| TRAVEL: A trip through Scotland's Best |
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Page 1 of 9 Upon the request of many readers over the years, Golf Guides USA visited Scotland in order to experience the homeland of golf and report back our findings. What follows is a single narrative of that virgin trip, told as it happened to a traveling group consisting of both golfers and non-golfers. The focus, of course, is on all the great golf we played – yet it was a very personal experience, and far from comprehensive. Certain places, including golf courses, are highlighted in bold, if you wish to skip ahead. Further inquires about golf in Scotland can be forwarded to
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Follow Brett on twitter, @BrettCyrgalis
By BRETT CYRGALIS
The lords of life, the lords of life,– I saw them pass In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim . . .
It’s all a little chaotic when we land. The man meeting us at the airport is not the man who is expected. The big, soft-covered bags carrying our golf clubs are slow to come out on the baggage carousel, and when they do, they seem heavier and more cumbersome than when we packed them into the van on our way to Newark International.
Now it’s adrenaline carrying these aching legs and cracking knees. Rarely in my 26 years has so little sleep translated into my overtired body moving with such purpose. So we drag ourselves and wheel our luggage to the van in the parking garage, following our part-time leader, Ed, with the first great Scottish burr to hit our ears. He is taking us to our soon-to-be-leader and his boss, Roy, who waits 45 minutes up the east coast of Scotland in St. Andrews.
We’re in the van and we’re moving, and as Ed points out where his house is located in the town of Darsie, all I can do is stare out the window at the rolling fields and think of The Eden, Hell Bunker, the Valley of Sin . . . And we keep moving, all four of us. My father and I have talked about this journey for over two years; our pilgrimage to golf’s Holy Land. Although it took some time for me to convince him that where we’re headed is truly Mecca, it finally got through and the thin smile on his face from the front seat of the van is tantalizing. The others are two women along for the ride, both who delight in seeing and experiencing the world outside of their comfortable New York circles. Even if this is a country that always expects cold and rain, both my mother and my girlfriend have packed admirably and are ready to laugh. After countless traffic circles and field after field growing with bright yellow grape seed (which Ed tells us the Scottish government pays farmers to plant), we finally see the spire of the Holy Trinity Church in the distance, with the low-lying medieval town sitting below it in the mist. Before I can think, we’re upon it, and I’ve already glimpsed the Swilcan Bridge behind a row of buildings. Just when I’m about to jump out of my seat to ask Ed to stop the van, he does. And he couldn’t have picked a better place to do so. Looking at the entrance to the Macdonald Rusacks hotel, it seems like some understated lettering was placed on the façade of a 200-year-old gray stone building, and the beautiful stained glass windows that adorn the foyer give you only a slight indication of how elegant the inside might be.
But before we can get in, we are accosted by Roy Anderson, the man who owns and operates McLaren Travel and will be our driver and guide for this trip. He has agreed to drive us all over Scotland for the next week, taking us from one coast of the country to other and back again. He is slight man, standing about 5-foot-9 and skinny as a stick. He’s well put-together, with moderately gelled dark hair, pinstriped pants and a sleek gray pullover, while carrying an air about as if he knows something you don’t. Most of the time, it’s because that’s just the case, and he often tells the said thing while looking away and clandestinely dragging an occasional a menthol cigarette, as if not to make too much of his exclusive and extensive knowledge. Those assets of Roy's are uniquely Scottish, and make him the ideal tour guide while doing this - or any - golf trip to the British Isles. What we learned over the next week was the Roy is unparalleled in terms of the information he has about both golf courses and his native country. He delivers everything with a dry comedic touch and a charm that made our trip exponentially more enjoyable. He's a caring man, with a warmth that warranted a hug when we parted ways. When Golf Guides plans its next trip, probably to Ireland, there is only one person we will consider calling. But now he’s got something important to tell us. “Ray,” he says to my father in his toned-down accent, “Aye’ve git a bitter tee tome fa ‘ya today.” My Dad shoots me a quizzical look. We were supposed to tee off on the New Course at St. Andrews around 3 p.m., which was the time allotted to us when we hopefully applied for it nine months prior.
How we got the time in the first place is quite easy, but it’s also because we had a bit of luck. There is about a two-week window open every September when any golfer with an official handicap of 18 or better can apply, through the St. Andrews Links Trust website, for a tee time on the Old Course. You give them a block of days when you would like to play, and they send you either a date with a tee time or a letter saying better luck next year. (The latter of which we received the previous year.) If you do get assigned a date on the Old Course, you are also required to play on one of the other six courses that are part of the St. Andrews compund. Turns out it's almost necessary to understand the place, as the ancient links are so much more than just the Old Course. For this trip, I chose the New Course as our other track, which is an Old Tom Morris design and opened in 1896. But now it’s about 10 a.m. on a cool but bright morning in late April. My Dad and I, along with our counterparts, were planning to check in, shower, have something to eat and breathe for a minute. Then we would head out for our first Scottish golfing experience, and the girls would head out to engage the royal town of St. Andrews. Roy has a different idea. He had a foursome from Atlanta get their flight delayed, so we can tee off at 11:30. Ok, so no shower. We couldn’t check into the hotel yet anyway, our two rooms not being ready. So we said yes to the new tee time, shimmied into a small storage room, shuffled through our luggage for some suitable golfing clothes, got our clubs and cleats out of the travel bags and headed for the Links Trust clubhouse, about a driver and 5-iron away from the backdoor of the Rusacks.
After changing in a small locker room in the bottom floor of the hotel, we walked out into the open air to get the first real sight of the hallowed grounds. I pressed against the white picket fence that lines the right side of the 18th fairway of the Old Course, which joins with the first fairway to make for a huge field of beautifully, short-cut grass, about 200 yards wide. In the distance was the West Sands, a public beach where the penultimate scene of Chariots of Fire was filmed; to my right was the imposing structure of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club’s clubhouse, with its Rolex clock just ticking away; and to my left snaked the Swilcan Burn, traipsing over it the famed Swilcan Bridge, smaller than expected and made of pale stones that ached with history. I’d like to say that the smile on my face was that of some sort of instinctive recognition, as if in my DNA somewhere I knew this was a place where I belonged. But I have no idea if I was smiling, or frowning, or laughing like a lunatic. I was focused on running the film in my brain in order to document this scene, crystal clear in my mind’s eye, as if never to be too far from recall.
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