what format are you playing with your group? match play? any alternate shot? I would love to play Shiskine in an alternate shot format with the amount of blind shots.

We kept things pretty low key. On this trip we played as teams, scoring the one net low score on each hole when playing as three, scoring the two net low on each hole when playing as four. losing team(s) pay the winning team 2£ per point per man with a 20£ max payment. Shiskine had so many par 3s we decided to also give the KP winner for each hole 1£ per person, but you had to make par or better to qualify.

On other trips in the US we’ll play alternate shot sometimes, especially when playing the same course multiple times, but we decided from the start this trip was too special to not let everyone play all their shots.

Day 4 (9/18): Western Gailes

Booker reported on Western Gailes as part of his trip report from 2013. My edited summary:

I agree with pretty much everything Booker has to say. It WAS the hardest course I’ve ever played at that point (to be superseded in a few days by another course), almost anything not in the fairway is absolutely penal, the slope of most fairways effectively reduces the landing zone off the tee to about a third of what you think is available… drives pretty much require the accuracy of a putter since most fairways seem to collect balls towards a strategically placed pot bunker or two.

Even their logo suggests you’re in for a battle


Unlike Booker I had plenty of balls in the bag and had a blast getting my ass handed to me. Our foursome also hired a forecaddie, but his advice was only as good as your ability to follow it.

History

The Course

Resisting the urge to launch in to a super detailed hole by hole course guide like I did for Shiskine, I’ll just post some sequential pics of the course. Western Gailes has a pretty good course flythrough that can be found here: https://www.westerngailes.com/visito...review/hole-1/ it’s worth watching if only to see how visually stunning the course is….a pretty remarkable piece of property.

We started this day with a wind in our face that was upwards of 35mph….good times.

Yours truly off the tee on Hole 1 ‘Station’


Greenside at ‘Station’ (may or may not be my ball in the bunker)


View from the tee on Hole 2 ‘Railway’


The approach to the green


Hole 3 ‘Arran’ from the tee


What’s waiting for you greenside



Hole 4 ‘Irvine’



Hole 5 ‘Bunker’s Hill’
Apparently this hole kicked me in the nuts so hard it erased all pics from my phone

Hole 6 ‘Lappock’
The first par 5 with a semi-blind approach. The barber pole marks the green



Hole 7 ‘Sea’ par 3 that played about 160 from our tee. Wind was hard right to left, and my tee shot shows why they have a huge pot bunker halfway up the hill on the left. The aerial pic of the green is from their flythrough




Hole 8 ‘Burn’



Hole 9 ‘Halfway’



Hole 10 ‘Ailsa’


Hole 11 ‘Plateau’
Halfway surrendered by this point…no pics to be found

Hole 12 ‘Dyke’
Still spinning from ‘Plateau’, I missed pics of this hole as well

Hole 13 ‘Barassie’
135 yard par 3 with a burn in front of the green. At least they’re kind enough to provide ball retrievers along the burn



Hole 14 ‘Whins’
The next par 5


Hole 15 ‘Heather’
Just another ho-hum 175 yard par 3 with a hard wind off the right to a small sloped green surrounded by seven pot bunkers



Hole 16 ‘Camp’
Another par 4 with a greenside burn


Hole 17 ‘Ridge’



Hole 18 ‘Home’
Perfectly describes the place I wish I was after the previous 17 holes


Bonus locker room and pano shot from the parking lot



really wish i could have played this course a second (or third) time this trip to help me wrap my mind around it and try to understand the nuances. it's extremely complex and requires a level of skill i don't currently posses.

highly recommend if you're packing enough balls.

i fully intend to complete this trip report, but i'm currently suffering from having to do six weeks of work in three weeks to make up for the trip.

here are a couple of teasers of what's to come in the near future..can you guess this course?:

dragging this thread back from the depths. imgur is being a ***** right now or else i'd at least post a few more pictures before i get to another full post.

just reread things to remember where i stopped

Already posted:
Day 1 (9/15) - Prestwick St. Cuthbert
Day 2 (9/16) - Prestwick beauty shots
Day 3 (9/17) - Shiskine
Day 4 (9/18) - Western Gailes

Future posts:
Day 5 (9/16 & 9/19) - Prestwick: summary of both rounds
Day 6 (9/20) - Cruden Bay
Day 7 (9/21) - Fraserburgh Corbiehill
Day 8 (9/22) - Cruden Bay St. Olaf and possibly more Cruden Bay
Day 9 (9/23) - Royal Aberdeen
Day 10 (9/24) - Kilspindie
Day 11 (9/25) - Dunbar
Day 12 (9/26) - North Berwick
Day 13 (9/27) - North Berwick
Day 14 (9/28) - Gullane #2

thank you for your patience (as if you care).

are the greens at Shiskine as tiny as they appear in the pics?

Awesome report so far!

Awesome stuff, golf courses in places like Arran are unusual and incredible. I've seen the Aran Isles just off the west coast of Ireland, but not yet the Arran Isles just off the west coast of Scotland.

We'll have to compare notes on Prestwick and especially Cruden Bay. I'm betting Cruden Bay was the favorite of the trip.

most of them really are as small as they appear. checked the yardage book and the biggest green is Hole 10 Paradise, which is 27 yards deep and 25 yards at it's widest (15 yards at its narrowest). everything else is somewhere between 20-23 wide and deep.

it's an amazing landscape out there, perfectly quirky linksland. the same group has another trip planned for Sept 2021 and will be headed back to Arran to play Shiskine again, and also west of there on the Kintyre Peninsula to play Machrihanish Golf Club (1879 - Old Tom Morris) and Machrihanish Dunes (2009 - David McLay Kidd). i've tried to talk them into heading south on Kintyre to play Dunaverty (1889) which Tom Coyne raves about in A Course Called Scotland, but i'm not going on the trip so why listen to me?

as for the favorite of the trip, i won't spoil anything but it's probably safe to say Cruden is in the top 3

here's the beginning of a side story.
our group was 8 to start, joined by a 9th after a few days, then reduced to 8 again halfway through. one of the reoccurring themes was for folks to buy scotch at the local and bring it back to the group to share, preferably bottles that haven't been bought before on the trip.
starting the side story in Prestwick. spouse and i went to the Oban distillery a few days before and i purposefully brought a bottle of Oban 18 to share with the group (no pics).
we were staying at the Prestwick Golf View, which has a fantastic second floor lounge overlooking the old course. here are a couple of other bottles that were part of the conversation.

Day 2 (9/16) and Day 5 (9/19): Prestwick Rounds 1 & 2

Over the past few days I finally realized why this trip report stalled over a year ago and I never picked it back up, the reason is Prestwick.

I thought it would be easy to make an Instagram-like post about what I had for breakfast (full Scottish, of course), how the round went, the weather, the clubhouse, the number of pints at the pub, and post a few pics I took along the way and be done with it.

But the first true links course I played in Scotland was Prestwick, and the more I thought about it during the weeks and months after the trip the more I reached the conclusion the initial plan wasn't appropriate; in fact it was somewhat dismissive to the course's history and design. Prestwick deserves more respect than that.

Where I stalled was how to share the true experience of the course with my minimal amount of pictures, but I recently discovered the Prestwick Golf Club uploaded drone videos a few months ago so I will be using them throughout this post to help tell the story, especially in regards to the topography of the course. each of these videos are 30-45 seconds long and were shot during great conditions with lighting that really accentuates the topography of the course. my only qualm with them is a few holes where they could have spent more time showing the green complexes before ending the video.

This will likely be the longest post in this trip report, but please bear with me.

History
The first part of my previous post summarizes things pretty well: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...0&postcount=21

The Course
18 holes, 36-35=71, 6551 yards from the white. 73.2/133

Here's a photo of a photo from the clubhouse showing the oldest part of the course where Old Tom laid out the original 12 holes (since reconfigured). The clubhouse is at the bottom left of the image. Who could think to turn this piece of land into a course? In the upper right hand corner of the image off in the distance is Royal Troon.



Hole 1 - Railway
345 par 4
There's the old saw about 'a course welcoming you with a gentle handshake', and Prestwick does that and at the same time doesn't do it. Prestwick, like almost every other course I played in Scotland, doesn't have a range for warming up. Some have mats and nets to at least allow you to hit a few balls, but not Prestwick so you're coming into the game cold. At least it's not a driver hole, but that doesn't make it easy. The proper play is to hit a shot between 180-200 to leave a reasonable iron to the green, but when you're coming in cold and faced with a tee shot in front of the clubhouse, with all the members watching, with dunes down the left side and a stone wall down the right with a graveyard out-of-bounds over the top of it, it's far from an easy shot. Happy to say I made par the first time I played it.



view from the green with the graveyard in the distance




Hole 2 - Tunnel
164 par 3
Plays downhill a bit with the prevailing winds from the left. Biggest defense are the four deep bunkers surrounding the green and undulating putting surface.

view from the tee




Hole 3 - Cardinal
477 par 5
Here's where the fun begins. Let's use this picture from the tee to orient ourselves. See the pyramid roof on the horizon? That's generally the line off the tee. See the clump of gorse to the right? That's generally where the green is. See that long snaking black line in the middle? We'll get to that in a second.



How can a 477 yard hole be a par 5? Because you have to hit your tee shot 230 max or else you're in a cross bunker that covers the fairway, unless you have the ability to cover that bunker at around 250 but somehow get the ball to stop on a links fairway before it goes 280. What if you give it a rip, cover the 250 but the ball doesn't stop?
This is what:

That's the long snaking black line you saw from the tee, and now you get to hit a blind shot from the sand to a green that's ~160 away with the Pow burn OB to the right. The line is just over the white path as it tops the hill.

So you choose to lay up somewhat short and left of the green. Should be a simple flat lie, right?


the only thing you have working on your side is the green is down in a punchbowl which helps collect wayward shots. Such a fantastic golf hole.





Hole 4 - Bridge
384 par 4
So now your head is spinning as you cross the bridge over the Pow burn that gives the 4th hole its name. You're somewhat relieved to see the hole is pretty much in front of you as you stand on the box and check the yardage book. The middle of the wide landing area is about 200 out and will leave you 165 in to a green that slopes from front left to back right. You can easily cover the long fairway bunker on the right with a 240 yard shot, but that's where the fairway narrows and everything slopes to the burn. Flip a coin.



Hole 5 - Himalayas
206 par 3
The 4th wasn't TOO bad and you've somewhat collected yourself. Walking up to the 5th tee you check the scorecard, see that it's a 200 yard par 3, and think to yourself "ok, We've played par 3s longer than this one, how bad could it be"? You raise your head to see this in front of you:


What the hell?!?

Reading the yardage book you discover your line is the stripe on the wall that's the same color as the tees you're playing from. You also discover there are FIVE deep bunkers along the left side of the green. Why the left side? Because that's the way the wind blows.

After taking the white path on the right in the previous pic, this is what you discover after cresting the hill.



Ring the bell when you're done to let the next group of suckers know it's their time to give it a go.



*****COURSE ARCHITECTURE INTERLUDE*****
Hole 5 Himalayas is significant for another huge reason. In the diagram below, the yellow lines starting at the bottom are the holes we've played so far (on the ground Old Tom originally used) and mostly run along the Pow burn. Himalays is the red line from left to right, and what's significant is this hole is what it allowed to happen. Old Tom's original course had 12 holes, but Himalayas crossed the burn in 1882 to access the property on the east side of the burn. This allowed Prestwick to be expanded to 18 holes, which had become the expected standard at that time. The last orange line is Hole 10 Arran, crossing the burn for the second time and getting us back to the grounds of the original links.



Speaking of interludes, Holes 6-9 help provide that during the round. Nowhere near the quirks and degree of difficulty the first five and the last nine have, but still deserve your attention and require solid shots. Unfortunately my camera also seems to have taken an interlude so I'll have to mostly rely upon the Prestwick videos with a few pics mixed in.

Hole 6 - Elysian Fields
362 par 4
Elysian Fields is the final resting place of the heroes in Greek mythology, so is the short left greenside bunker because everything slopes in that direction and good luck getting out of it after your heroic shot failed.



Hole 7 - Monkton Miln
430 par 4
Curve your drive right to left and try to hold a ball on this heavily sloped green. Short right or left is death.

view from the green looking back to the fairway




Hole 8 - End
432 par 4
Somewhat similar hole to Monkton Miln around the green, and requires the same draw off the tee with fairway bunkers in different locations.



Hole 9 - Eglinton
444 par 4
Big sweeping dogleg right. Short right of the green gets you in the spot that this poor chap was in from a previous post.



I think this is a good place as any to stop and I'll post the back nine in the next day or so.

It’s been 18 years but from the tips I thought #1 was one of the hardest holes on the course. And yeah, #3 is just nasty from start to finish.

My Dad and I laughed our asses off when we got to #5. And then again on #17.

From the picture out of your lodging, it looks as though you’re facing the dogleg left par 4 on the back that almost returns to the clubhouse? #14 perhaps give or take a hole?

Apologies for the double-post earlier, just realized it happened. I've asked a mod to delete the redundant post.

you are correct. 14 - Goosedubs.
chipping/putting green in the foreground, 14 green to the right.

Golf View Guest House, I highly recommend if you ever go back. Really nice couple and probably the best breakfasts I had in three weeks in Scotland. Neil, the husband, is a Cat 1 player.

Back to the trip report.

Hole 10 - Arran
453 par 4
It's time to cross back over Pow burn to the original property. Arran, named for the island you can see in the distance off the tee, is the only hole on the course where you have to drive almost directly into the prevailing wind.


The fairway is at an angle from the tee, visually decreasing the side of the landing area, with bunkers on either side. Look, I found one.


You can see the elevated green in the distance. No greenside traps, but the heavy slopes are protection enough.



Hole 11 - Carrick
195 par 3
Prevailing wind right to left and the green slopes right to left, so let's pack the left side with bunkers (and put a few on the right for good measure).

From the tee


Walking to the green


Here's our forecaddie Garry cleaning up after my bunker shot. Says he's been a caddie here for over 20 years and has never seen an ace on this hole.




Hole 12 - Wall
513 par 5
We continue to play along the coastline, so wind is again right to left. Another angled fairway that slopes in the direction of the wind with bunkers along the left.



If you can find the fairway the second shot is no gimmie. There's a very narrow throat if you want to run a ball up onto the green, and the layup area is heavily bunkered, yet again on the left with the slope moving in that direction.



Hole 13 - Sea Hedrig
458 par 4
What a hole this is. Similar in some ways to the previous hole with the fairway angling left to right, but instead of sloping right to left it has hills and knobs scattered all over the place, as well as Willie Campbell's bunker right in the middle of the fairway and hidden from the tee.





This is one of the videos where I really wish they showed more of the green. Amazing green complex and extremely difficult even without a single bunker.




Hole 14 - Goosedubs
363 par 4
Now we're turning inland and the wind is at our backs. Lots of room off the tee and a ring of bunkers in front of the green prevent you from running anything up, but it isn't really that necessary with a large, flat green unless the wind is howling.





Hole 15 - Narrows
353 par 4
Goosedubs was a bit of a breather after Sea Hedrig, but that quickly ends as we walk up to the 15 tee.
I'm surprised I don't have a shot of this from the tee, but here's the landing area. Any idea why they call it Narrows?


All it takes is a 200+ shot to a mostly hidden fairway that slopes in all directions, leaving you an uphill shot to a hidden green. Oh, and the green slopes from front to back.



Hole 16 - Cardinals Back
290 par 4
A par 4 under 300 yards, how hard can this be? Our old friend, the Cardinal Bunker from Hole 3, is back in play (although not to the same degree as before) as is Willie Campbell's bunker from 13 Sea Hedrig since we share the same fairway.
Either play a 'sensible' tee shot to the left and flirt with Willie Campbell's grave, or give it a rip and flirt with the Cardinal.







Hole 17 - Alps
394 par 4
OK, that was fun...now let's try to get ourselves back on track and finish strong. All we have to do is find a narrow fairway with right to left wind and leave ourselves somewhere between 100-125 in. Except this is what we're faced with on the second shot:


You may think you see the green, but you don't see the green because it's on the other side of that hill right in front of us. Aiming sticks in play yet again.

So you hit a wedge and didn't quite get all of it. It can't be all bad, can it? Well yes it can if this is what you find on the other side of the hill short of the green:




Hole 18 - Clock
288 par 4
Well, here we are on the home hole and it's another short par 4, although unlike Cardinals Back it's pretty much all right in front of you without as much trouble. A low stone wall runs along the right side of the fairway with a couple of bunkers flanking each side. If you do decide to give it a rip, you bring into play the first tee and practice green left of the hole and the 15th tee and 14th green right of the hole, and of course the clubhouse windows and parking lot if you're long.



Happy to say on the second day I chased a 3w onto the green and two putted for birdie.



In summary, I highly recommend playing Prestwick if you ever visit the west coast of Scotland near Glasgow. It's totally worth it for the history alone, especially while trying to imagine how this course was played with hickories and guttie golf balls over 160 years ago. It's a quirky, delightfully fun course if you're in the right state of mind to let it be just that.

Next we'll hit the road and drive up to Aberdeenshire on the east coast to visit some more amazing linksland and perhaps maybe even see a vampire.

Catching up on the forums after a few weeks of paying little attention.

Great post. Prestwick was the second round of our 2015 trip. Sadly it was the second of two rounds that several of us did not have our own sets for, as the airline screwed up getting them to Scotland through a couple connections. We had to rent, and get a bunch of equipment from a wholesaler in Glasgow so it was a bit disappointing to play such a great course without our normal gear. Couldn't reschedule as we moved onto Edinburgh and St. Andrews and had to keep to our itinerary.

1 is a great and incredibly memorable hole with the train tracks and wall on the right. Holes 6-10 really stuck with me in memory, as did the par-3 11th. 14 was great, coming back to the clubhouse.

Would love to give it another crack if we get back there.

Day 6 (9/20): Prestwick to Cruden Bay

our group of eight wakes up early, loads the two cars, and settles in for our last breakfast served by Neil and Allison at the Golf View in Prestwick. it's hard to over exaggerate how gracious they are, and how good the breakfast is.



today we are driving from Prestwick at the SW coast of Scotland past Aberdeen to Peterhead, more specifically Cruden Bay.
our targeted departure time is 07:30, and to the surprise of all we actually are out of the lot at 07:45. google maps claims the travel time is four hours, more than ample time to get us there around noon for a comfortable lunch and some stretching before our first tee time at 1:30, right?
road trip adventure, part 1: the gps in two Kia wagons we rented did not recognize the new expressway that was recently constructed near Aberdeen. what does that matter? it means the in-car gps directed both cars along a side route through small towns that eventually ended up at a dead end, requiring a 45 minute long backtrack to get back to the actual route. we gave up on the car gps and just started using i-phone gps, overage charges be damned.

second half of the trip to Cruden in the next post. just trying to get to the second page so folks don't have to deal with all the gifs and videos posted on this page.

Day 6 (9/20): Prestwick to Cruden Bay (continued, part deux)
we finally arrive at Cruden after the 4+ hour drive (30 or so minutes longer than we expected) and pull into the lot. the clubhouse at Cruden sits upon a hill overlooking the course. it's newer and doesn't have anywhere the old school charm or history of Prestwick but still vibrates with excitement because we've all heard about Cruden.
even after the gps snafu we still have about an hour until our time, no better opportunity to get a toasty in the clubhouse before the round so we all settle down at our tables in front of the windows overlooking one of the most picturesque courses in Scotland...
...and then we watch as the thickest fog you've ever seen in your life comes rolling in during the middle of the day. fog so thick you probably couldn't find your prick if you were standing in front of it and trying to take a piss. what the hell are we in for, we were wondering. the kind waitress comes by, asks if we have a time that afternoon, and offers her condolences when she finds out we do.

Prestwick is probably first on my list of courses I would have liked to play but we didn't get a chance. Didn't help that we stayed right across the street, more or less exactly where Red stayed. Hopefully there will be a next time someday, though I expect the upcoming section on the north is going to push me to go there instead of back to Ayrshire.

Such a magical place.

Cruden Bay (continued, interlude)

History

the hand painted crest on the starter's shack. you can tell how old the boards are behind it.




So the railway company commissioned the course and built a grand hotel for visitors that once stood where the current clubhouse is located. A depression in the 1930s resulted in the hotel being used as a hospital for a couple of years, eventually demolished.

they still have vintage promotional posters in the clubhouse (found out later you can buy copies online...i may or may not own a couple). you can see the grand hotel in the background.




speaking of vintage, the second day we played they were hosting a local junior am in the morning. inside the starter's shack were a few relics just laying about.




and the official USGA course rating


one of the first words to come to mind when describing Cruden is SPRAWLING. over a mile and a half (2.4 km) between its furthest points as the crow flies.


it is not a casual walk by any means. the fitness app on my phone logged the equivalent of 45 flights of stairs climbed each day we played it. Cruden is also the first time i've seen electric trolleys offered at a golf course. imagine a battery operated three wheel push cart with an accelerator like a lawnmower. there are more than a few hikes from green to tee that will make you pause for a few minutes to catch your breath.

it's so big it has a 9 hole, 2,500 yard par 32 course in the middle of it, formerly the 'Ladies Course', now the St. Olaf Course (roughly circled in blue below).



if you visit Cruden and don't play St. Olaf, shame on you. it's free with a round at the main course and has a few holes that are just as good as any on the entire property. i'll share some pics in a later post.

Predictions for Cruden Bay:

After putting out on #8 - Where’s the next tee? Oh ****.

#15 tee box - What the **** is this? Driver on a blind par 3?

love it.
you've inspired me to just photodump a bunch of pics and follow up later with thoughts on certain holes.

Day 6 (9/20): Cruden Bay 1-4

as i mentioned in a previous post, we drove to Cruden this morning under pristine weather, arrived at the course and were enjoying our toasties and feeling good about our prospects until we looked out the windows towards the course and saw the wall of gray fog rapidly approaching. our kind waitress wished us all the best and we began our way from the restaurant down to the pro shop on the lower level. we check in about 30 minutes before our time, get a range token (Cruden is one of the few courses in Scotland that actually have a range), the obligitory mini-bottle of whisky, and go spend some time trying to search for a swing that we're likely not going to find.

i've lived several years of my life in the coastal climates of california and oregon, but i honestly don't remember ever seeing a wall of thick mid-day fog roll in and roll out/get burned off as quickly i did this day.

this is what we were presented with just before we teed off:


a gentle handshake:


adding the other hand after the initial gentle handshake


only 268, how hard can it be?


one of my favorite holes in golf

Day 6 (9/20): Cruden Bay 5-9

the previous holes play to the north/northeast and were aided by the same winds that helped blow the fog away. we turn towards the south starting on 5 and things change. not only are we now into the wind, the landing areas seem to exponentially shrink


such a fantastic three shot par 5 with another visually intimidating landing area into the wind


Whaupshank!


the transition from 7 green to 8 tee


everyday, run of the mill 225 yard par 4 into a 25 mph wind


we've reached the 9 tee. let's take a few minutes to catch our breath and look around.


a random shot of 9 green. apparently i was too drunk from the beauty of the previous hole to successfully document this one.

well, it's time again. just reread things (again) to remember where i stopped

Already posted:
Day 1 (9/15) - Prestwick St. Cuthbert
Day 2 (9/16) - Prestwick beauty shots
Day 3 (9/17) - Shiskine
Day 4 (9/18) - Western Gailes
Day 5 (9/16 & 9/19) - Prestwick: summary of both rounds
Day 6 (9/20) - Cruden Bay (holes 1-9)

Upcoming posts:
Day 6 (9/20) - Cruden Bay (holes 10-18)
Day 7 (9/21) - Fraserburgh Corbiehill
Day 8 (9/22) - Cruden Bay St. Olaf and possibly more Cruden Bay
Day 9 (9/23) - Royal Aberdeen
Day 10 (9/24) - Kilspindie
Day 11 (9/25) - Dunbar
Day 12 (9/26) - North Berwick
Day 13 (9/27) - North Berwick
Day 14 (9/28) - Gullane #2

more importantly, i'm going to make a couple of quick posts to get the post count over 50 and hopefully solve some of the loading issues for people that have their posts per page set at less than that.

screw the loading issues, here's a beauty shot from the southern tip of the course looking north

and somebody made a birdie on 9 so we get to take a wee nip from the bottle.