Our two week escapade across the Scottish landscape was winding down and on Thursday we headed back to Castle Stuart.
George had taken advantage of a 36 Hole Ticket deal and it was well worth it. Castle Stuart ranked as one of our favorite courses of the entire trip.
The property, the views, the layout, the conditioning and the people combined to give us another magnificent day of links golf. The course itself is worth the trip and the money (not cheap) but they do it right there and cater to the visiting golfers as if we were members at a high end private club.
We loved it there and it showed in George’s game as he played well and cleaned my clock again. Any trip to the Highlands has to include Castle Stuart as it rivals the center of golf in the Highlands, Royal Dornoch.
After a nice lunch at their art deco clubhouse we cruised down to the Glenmorangie Distillery for their tour and for a resupply of our flasks. It was an interesting group tour with plenty of information about their scotch and finished with a sample tasting.
Big Bro and I both thought the sample of their Sherry Cask Lasanta wasn’t up to their 10 Year Old Original or the Quinta Ruben. We resupplied with some 10 Year Old.
Friday had us at another Old Tom Morris course, Tain Golf Club. While Tain was only started in 1870 (only) they had been playing golf here for hundreds of years before they got Old Tom to come up and design twelve holes in 1889.
A few more additions and tweaks leaves us with a true links course laid out on some rolling land sitting on the Dornoch Firth with a good view of the Glenmorangie Distillery in the distance. It’s a sweet place.
It was the last round of our two week jaunt and while George may have been ready to fly back across the pond I wasn’t ready at all.
Another warm, sunny day (we had a lot of those) an early tee time and we were once again the first ones off as I guess the members enjoyed sleeping in on this Friday morning.
Tain has the good fortune of sitting with the firth on one side and the mountains on another. Its a pretty spot with plenty of nice, old school holes with some sheep and burns and gorse and fescue…all the trimmings of a heck of a links course.
The Alps
One of the special attractions at Tain is the free air show. The Royal Air Force uses the skies above Tain and the surrounding areas as a training ground. And we spent half the morning with our heads turned to the skies as they chased each other around and around. It was amazing.
Tain was another fun course filled with fairway humps and bumps that shot our balls towards their waiting bunkers. The greens had plenty of trouble too with humps and slopes and those ever present green-side bunkers
George continued his streak of kicking my butt and it was over well before we stood on the eighteenth tee.
We stopped and pulled out our flask, toasted Scotland, each other and the two wonderful weeks we had together. It was an absolute thrill, each and every day it got better and better. And sharing it with my brother was about as good as it can get.
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The only thing that could have been better on our trip was the standard of golf I played. Thanks for the inspiration for this trip , brother, and the peerless companionship. I look forward to our return trip.
Well said brother…