Golf in Scotland - Advice Requested

I am planning a trip to Scotland next Spring - fluid at this point, exact dates TBD. Knowing that this board is full of some very well informed people, I am seeking advice on courses and areas to consider. A friend of mine is a member at Royal Dornoch, so I may gravitate towards that area, depending upon other courses to seek out in and around there. If it matters, this will be a small group - only 4 of us (two from America, one from England and one from Ireland, so we'll be able to share driving duties pretty easily). Any and all thoughts appreciated!

Dornoch is a lovely part of the world, it will be freezing next spring though so pack your merino wool thermals! Aside from Dornoch, Brora and Golspie are just up the road and are super courses too (and fairly inexpensive). I have never played Tain but hear it is an interesting track. Castle Stuart is a bit further away but certainly an option for a day trip. Aside from golf there is some fantastic scenery to explore while you are up there... west is best though - worth the drive over. Have a great visit!

Hi

sent you a a PM.

Are getting this trip in before Scotland falls into the abyss of independence?

Dornoch and the area round there is good, but the weather can be fickle in the Spring.

I'd recommend East Lothian because there are so many courses, there's so much accommodation in and around Edinburgh, and weather is usually good in May.

There's a real variety of courses to play on, from Muirfield (although the Open is there in July, so may be closed) to Gullane #3, and everything in between.

Spent 4 days in Scotland this May and the weather was a bit 'iffy'.
Played Turnberry Kyntyre - fabulous Course and exquisite clubhouse.
St Andrews Dukes - Awful weather and the course was totally waterlogged, should have been closed IMO!
The Glen - Magnificent, great condition, interesting course well worth the every penny it cost to play. Just about my favourite place in the world.
Gullane 2 - still a real challenge (thank you Doon), good condition and the sun shone (huzzah).
In short East Lothian every time, but a judicious visit to the west coast will repay the miles.
If you want to stay in St Andrews, I can highly recommend a B&B if you are interested.

Dornoch won't necessarily be cold in Spring, I played it in Early April a couple of years ago and it was sweltering. Castle Stuart and Nairn are the best courses in the immediate vicinity of the outstanding Dornoch.

Aberdeen has Trump, Royal Aberdeen (where the yanks got spanked in Walker Cup last year), Murcar and Cruden Bay. Carnoustie not far away.

St.Andrews area has Kingsbarns, The Castle and The New which should take precedence over TOC. Ladybank is a gem of a heathland course.

Edinburgh, Gullane, Archerfield, Berwick, Muirfield etc.

Ayrshire, Turnberry , Troon, Glasgow Gailes, Machrihanish,

Too much to pick from really, you can't really go wrong.

The general rule for Scotland is that the west of Scotland is often slightly milder but considerably more damp than the east. The east gets more sun.

Carnoustie not far away....

Must be 70 miles from Aberdeen to Dundee.

60 miles, Carnoustie is in Carnoustie, not Dundee, takes less than an hour from Aberdeen, Not a great distance to play one of the World's great courses if you are in the area.

"Friend a member at Royal Dornoch"...jealous already!!!

Such an open ended question Shotrock, will it be a budget trip or a money no obstacle trip? Is it also a predominately golf trip? I.e. do you expect to be playing most days?

Several area to base yourself.
Inverness area will cover Dornoch, Castle Stuart and Nairn as the "big" courses. But of course there are plenty others which perhaps Barragan can advise on as he's a member just across the firth from CS.

Then perhaps a 2hour drive East???
Aberdeen area has Trump, Royal Aberdeen, Murcar and Cruden Bay as what you would class as top courses.
The Carnoustie area is just over an hour South of Aberdeen. Carnoustie Championship bring the jewel in the crown but there's also Panmure and Monifeith and Montrose is not far up the coast either.

I'll leave Fife to those that know it a lot better than me. There's obviously TOC , TNC and Kingsbarns but there's a whole plethora of others, well worth playing.
Carnoustie to St. Andrews is about 40 min drive.

Over the bridge into the Lothians, skirt round the bottom on Edinburgh on the bypass and the stretch of coastline from Musselburgh to North Berwick is basically golf course heaven. If you wanted to do Muirfield you should probably have booked it way before now, I'm playing it for my birthday in March and booked LAST March. The 3 Gullanes are well worth while and North Berwick is a must if you head for that area.

The Ayrshire coast (probably about hour and a half drive from East Lothian) is also awash with great courses. Royal Troon can be a bit diddly to get on if you don't enquire well in advance. Turnberry is surprisingly easy to get on. Last year they were also doing a twilight green fee for £99 in the summer.
Apart from those 2 open venues there's also Prestwick (birthplace of the Open) Western Gailes and Dundonald (which is the bargain in Ayrshire in terms quality/cost. The Troon muni's are also well worth a visit, can't vouch for them all but I have played the Darley with Doon and thoroughly enjoyed...and at a fraction of the price of the big name courses.

Probably confused you even more now :-/

Shotrock ... if possible, I'd leave it until May. If links courses are your thing then, quite apart from any weather issues, not only is the gorse more likely to be in bloom but, in my experience, links greens are at their best in May/June. Please try to play Castle Stuart. It's just a few miles east of Inverness. The views alone are worth the visit.

All - Thanks for your responses!!

JAS - Cost not unimportant, but I did the math ... for every day I'm alive I'll be dead three ... so this won't be a pure "budget" trip.

I've played golf in England (various parts), Ireland (only the South) so I'm really looking forward to playing in Scotland.

All the options sound tremendous.

Between us all SR we'll have played them all. There are probably some "wild cards" that could be thrown in too.

Shotrock wrote:All - Thanks for your responses!!

JAS - Cost not unimportant, but I did the math ... for every day I'm alive I'll be dead three ... so this won't be a pure "budget" trip.

I've played golf in England (various parts), Ireland (only the South) so I'm really looking forward to playing in Scotland.

Prepare to be amazed then. East Lothian and Ayrshire knock them into a cocked hat.

Scotland....great country.....even better golf courses......you could play 14 days in a row here and play top class courses...one word..RAIN RAIN...dont leave home without the Calvin Greens and a brolly and waterproof shoes. Hey we are optimists up here we even buy a lot of convertibles

hg

Maybe on the west coast Hayston.
Not so bad on the East Coast, just snow today.......

Snow!!!!!!!..WTF.....in October??? Are you far North Super? I love the climate on the East Coast...all the rain dumps on Glesca and Ayrshire so if you play Troon or Turnberry you'll get your hairdo ruined. The East neuk of Fife...micro climate...rarely frost and relatively (for up here) dry...great course too....St Andrews obviously but Crail Elie etc
hg

I live in Aberdeen Hayston, but play at St.A's.
Snowed plenty last night. ALthough it's mostly gone today.

Rain in Glesgae is the only time those minks get a wash.

Nice toon...worked there for a couple of days last year...being a weedgie myself we did have a language difficulty fit like ken?

I don't like Aberdeen at all Hayston. Will take advantage if residents fees on trumpets course next year though.

Why do people think it rains a lot in Scotland? The east coast of Scotland is just about as dry as it gets in the UK. OK, maybe Great Yarmouth gets slightly less rain, but it's marginal. It rains far more in Lancashire, or Cornwall, or the South Coast of England.

I think Dunbar is often the driest mainland UK town, but don't play it in a March Nor' Easterly.

George1507 wrote:Why do people think it rains a lot in Scotland? The east coast of Scotland is just about as dry as it gets in the UK. OK, maybe Great Yarmouth gets slightly less rain, but it's marginal. It rains far more in Lancashire, or Cornwall, or the South Coast of England.

This may be true, but it's bloody cold though. Massive difference in temperature compared to south of England.

raycastleunited wrote:

George1507 wrote:Why do people think it rains a lot in Scotland? The east coast of Scotland is just about as dry as it gets in the UK. OK, maybe Great Yarmouth gets slightly less rain, but it's marginal. It rains far more in Lancashire, or Cornwall, or the South Coast of England.

This may be true, but it's bloody cold though. Massive difference in temperature compared to south of England.

Information supplied by the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious, The south of England is much colder than the South of France too .(although for much of the year, Apr-Nov, the temperature is perfectly acceptable for golf in Scotland and I've played in shirt sleeves in February plenty times, just put some more clothes on if you are cold, you big poof )

Less than two weeks until I play Gleneagles.. no idea what the weather will have in store and I have no faith in the forecast for more than about 2 days out. However.. I must be a big poof as I'm pretty sure I'll be wearing lots of clothes

raycastleunited wrote:

George1507 wrote:Why do people think it rains a lot in Scotland? The east coast of Scotland is just about as dry as it gets in the UK. OK, maybe Great Yarmouth gets slightly less rain, but it's marginal. It rains far more in Lancashire, or Cornwall, or the South Coast of England.

This may be true, but it's bloody cold though. Massive difference in temperature compared to south of England.

Edinburgh annual average temperature 55F

London annual average temperature 59F

Four degrees Fahrenheit difference. Is that massive?

Bob
11 degrees with periods of rain according to my chart.
Perthshire in the autumn is usually beautiful with the tree colours.
I don't know if it is still on when you are up there but The Enchanted Forest is well worth a visit....nightime so it fits with the golf.
I think Dougie MacLean's Festival is also on around that time so you may pick up some good acts.

Doon the Water wrote:Bob
11 degrees with periods of rain according to my chart.
Perthshire in the autumn is usually beautiful with the tree colours.
I don't know if it is still on when you are up there but The Enchanted Forest is well worth a visit....nightime so it fits with the golf.
I think Dougie MacLean's Festival is also on around that time so you may pick up some good acts.

Ah - that's would be acceptable if it's really like that. Thanks for the tourist tips, I'll bear them in mind

I don't think the temperature difference on average is that great, merely that many from the south are very soft indeed.

Maybe that's true, but there are some people who just automatically assume that if the weather in the south is good, it's not as good in the north, and if it's bad in the south, it's worse in the north.

Neither of those is true, and there are times when the weather in the north is usually better than in the south - April and May being good examples.

That belief certainly exists George. I play all my golf on the east and my brolley is rarely required. Of course you get wet days but in comparison to Glasgow, South West England, Wales, Manchester etc, the east coast is remarkably dry, in fact statistically only marginally less dry than the SE of Englandshire. That's topographic rain shadows for you.

As for the cold, I don't even think we had 7 days of frost last year.

I agree that April/May and Sep/Oct up here can be terrific and you can get some real bargains on top courses.

I can vouch for that too, I had 11 rounds the first 12 days in September this year on the east coast (Angus, Fife & Aberdeenshire) and had rain on only one of those days.

Mind you, I played Romilley in Stockport last year in April and it was as hot as Hades.

Having said that, 2 years ago at the Tassie (Carnoustie) about 1/3rd of the field walked in during the Tuesday medal round when an inch and a half of rain fell and the year before the medal rounds had to be truncated to 16 holes as the Barry Burn became the Barry "Loch" flooding the 17th & 18th fairways. Very rare though, just like the deluge on Castle Stuart at the Scottish upen last year.

When the south was waterlogged this summer the Western Isles experienced two months of drought. There was even talk about ferrying across bowsers from the mainland.
Scotland and the weather are never boring.
I had a banker friend based on the Emerites who said once that some days he would just love to be in Scotland enjoying a wet and windy day on Gullane Hill.

A few years ago I stayed at the Glenfarg Hotel. Near Perth. They had a list of telephone numbers of local courses. You could ring them up and get on most of them the next day. Ladybank, Blairgowrie etc.

ok so "massive" temperature difference has a touch of hyperbole to it, but there is a significant difference between London and Edinburgh. It always seems to feel colder in Scotland, maybe that's because I'm usually out on an exposed links course? I always find that in Scotland the temperature seems to drop faster in the evenings, even on a warm sunny day, whereas down south the heat seems to linger longer.

The other thing is that the capacity for warmer weather is much greater in the south. As it's October I'll take that as an example: ave daily max temp is 14 deg in London and 11 in Edinburgh. Not a huge difference, but in golfing terms its the difference between shirt sleeves and wearing a sweater or base layer. BUT the record high is 26 degrees in London but only 20 degrees in Edinburgh. A really nice October day in London is probably about as warm as it ever gets in the height of summer in Scotland.... and those are the days we remember.

By the way, completely agree with you super on the rainfall comment. Main difference in the UK is East v West not North v South. One of the (only) things I remember from GCSE Geography!

London has an urban heat island effect due to its size and amount of concrete in it. It basically holds it's temperature for longer and has a higher temperature than the immediate surrounding area.

It is warmer in the South, a geographical fact, point is that in the east of Scotland at least, contrary to popular belief the weather isn't arctic or at all extreme and nowhere near as bad as what people who believe Scotland is at the end of the Northern Line actually think.

You never get to see the sun properly in London and the SE, it is always a strange foggy orange colour due to the polution.

Not too sure that your comment about summer evenings stands up Ray. From May to August we get at least an extra hours sunshine in Scotland from London. I think Aboyne in the Highlands holds the record temperature of about 25/26 degrees.

True Doon, I've been on the course playing at 11:00pm at times.

Doon the Water wrote:You never get to see the sun properly in London and the SE, it is always a strange foggy orange colour due to the polution.

Not too sure that your comment about summer evenings stands up Ray. From May to August we get at least an extra hours sunshine in Scotland from London. I think Aboyne in the Highlands holds the record temperature of about 25/26 degrees.

You might get an extra hours light, whether you get an extra hours sunshine is a different matter altogether.

The east is almost as sunny as the SE. According to EuroClimate data, Dundee (Scotlands sunniest city) only has on average just over 30 minutes less sunshine per day, and only one more day of rain than London in a year.

Yeah Ive heard all the stats before but they never add up to my experiences of the place. Certainly having grown up on the north east coast of England the weather was always rubbish and still is.
Ive felt a significant change in climate just by moving to the south coast from London, there is a lot more sunshine around though probably a tiny bit cooler.

Diggers wrote:Yeah Ive heard all the stats before but they never add up to my experiences of the place. Certainly having grown up on the north east coast of England the weather was always rubbish and still is.
Ive felt a significant change in climate just by moving to the south coast from London, there is a lot more sunshine around though probably a tiny bit cooler.

The weather is better on the south coast...

Oh really?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/theopen/8642563/The-Open-2011-Grandstand-or-armchair-There-is-no-contest-as-golfs-hard-core-fans-suffer-soggy-Sandwich.html

At the moment, I commute between London, the NE of England and Edinburgh, and whilst it is warmer in the south, it's pretty marginal. This year at least, it was warmer (or maybe less cold would be a better description) in June in Edinburgh than it was in London. Refresh your memory by looking at the Jubilee river pageant.

And Altnaharra, which is in Sutherland, recorded the UK's highest temperature until August, when it was just pipped by somewhere in Kent I believe.

Well lets face it George, we do live in the UK, it does rain everywhere at some point.
As a simple comparison on my phone I have temps pf places Im interested in. So I have London where i work, Shoreham By Sea where I live and Redcar where my folks live.
Almost every day London will be the hottest by a few degrees from Shoreham, Redcar will be 4-5 degrees colder than London at least. This week Shoreham is set to reach 54, Redcar tops at 48, average daily difference is 3-4..as it usually is.
Its a small Island and of course the weather deviates regionally quite a lot but all I hear when I go back north is how rubbish the weather is but I dont really feel that down south.
But this is just personal experience, mind you Id say the wettest part of the UK is around Nottingham and Derby but this is purely based on whenever I drive through that region is always seems to be bucketing down.

Yes, I know perceptions are what shape your beliefs.

I drove from London to Darlington this morning. It's 10C in Darlington right now, and according to Weather.com it's 10C in London. It was a lot colder than that this morning when I set off.

Redcar faces right onto the north sea, so not surprising it feels cold there! I've played at Cleveland GC, although many years ago now. It was a great course - sure it still is, but my shoes and socks were covered in a strange grey dust apparently from the steelworks.

Altnaharra and Aboyne seem to have a climate more akin to Moscow of highs and lows.

This discussion reminds me of the silly newspaper headlines that crop up in summer. "SCUNTHORPE HOTTER THAN ST.LUCIA"

Yes, for a day perhaps, and even then I know where i'd rather be.

Yep, never wear white when you play Cleveland. You come off grey. But as you say cracking course if you ignore the heavy industry view and the smell of sulphur.
I'm going up north on Thursday as it goes, no golf sadly, usually play Rockcliffe but no time this weekend.

George1507 wrote:Why do people think it rains a lot in Scotland? The east coast of Scotland is just about as dry as it gets in the UK. OK, maybe Great Yarmouth gets slightly less rain, but it's marginal. It rains far more in Lancashire, or Cornwall, or the South Coast of England.

George

I live in Scotland....the west....it rains trust me. My course has had the worst wettest summer for 100 years (official)....we dont have long hot summers here

I know it rains in the west. This year it's rained pretty much everywhere non stop since the someone thought there was a drought. Maybe not in the NW Highlands.

It's the East of Scotland that is (usually) dry.