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SCOTLAND’S BEST MODERN COURSES

Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There are at least two good reasons to write about golf courses in Scotland:

  • Golf in the “home of golf” is so much fun that it is good to be able to write about it again.
  • Doing so means that I can forget about one Donald Trump who thinks he should be president again, but should get nowhere near the Oval Office.

Links Magazine performed a service this week by writing about the “best modern golf courses in Scotland” – and the good news for me is that I have played two of them.

So, with credit to the Links writer, David DeSmith, I start this blog with a description of these two.

“Golf course architect Mark Parsinen was at it again near Inverness, on the shore of the Moray Firth, this time co-designing what was envisioned to be another destination course with another architect, Gil Hanse.  

“And a destination, it is.  Now a member of the Cabot family of golf properties, Castle Stuart Golf Links at Cabot Highlands gives today’s players everything they could want from a modern links:  Room off the tee; challenging approach shots to imaginative, well-guarded greens; excellent playing conditions; and views of the sea (and the eponymous castle itself) that will forever be etched in your memory.”

I played this course on one of our trips to Scotland and, in only one turn around 18-holes, loved it.  The links-style character of the course tests all shots, even as you look out at the Firth of Fourth. 

As usual in Scotland’s links-style layouts, you often play a lot of shots close to the ground so they run out.  Which is why one of the favorite clubs in my golf bag is my 7-iron.

“Architect David McLay Kidd’s design – he did it in 2008 — at the tip of the Mull of Kintyre is a throwback to an age when courses were not so much created as discovered, just as next-door neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club was by Old Tom Morris.

“At Mach Dunes, environmental restrictions meant that Kidd could identify tees and green sites and shape them a bit, but very little was done elsewhere.  The land on which the course sits today has shorter grass than when Kidd arrived, and some wildly entertaining greens, but otherwise it’s much as he found it — something that has earned it the label of “the world’s most natural golf course.”  There are blind shots, big dunes, forced carries, and an occasional long walk from green to tee.

“But the overall experience is a wholly exhilarating one, and one that will give you a good idea of what it was like to play golf in Scotland back in Old Tom’s day.”

When I played Mach Dunes, I also had played its more famous neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club.  So, I had the full Mach experience.

Kidd’s course was fun to walk, as I did with my wife, Nancy.  Blind shots?  Yes.  But, still, a very fun day on the links.

Including these two, here is how golf writer DeSmith started his Links Magazine story:

“As the acknowledged ‘Home of Golf,’ Scotland has a long and proud history with the game, and especially in regard to the courses on which the game is played.  The Old Course in St. Andrews is the most famous course in the world, in part because of its age and history.  Old, it most certainly is.

“The same can be said for many of Scotland’s other most-revered courses, including its other Open rota sites at Carnoustie, Royal Troon, and Muirfield.  These famed courses date back more than 100 years, and in that time, they’ve earned praise from all comers.

“But Scotland hasn’t been resting on its laurels.  Over the past three decades, it has seen more than a dozen spectacular new courses debut — courses that vie with the country’s best and attract visiting golfers like thirsty men to whisky.”

DeSmith adds that “attributes that constitute a ‘modern’ course in Scotland are a bit different from the ones that might characterize such a design in America or other parts of the world — largely because so many of them are links courses that honor and include traditional links features.

Here, for the record, is a list of the other “modern Scottish courses” that met the Links Magazine writer’s test:

So, golf in Scotland?  A great experience, though getting back to Trump for a moment, I would decline to play Trump International in Aberdeen, Scotland.  There are far better courses there than to align with Trump.

With wife Nancy, I have had the pleasure to travel to Scotland – her parent’s homeland — five times. Each trip, with modern and old courses alike, was great fun.  And, not just fun.  But a distinct pleasure to relive golf in the “home of golf.”

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