 3 bunkers.  I doubt this poor drive went much more than 180 yards.  It might have been wiser to have lunch after my Ailsa round, but with sunset a little over an hour away and a 12 hole pitch and putt course still to play, I was trying to play the Arran as quickly as possible.  The conventional way of playing the 4th is to favour the left side of the fairway to avoid these 3 bunkers and leave yourself a short pitch to the green.  Having duffed my drive I tried an 8 iron (another duff).  I'm usually fairly handy with pitch and run shots (I get tons of practice!) but it was still pretty satisfying to birdie the hole from just off the green.

The 5th is a really good 415 Yard Par 4.  The key is to avoid the very right side of the fairway off the tee.  I know, since that's where I went, leaving myself an awkward 2nd shot, blind over gorse bushes.  The green is also one of the most undulating on the course and a bogey was a fair result after another loose drive.  I was getting really tired!  The 6th is an easy looking 184 Yard Par 3.  A good drive with my 23 Degree Rescue set up an easy par.  The 7th is a 138 Yard Par 3, on the other side of an old Second World War airfield runway (and a poignant reminder of the important role that Turnberry played in both World Wars).  A good par there after just missing the green with a lazily swung 7 iron tee shot.  The 8th is a tight looking 268 Yard Par 4 with strong fairway bunkering ready to trap anything even slightly wayward.  I had an easy pitch and run to the green and a comfortable par, but this is a real birdie opportunity for bigger hitters than me.

This is a view of the 9th green, looking back to the tee and to the lighthouse and the mountains on Arran in the far distance.  The 126 Yard 9th is really just a flick with something like 9 iron/wedge.  I thinned my 9 iron a good 25 yards through the back of the green into heavy rough and was lucky to escape with a bogey.  Not how I'd planned it, but I was happy enough with my 33 total, net 27.5, with 13 putts.  The Arran is an ideal practice course for links golf and well worth playing in its own right, either before or after your round on either of the Ailsa or Kintyre Courses.  It's a fair distance between the Arran and the pitch and putt course, so lunch would have to wait....again!

Turnberry GC Ailsa Course - Course no 556

With many Scottish courses currently closed due to flooding or suffering more generally after one of the wettest Summers on record, I decided to play Turnberry Ailsa on 28 November 2012.  Polly was going to play as well but she's come down with flu, poor girl.  So, an early start was required and the 3 hour drive to the course wasn't encouraging, as there had been a heavy frost and my car was reading the outside temperature at -5C for much of the journey.  I needn't have worried, since there was no frost at Turnberry and with the low sun beating down and only a gentle breeze to contend with, the Ailsa course looked hugely inviting.  The course wasn't particularly busy so I was able to tee off (by myself) half an hour early.  That was to be important as I was also planning to play the 9 hole Arran Course and the 12 hole Pitch and Putt Course at Turnberry, light permitting. 

I'd played the Turnberry Kintyre Course a few years ago and was pretty impressed, particularly by the holes nearer the sea. Indeed, the Kintyre remains one of my favourite links courses.    However, it's no match for the Ailsa, which is of course best known as an Open Championship venue and is listed amongst the very best courses in the World, best in Britain, Scotland, best links course in the World, etc. "Best of" listings are in my view highly subjective, offering scope for endless debate.  Let's just say that having played the Ailsa on a bright late Autumn day in near perfect golfing conditions (well, +5 Degrees C with little wind and no rain is as good as we Scots can expect at this time of year), I'm not surprised that it gets such high ratings.  Ailsa is just a superb course (and by coincidence our youngest daughter's middle name!)  I played Ailsa off the Yellow tees, making the course 6100 Yards, Par 69.  Rather than go through this great course hole by hole, I'd refer my readers this link to the Turnberry website www.turnberry.co.uk, which as you'll see covers each hole in great detail, with flyover videos etc.

I'd not played at all since my rounds in the Aberdeen area at the beginning of November due to a combination of bad weather, sodden courses and a nasty bout of flu, so I was concerned that my game might be a bit rusty and that tackling an easier course might have been more sensible.  Maybe it was just the benign playing conditions and some decent shot making but I played the opening holes reasonably well.  The 1st was only 340 Yards and a good drive set up a short iron to the green.  However, the bunkering is as tricky as you'd expect on a Championship layout, and finding one of the 4 bunkers protecting the opening green cost me a bogey.  At my level, par on a Championship layout is good, so opening pars on holes 2 and 3 were a relief after my long layoff.  The 4th was the first of several "should have" holes.  This is a 157 Yard Par 3 played to a bowl-shaped green with a severe slope to the left that carries anything mis-hit into heavy rough, leaving a  blind lob wedge chip.  I'd only slightly tugged my 27 Degree Rescue and needed almost the full 5 minutes to find my ball.  A great chip later and I'd a 6 foot putt for par.  I'd read that putts on Ailsa usually break towards the sea.  I just misread it slightly, but that was enough.

More bunker trouble at the 5th, a 392 Yard dog leg left Par 4.  I'd found a bunker in front of the  green and was delighted to find it designated as GUR.  My pitch and run looked good but the contours took it into another bunker, in play this time.  OK, maybe my pitch was slightly off-line but that's one of the joys/frustrations about links courses.  Double bogey followed. The 6th is a 187 Yard Par 3 with the green perched at the top of a steep slope and a large deep bunker lurking front right of the green, ready to swallow anything under-hit.  This is a view of the 6th looking back down the hole and across to the iconic Turnberry Hotel.  With the flag towards the front of the green, I took an easy swing with my 3 Wood and should have done better with my 15 foot putt.  Another misread but an easy enough par.

The 7th hole is Stroke Index 1 and at 463 Yards for a Par 4, it's easy to see why.  Good course management was needed to avoid real trouble and I was happy enough with a bogey.  This is a view back down the 8th, one of my favourite holes on the course.  The 8th is a 365 Yard Par 4.  The fairway was generously wide but the subtle contouring means that anything remotely near a bunker is likely to come to grief.  I'd found one of the 3 fairway bunkers off the tee, managed to get out, found a greenside bunker with my 8 iron 3rd, got out again, chipped on and holed a good single putt for double bogey.  The pin position was brutal, but I was loving the course, so who cares?  Nobody died and I knew that the famous 9th was next. 

Much has been written about the 9th at the Ailsa over the years and I couldn't resist wandering across to the Championship tee to have a look at what is undoubtedly one of the most daunting tees on The Open  circuit.  This is the view that Open Competitors face.  The 9th for hackers like me is a more manageable 388 Yards and far less difficult.  Hit your drive reasonably straight and this hole should be relatively straightforward.  However, if it's windy and/or wet, hang on to your hat and hope for the best!

This is a short 300 degree video that I took from the Yellow tee looking back down the 8th, out to the island of Ailsa Craig, down to the 9th Championship tee and up to the marker on the 9th fairway.  Remember I said my daughter's middle name was Ailsa?  She's married to a lovely guy called Craig!

I'd gone out in 42, so not bad.  Next was this, the 415 Yard Par 4 10th.  Anything left is dead.  Anything right risks finding  bunkering almost in the middle of the fairway  and a huge bunker with a grassy island inside it must be avoided if you manage to stay above ground from the tee.  I'd caught up with a couple of guys by this time and had to wait to play.  A passing walker suggested that I go for the left of the fairway, leaving a second shot to the left of the huge island bunker.  I'd seen that route myself and was delighted to find the green with Driver, 20 Degree Rescue and secure an easy par after a good long range putt.  I'd only a small audience, but the walker's "well played" comments were much appreciated.

The Course Guide mentions that on the 146 Yard Par 3 11th Hole the "most obvious trouble....is the large steep faced bunker on the left." With the hole being slightly uphill and the flag seemingly stuck right behind this bunker I was tempted by the Guide's advice to play for the right half of the green. However, at my level I'm usually happy to hit any part of a green nearly 150 yards away, so I just aimed at the flag and trusted my swing. I'd finished inside 3 feet away, but missed the birdie putt. Bogeys at Holes 12-14 were slightly disappointing but I did at least get another easy par at this the 170 Yard Par 3 15th. This is a view from the left of the green looking out to sea and Ailsa Craig in the distance.

The Par 4 16th is another really tricky hole, with a burn running in a deep gully in front of the green.  The hole is only 385 Yards and although I'd only missed the fairway by a few feet I'd a lousy lie, so a lay up wedge was necessary and a scrambled bogey was slightly disappointing.  The 17th should have been a relatively easy Par 5, but there's a tiny pot bunker 88 Yards out from the green....hence the bogey!

And so to the last hole, renamed the " Duel in the Sun" in honour of the Watson/Nicklaus battle at the 1977 Open Championship.  I'd found a bunker off the tee, but luckily it was GUR after recent rains, so I'd a clear shot into the green.  I swung a bit too quick at my second and needed a good pitch to set up a closing bogey.  I'd gone round the Ailsa Course in 83, net 72 with 34 putts in just over 3 hours.  Net 3 over on such a grand course was pretty good.  I enjoyed every one of those 83 shots, some good, some bad, some lucky, some not.  It was just a privilege to play such a famous course on such a perfect Autumn golfing day.

Do yourself a favour.  Play the Ailsa Course.  Why? - you'll know well before you've finished and like me, you'll be itching to play it again.  Next time, maybe I'll be able to read the greens a wee bit better, so something under 80 is the target.

I work as a caddie so I'll not say any more about misreading the odd putt!  (Which reminds me of a caddying story I know to be true - "That's a great read you gave me on that last green" says the player, to which the caddie jokingly replies "I've given you a great read on every green so far, it's just that you canny bloody putt!)

King's Links 6 Hole Golf Course - Course no 555

Craig, Stu and I had been tempted to play this little course between our recent rounds at Royal Aberdeen GC's 2 separate courses.  I'm glad we didn't try, since we'd have missed our second round at RAGC.  We'd thought that this was just a pitch and putt course but it's actually a 1273 Yard Par 21 course, albeit slightly less links' like than the full 18 Hole King's Links Course.  The 6 Hole Course is good for beginners and for general practice and runs parallel to some of the main course's holes.  Access to the course is a kilometre down the road from the Starter's Box for the King's Course and there's a pay machine (£3.30 a round) near the 1st tee, behind the local cat and dog home.  We're not talking Augusta here!

I played here on 6 November 2012 after my adventures around the King's Links Course,  The 6 Hole Course is not the prettiest of courses as these photos of the 4th and 5th holes suggest, but it was in decent condition, using the full greens and permanent tees.

There was no scorecard at all this time (another item for the management company to address) but these are the yardages from the tee boxes and my scores on each hole.

Hole       Yardage     Par    Score    Putts

1                 138           3          4         2

2                 307           4          4         2

3                 196           3          4         1

4                 140           3          2         0

5                  242          4          5         3

6                  250          4          5         2

Totals         1273        21        24       10

I've played it once but I doubt I'd ever want to do so again.