(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
Links Golf in Scotland
Written By: Josh Bloom | Issue: 2018/10 - October
We just returned from Scotland after completing another great trip.
After getting off our overnight flight from the US we drove straight to Kingsbarns where we enjoyed an afternoon round at this gorgeous seaside course. After dinner in the clubhouse, we made the drive over a couple of scenic hours up to our hotel, The Chester in Aberdeen, a beautiful boutique with a great restaurant attached.
The next day we caught up on sleep and then headed over to Cruden Bay, which proved to be a group favorite with great scenery from the ocean-side cliffs combined with lots of quirky, fun golf holes. The Bathtub Green 14th was a personal favorite.
We also got our only rain of the trip – a proper downpour on a few holes on the back nine, which made us glad we packed the rain gear. After an early dinner we decided there was more golf to be had, and we went back out to play their small lower nine-hole course as a sixsome – a great way to spend an evening.
The next day we played 36 – a morning round at the brawny Trump International and a late afternoon round at Royal Aberdeen. The latter was as enjoyable a four hours as I’ve ever had – light breeze, late evening light, no one on the course, great caddies guiding us around a beautiful routing along the dunes. We finished up the night at an upscale Thai restaurant in town where the losing team from the previous four rounds bought dinner.
The next morning we checked out and headed back south to Carnoustie, which hosted the Open Championship this year, where we got the full British Open experience with the grandstands and scoreboard from a few weeks prior still on the course. But before that we had some extra time and spent the morning walking around the town of Saint Andrews and the Old Course.
That night we checked in to the beautiful and historic Marine Hotel along the course at North Berwick. The next day we capped our trip on the West course with as fun a round as I can remember. North Berwick was probably the consensus favorite of the trip and a few of us were so enamored that we played a second 18 afterwards. The closing dinner was at Nether Abbey where we relived the trip, debated favorite courses, and started planning for next year.
As always, the trip Tom (Tom Chillemi, PGA; tomsgolftours.com) planned went off without a hitch and our driver, Gordon, made the whole journey extremely enjoyable…What a character!
