The A Position

Lords and Lady of the Manor It’s been a full week here as we Golf Road Warriors tackled some of the best courses on the eastern side of Scotland. We’ve been wined, dined and warmly welcomed all along the way, and now for our last two nights, we’re comfortably ensconced here at Mar Hall Golf and Spa Resort. The baronial mansion overlooking the River Clyde, originally ... Read more

It’s Monday – the first full day in Ayrshire for our Golf Road Warriors group.  Angus McIntosh, our devoted and superlative PerryGolf driver and guide, has just picked us up at The Marine Hotel and brought us to our next field of battle. Ayrshire is blessed with a bevy of fine links courses including the two at Turnberry (Ailsa and Kintyre), Royal Troon and Prestwick.  Yesterday, ... Read more

The list of great courses in Scotland is long: St. Andrews (of course), Muirfield, Carnoustie, Turnberry, Dornoch, North Berwick, Prestwick, etc. etc. Allow me to add two more to any list registering in your head, places you really should play when you are next lucky enough to make it to the home of golf. Dundonald Links and Western Gailes. Much like the Machrihanish/Machrihanish Dunes tandem the ... Read more

Traveling golfers in Scotland have few worries. Usually someone else is doing the driving, and in our case it’s Angus, the wonderful bus driver from tour operator Perry Golf, who has been our chauffeur the last few days. Very often someone else has arranged all the eating and sleeping arrangements. And as to the golf, experts like Perry Golf—and in our case, the Golf Road ... Read more

If you haven’t played The Ailsa Course at Turnberry, you’ve wanted to.  If you have played it, you’ve wanted to come back – as soon as you possibly could.  If you’ve come back, and it happens to be cold, blowing a gale and raining, you play it anyway like a proper Golf Road Warrior. The Ailsa is one of my favorite golf courses in the world.  ... Read more

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There are some things in life that never get old.  Traveling across the Atlantic to play links golf is one of them.  I’ve played more than 100 rounds of golf in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales – the majority of them on links courses.  Playing links golf is like being reborn.  Not just because it‘s a return to the roots of the game, but because ... Read more

In March 2010, thanks to VisitScotland and the folks at the Village at Machrihanish Dunes, I had a sneak preview of the new Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club at the southern end of the Kintyre Peninsula. I’d like to think I was one of the first to tread on those supernatural fairways. Now as one of the Scottish Golf Road Warriors, I’m on my way back, courtesy ... Read more

My first boss in the magazine business hated the word “mecca.” Not the city, necessarily, but using the word to describe a travel destination. Because it was—and is—overused. That said, I don’t know of another term that quite captures why golfers go to Scotland. Even if it isn’t where the game began—the Scots will get heated arguments, with good evidence, from the Dutch, the French, even ... Read more

Ailsa Amber Ale is currently available in only one place in the world, and I’m lucky enough to be here--at the Turnberry Resort in southwest Scotland. The beer is named after the Ailsa golf course, easily among the world’s most enchanting as it plays along the Ayrshire coast. In most recent memorable memory, it was the scene of the 2009 Open Championship, when Tom Watson ... Read more