No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1014: How to plan a Scotland golf trip (East Lothian)

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Soly and TC are back with another Scotland golf travel pod as we call upon Ru Macdonald to help guide us through the East Lothian region as we talk Muirfield, North Berwick, Dunbar and more. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our sponsors: Rhoback FanDuel.com/nlu USGA Handicap System Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠ ⁠⁠The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Lang a podcast. Solly here got a fun episode for you today. Not gonna lie, we recorded this episode a long time ago. If you remember, we did an episode with Rue McDonald,

our Scottish friend, our Scottish confidant, our Scottish golf whisperer. Back in the fall, planning a golf trip to the Fife area, the Old Course area, the St. Andrews area. What it's like to plan a trip there, what golf courses to check out, blah blah blah. We're doing this in a series. We're going to cover all the five main regions of Scotland over a period of time. The second one we covered is the East Lothian region. This is a much shorter episode than the last one of these that we did. But if you're ever traveling to this area, we get so many questions about what golf courses we should play, which we prioritize. We break all that down in as much detail as we possibly can. And we're looking

forward to covering basically all aspects. We've done a lot of travel pods, but not all of them are based on trip planning. So TC and I sat down with him last fall and we're finally releasing this episode. Been busy with a lot of other stuff that has come up, but we're ready to put this one out in the world. This episode's brought to you by our friends at Roeback. You already know they got their, our favorite polos, hoodies, shorts, pants, you name it. I got this really good lightweight one on here.

I'm up in Milwaukee, it was 65 degrees today. This was an absolutely perfect thing to wear on the golf course today. Kept the sun off of me and kept me nice and warm at the same time, not too hot. It's great. It's going to be summer. The Robac USA collection is here. It's a great collection. They got so many great red, white and blue options. They got American flag on the back of the neck for a little extra touch and as well the Robac Delta Looper shorts. They're back in stock. They're wonderful. My favorite golf shorts. They're definitely my go-to pretty much anytime that I'm able to put shorts on. So load up on some

Roeback ahead of the summer. Use code NLU at roeback.com for a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. It's 20% off Polos, shorts, and more with code NLU. Also want to give a shout out to our friends at Fandal, whether you're dialing in every shot or just following the action on Sunday, Fandl keeps you locked into the PJ Tour action all week long. Right now, all customers get a profit boost

every third and fourth round each week. Use your boost on anything from closest to pin to outright winners, to top 20 and 30 bets and more. Plus you can stack those bets to make a parlay. A lot of you have been hitting me up about all this Ryder Cup stuff. Put your money where your mouth is. Let's see some big plays on Ben Griffin, on Andrew Novak, on Keegan, all of this. I want to see some tickets on this.

And that wasn't enough. You can track your favorite golfers with the app, live leaderboards, player shot tracking, streaming coverage for two featured par three holes, and more if you can handle it. So head to fanduel.com slash NLU, step up to the T and take a swing betting the PGA Tour of Fandool, America's number one sportsbook. Fandool,

official betting operator of the PGA Tour. Must be 21 and older and President-Select states often required bonus issued as non-mattrable profit boost tokens, restriction supply including any token expiration and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Let's get to the pod. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another travel edition of the No Laying Up podcast. We are here to help you plan your Scottish golf trips. Hopefully you got a chance to hear the first iteration of this series where myself, which is Solly, if you are listening to this in your car, TC and Ru McDonald talked about how to play in your first trip to Scotland, kind of how to tear things out, how to break it out.

We talked about the St. Andrews area in this. So it'd be a much shorter episode than that first one. We took care of a lot of, uh, kind of the table setting stuff with Scotland, but this, this episode, we're going to talk about East Lothian TC. You've spent some time in East Lothian recently. Welcome to the show. How are you buddy? Great to be here. Great to be here. Yeah. I feel like East Lothian, there's more than meets the eye in East Lothian. And you know, you can, there's some shiny objects which are shiny and substantive, but there's also some, some really, uh, you know,

kind of under the radar cool stuff as well. I'm going to be leaning heavily on you guys on this one because I've only spent a couple short trips to East Lovian and haven't really seen much of the depth, but welcoming back Ru McDonald, fellow Scott, we can call ourselves Scots at this point, we've spent enough time over there, but Scottish golf travel expert, hello Ru, how are you?

Hello, hello, and yeah, East Lovian I think probably is the one destination that, you know, you've got the Fife region and St Andrews, but I think this maybe is the one destination that, you know, you've got the Fife region and St. Andrews, but I think this maybe is the top region for a bunch of reasons, but obviously the golf courses, the depth of golf courses and the ambience and availability of experiences there both golf and non-golf. So excited to chat. Take us geography wise, how are we getting to East Lothian? How

would you do this trip? Are you combining it with another region? Is it worthy of a trip entirely on its own? Kind of take us to what we can expect broadly from East Lothian, Rue. I think TC and I are aligned by any region in Scotland has enough to if you're willing to look for it to stay in one spot. East Lothian is definitely the richest or one of the richest for golf in the region of Scotland. Its closest airport

is probably the one that most people are flying into. It's Edinburgh Airport, certainly has the most international flights. It has the most North American flights and you're about 30 minutes from Edinburgh airport on the city bypass getting out to East Lothian. So for starters, it's super accessible. It's also very accessible if you are for whatever reason staying in Edinburgh and wanting to get a bit of golf fix. It's probably the easiest way is traveling by train then if you're staying in the city of Edinburgh. Edinburgh in Glasgow, obviously Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It's culturally the one that attracts the most tourists. If you were bringing your partner for a non-golfing trip, I'd probably send you to Edinburgh. TC's experienced the restaurants

and the fine dining, I'm sure, but certainly has lots of options there. So yeah, Edinburgh seems to be the draw for lots of people and East Lothian seems to be the golf destination. TC, what brings people to East Lothian? What are the highlights here? What are the first golf courses that jump out at you? I mean, I think the one that everybody probably is from a tourist perspective is, is North Baric. But, you know, I would say your field's kind of top of the heap and you can get all like it's

Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can get on, you play 36 holes. It's, it's not cheap. You know, it's like 370 pounds, I think for, for 18 holes or, you know, about 550, 560 pounds for 36 holes. If you want to do the kind of the lunch and the full deal, four balls and four sums. So definitely a unique experience. I think having now played, I'd never played Muirfield until this year. I think Muirfield has a spot in the argument for best golf course in the world. I think it's that good. The routing is just brilliant. It's not flashy. The views are crazy good out on the Firth,

but there's just the way that the whole thing interacts with the wind and the terrain and uphill downhill and the variety you get out of it's like squeezing the most possible substance out of out of a really, really good piece of land is kind of kind of remarkable. And there's just so many different influences that have worked on it. Tom Simpson, Colt, and all the, you know, it's just, it's like the amalgamation of everything that's good with like Lynx golf, I think. But yeah, I think the thing with East Lothian is just the density and concentration of golf there. There's just so much good stuff. It's super convenient to the city. And it's just kind of all laid out on this string heading eastward from the city all the way, you know, all the way out to like Dunbar. It's very easy. You easy, it's a good thing to do off the plane too.

We did kill Spindy first off the plane on our first trip over, or our first group trip over Saleh. So, you've got everything from those quirky sub-6,000 yard courses to the Muir Fields, the Gullens, all of those as well. And there's plenty of lodging, there's plenty of good restaurant, all sorts of variety as far as transportation options as well. So it's convenient first and foremost. And then also the culture of golf is there too. You've got the Hickory Shop in Gullon there. There's multiple places where it feels like golf is there too. Like you've got the Hickory shop in Gullen there. You've got, you know, like there's multiple places

where it feels like golf is at the center of society. It's very different than the first episode we did in this series, which was of course basing yourself kind of in St. Andrews and experiencing a lot of that. Like that has a much more central and tourist hub than I think you'll find anywhere in East Lothian. Rue, if you're going, where are we staying? Like, what are the options there

and how does that blend in? The offerings are very different. Like you mentioned there, TC, like the logistics are very easy on this stretch, if I remember right. Again, I haven't spent a ton of time down there, but all you have to do is look at a map and overhead of seeing how many golf courses there are in this region.

But where are you setting up shop and how do the logistics work with this part of the country? Yeah, just just like Sanruz. I think North Barak and Gullan are two golf towns that I would gravitate towards and you know set up base camp Love the fact you can walk about and enjoy the town and feel like golf is you know brushing your past year past year I mean everywhere you go. You're going to see golf, you're going to see someone that plays golf, you're going to see a painting of a golf course in an art studio. It's just everywhere you look you're feeling it. North Berwick is definitely my favourite spot and one of my favourite towns in Scotland. There's a bit more going on, a few more restaurants, and obviously any chance to walk. Probably my favorite golf course in the world, North Berwick,

the West course, I do it. I know we all have been around the pro game a great deal, and I think it's worth sort of remembering or acknowledging the fact that these guys hate playing golf away from work. And when you see them literally playing golf in their spare time during the Scottish Open every year that it's been going back to Renaissance, they've been playing, you know, Will Zanatoros and his dad flew over a couple days early and played Muirfield and played a few courses or Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth and Smiley Kaufman make a make a habit of going out on a Monday to play North Berwick. I mean, we know this isn't normal. Like this doesn't happen. These guys take their craft too

seriously. Golf is an unfair game for the pro golfer that, you know, trudges around the, I was going to say the world, they don't go around the world. They go around America mostly and play golf. And so yeah So yeah, I think that's really refreshing and speaks to how unique this part of the world is and how golf is right here and how it, even for guys that do it for a job, it's kind of too good to miss. Getting into the specific golf courses here, if you listen to the first episode of these, we kind of tried to divide them out into four tiers, which is tier one is like, you must play course, like top of the line. If you're in this area and you don't even like attempt to play this course, like

you're missing out and it should be pretty obvious that that part of the list is very obvious. There's not going to be any surprise names you're going to hear in that tier, but I'm always curious to hear how you guys would tear out the courses in this area. Second tier would be, this is a, a fantastic golf course, a golf course. You're not going to go wrong here. Like, you know, you probably can't play all of the courses on the same trip in tier two. Like if you have to miss one, that's not the end of the world, but you're going to have a great time at these golf courses. Tier three might not be on a

top 100 list, but like, this is the flavor that you need to add to your trip in some way. Like it's, we're not going to say it's better than a tier two course, but you should put one of these, at least one of these in your trip rather than all of the tier two ones, because you know, it might be very different than what you're experiencing in the other courses on the list. And then kind of the fourth tier is getting weird kind of outside the box.

Might not be 18 holes, might not be full length, might just be something that, hey, if you like adventure and like something very different, here's some options in that tier. So let's get right into it with this one. Ru, what's tier one in East Lothian, the golf courses that are cream of the crop, must play, no questions asked. I have a feeling everyone's going to have the same list on this one? Well I think I'm wearing the hat. North Derrick, West Lynx. Yeah I just think you know that it is oddly similar to the Old Corp St Andrews in the fact that it kind of starts and finishes in town. It's like a miniature of St Andrews, the first and 18th, the shared fairway. You know the 18th, North Derricks drivable for almost everyone, a little bit shorter

than the old course cars parked up the right hand side. But yeah, I struggle to find people that don't walk off North Derrick with a smile. I mean, it definitely has grown in popularity. I think it's one of the courses that you need to kind of book up pretty quickly. That's worth pointing out before people switch off. On the first episode, we didn't really talk about lead time of bookings. You're looking at about 16 months, 17 months. The clubs are becoming better at getting online earlier

with their T-sheets. So you could be looking at booking some of these courses in March of next year for a trip the following year. So yeah, the lead time is getting better. It was all a bit at last minute, but post COVID are definitely getting better at opening their tee sheets earlier. But yeah, I remember every shot on the back nine

at North Berwick West course. It just such a thrill. And yeah, if I could play a course the rest of my life, it would be North Berwick West course and it becomes a popular answer now. And you know, I think I'm obviously a member of Crunan Bay. It's a similar course in the sense that you've got the views, you've got the thrills of playing some half par holes. And it's maintained a great standard. It's got a great feeling about the town and the

clubhouse. It's got an active membership. It's got a great feeling about the town and the clubhouse. It's got an active membership. There's dog walkers. Yeah, all of it. Yeah, I love it all. Is that the only one in your tier one? Well, I was gonna leave you to Muirfield. I mean, Muirfield, I put out a tweet a couple of years ago

when I played Muirfield, the last Scottish open road, of course, on my list. And I had it like middle to bottom. I feel like, again, I'm speaking as a seven handicap. I feel like as a grower, I actually can't wait to play it again. I've never been lucky to play it with a member who's giving me the full day experience, which again, might alter my impression. That certainly altered mine. That enrich the experience so much, you know, and I felt like playing it in foursomes, played 36 holes of foursomes and it actually

enhanced my experience because it gave me time to look up and not have to focus on hitting every shot. Like I got two rounds around the course. I felt, you know, fine after the day, you know, like kind of a light lift 36 whole day. But I felt like I truly got to, you know, explore the golf course a little bit and kind of just walk around with my head up versus head down looking at all the shots. Yeah. And look, everything you said about me, you're feeling to start the show. Um, I agree with like from a design standpoint, again, I'm not gonna try and trick people to think

I know what I'm talking about, but I enjoy the strategy, I enjoy the different directions that you play in, I enjoy how you traverse the hill a couple of times in the round. I love the bunkering. The bunkering might be the best in any links course that I've played.

And then I listen to people like you or like people like Richie Ramsey on the DP World Tour. Guy that's really keen on his architecture, a pro like, we shouldn't listen to pros talking about golf courses because they don't really know what they're talking about. But in Richie's case, I kind of do agree with him. He enjoys a course like that

and I can see why he's a great ball striker. I think it's a fair golf course. Some of some links courses can be deemed quirky and unfair, but I don't know if there's anything unfair about your field. Yeah, it's like imminently fair. And it's also, yeah, it's greater than some of its parts. It's a spectacular piece of land where you're looking back towards the city and you're looking back towards the bridges and just, you know, the views are fantastic, but there's not, there's no one hole that's just like, oh my gosh, this is, this is going to blow me away. It's just like 18. Very good, the great holes. And like Sally, to that point, it felt, it felt almost more like

some of those English courses we've played a little bit of like, it felt, it felt almost more like some of those English courses we've played a little bit of like, you know, you don't feel like you're even playing links golf on some of the holes. There's the high grass. It's, it's in immaculate shape, but it's, you know, it's kind of a hybrid between like, you know, like a lithium style test and like a links test.

You mentioned a TC off the top of just, I don't know who is best here to speak about how you get on the golf course, right? I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it think Tuesday, Thursday for guests, I think they've got availability for like the 18

holes from like, I don't know, 10 to noon, as far as tee off. And then they've got, you know, the 36 hole option as well. So you can tee off from, you know, eight to 10 on that and then have lunch and then play loop it again. So, you know, certainly more, you know, atypical as far as the Scottish membership or Scottish club. Like it's, you know, it's, it's obviously a little bit more closed off and, and, you know, I think there's some resentment from some of the other clubs or some of the other, you know, factions in Scotland towards Muirfield a little bit. But man,

like I was, I was kind of expecting to go in on pins and needles and, and it was both welcoming and, and, you know, really, I don't know, it was just, it was a delightful experience. We stayed at the gray walls right next door as well, which, you know, found a deal on that and it was like, Jesus, like that. You know, we're covering the full spectrum here of like, hey, it's, you know, it was, it was, you know, you like wake up and you look out your window and you're looking at the, the ninth green right there, um, on the back porch. But my first tier is, and granted, like all of this is with a grain of salt. Like this is, I think

owing to how deep East Lothian is, like I've never played, I've never played any of the Gullen courses somehow. I just haven't like I like, I really haven't gone to East Lothian and just camped out for a week. It's always been like, you know, adding this on once I get into Edinburgh or starting a trip or finishing a trip. I've never played Archerfield. I've never played Loughness, you know, few other ones. So, but like this past trip, I played Dunbar, Muirfield, the Glen and North Baric. And it was very much like, I think North Baric, it's still as good as I remembered it. I think the only thing that it, you know,

it's maybe a victim of its own popularity or its own success where I think the, like they do a great job in there. Martin does a great job as head pro and they get visitors through and everything like that. I think they might be a little high on the hog as far as visitor revenue. They may need to like raise their rates

because their waiting list is a mile long and there's a bunch of locals that can't get in. And I fear that it's like losing that club atmosphere versus it's just like a visitor golf club, you know? And the conditioning's been a little bit iffy the last couple of times of just like, man, like this is, you know, like it's just looked a little scruffy in certain spots, which, you know, I know some of that could be due to a bad winter, you know, a really wet, rainy summer, but it's been like the last few times I've been there. It's been just a little, like the greens are just a little hairy and like more so than my expectations for a Lynx course. Yeah, and look, they are not shy in opening their tea sheet for visitor play, which is

great too. Yeah. It's great for listeners of this show. Yeah. It's definitely doable. I wouldn't say it's a hard tea time to get if you're organized. And that's where, if you're organized, none of this is hard. But probably can't justify some of those.

But maybe moving forward why we can expect more of a visitor play at North Berwick is because of their severe coastal erosion issues. And they're having to crowdfund now to, like a lot of these Coast of Scotland sort of create a surplus pot of cash in case they need to reinforce the dunes by the coast. I'm sure it's going to be a problem now moving forward for lots of courses, but Scotland and

some of our oldest courses are starting to see the brunt of that already. Which that was a big observation this past time. It was like, oh man, there were some serious winter storms. And you notice it on the start of the back nine coming in of those dunes getting, getting cut in half almost. Um, you know, and, and I know it's a, it's a tricky, it's talking to a couple of members. It's a tricky ownership scenario with the, you know, the way that the, you know, who owns the land, how do they lease the land, all of that stuff. It's, it's kind of roundabout there. So, but it's, it's unequivocally tier one for me. And I'm gonna put Dunbar in that as well.

Wondering if you're gonna do it. I think Dunbar is, like if you gave me 10 rounds between North Baric and Dunbar, I think I'm going five, five. It's that fun. It's that delightful. It's, I think there's some weak holes at North Baric. There's a, you know, there's a couple of weak holes at Dunbar, but there's, you know, and you're going out

towards like a cement factory in the distance. When you get to the far end of the course, it's maybe the one like blight on it, but there's this wall that you play and like, you know, the wall at North Barrick is three feet high or whatever. The wall at Dunbar is like 12 feet high. It's in play and you can bounce it off of it. It's like the fact that that's been there every time and I had never gone and bothered to see it.

It made me really mad at myself. I'm like, man, this is like, this is one of my favorite courses that I've played in recent memory and this has been here the whole time and it was only 20 minutes down the road, North Berwick. And super welcoming club. And I don't know, I loved it. Loved every second of that golf course.

Where does Dunbar rank in your list? Are you familiar with it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's getting some just rewards now. People like TC going to see it. It's definitely that tier two in the region for me. If you can give yourself enough time, if you can slow down, if you can do what we're trying to preach to people

and sort of giving yourself enough time in one region, you'd be an idiot to miss Dunbar. Already, I think East Lothian feels like you can breathe a bit more than a very busy environment in Andrews and Fife. Two times are going to be easier to come by. Of course you need to be organized, but Dunbar, I'm not sure what state of play it was when you played TC, but it seems like they've got a busy T-sheet of visiting golfers.

They've got active member play, but it's not all around. Yeah, it seems like it's definitely by virtue of not being directly in town either. Like it's, you know, the course is removed from North Baric. It's 15, 20 minutes farther east or southeast. But also it's not hard up against town either. You see the town of Dunbar, but it's not quite as intimate like that. But I think in a way that it kind of helps you breathe a little bit more.

Like sometimes at North Berwick, you know, like I would need to get out of town if I was staying in there. Cause it's very, you know, I think it can get a little bit claustrophobic probably as well. Like it's so charming and intimate and delightful, but man, it's also like everything is just right there.

And the 18th green is like the epicenter of the town because I think Dunbar gives you a little bit of room to kind of, you know, I think they're really good counterpoints to one another as well. And Dunbar's got, you know, there's everything, like the par threes are fun. There's, you know, like pretty captivating par fives. And then there's just some really funky stuff on the par fours. And then there's, there's all sorts of substance as well.

Like it's not, it's not gimmicky. I think they're going to reroute it a little bit. They're building a new clubhouse in the next, next couple of years there as well. But super welcoming club and it'll be interesting to see kind of how it develops over the next few years because I think they're a beneficiary of how crowded North Barracks gotten. It's a strong, strong endorse, like putting it in the same tier as Muirfield. I just wanna, I know you've been effusive

in your praise of it. I just, people driving their car. Maybe we need like a tier zero of like Muirfield. I'm like, I'm saying like Muirfield is one of, if not like, it's like a top golf course in the entire world, like Pine Valley, Cypress, Terri Eady. That sounds like must play, no questions asked. But that's where it's, but that's where it's like, I don't know. Like if you're in the area and you're not playing North Baric and

Dunbar, and like I'm putting those on equal footing, those two, like you're crazy as well. Like you can't go to, you know, East Lothian and not play those courses as well, but there needs to be a step above. Golf is more than just a game. It's a community, whether you're playing a casual round with friends or grinding in a match that's going to the 18th hole, having a handicap index is your key to playing on a level field. You can track

your progress challenge yourself against golfers of all skill levels, no matter where you play. So why wait? True golfers have a handicap index, go to usga.org slash get a handicap to sign up in minutes after you sign up, download an app that you can link to your handicap index, such as the gin app, start posting your scores right away. It's that easy. They have great tools to set up games with your buddies, you can add players right on there, select the T's of the course you're playing, tell you tells

you exactly how many strokes everyone should get usga.org slash get a handicap. It's very easy. And everyone should have one of these back to the pod. I wonder if because to me I'm not played Dunbar so it's really hard. I don't play Muirfield either but it seems to me tier one is North Baric for me and Muirfield of what I would want to and Dunbar seems like it's top of tier two. I hear you're a glowing glowing endorsement of it. I think you might be alone in that. If we polled a lot of people,

would a lot of people put Muirfield and Dunbar on the same level? Again, there's room in this pot. There's a reason we're doing this pot. There's room for that endorsement in there. I'm just throwing a caution flag on throwing it in the same level as those other two. And some of the North Berwick members,

they're not happy with me, Sally. All right. They're, they're, they're mad at me. Granted, some of the Dunbar members may be mad at me for pulling up their spot, too. But I don't know. I just, I think, I think the courses, like what, what I think North Baric really drafts off of having that intimacy and that charm of playing into town. And I think when, and that's impossible to strip away from the experience, but I think Dumbars and even like, it's a, it's an even better piece of land and it's got less,

it's got less like kind of gimmicky holes in my opinion, just more. Leave the 13th pet hole out here. You know, if you class that. Yeah. Well, 13th is great. I mean, no, no, I, yes. I mean, 16 is like, like, I think I prefer 16 at North Baric to 13. I think 16 is like. Cool. It's green. Anywhere.

Yeah. To be peacekeeper though, I think, you know, the conversation about tier one or tier two, I mean, you're coming to Eazlillion to play three courses minimum. So there you go. There's three straight off the bat. I mean, you touched on Gullen. Gullen's actually got three courses and a little kids thing as well. But that would be like tier two would be like Gullen one, Gullen two. Seemed to be very popular. Great, great course, very playable, active membership, right in the center of town, great views, definitely like solid tier two options for East Lothian.

And then one that we've touched on before is Cull Spindy. I would put that in tier two as well. I think it's an absolute must play. Again, quite short, quirky, starts with a par three. I watched my playing partner lay the sod over a ball on the first tee there. So yeah, I think it's a must play. Again, quintessentially Scottish links course, great views, old, proud of its history. Yeah, definitely have Kilspindi on that list. I think Kilspindi is like a, it's like Dukes in Ireland. Solid like man, you can go out there. I think about that day all the time.

That was six years ago we played there. I still think about that round and some of those holes. I don't know why it was just so that, Kilspindi is like kind of why I want to do these podcasts. It's like, you have to like talk, you can't like rank that course because you have to talk about that. That's why I didn I want to do these podcasts is like, you have to like talk, you can't like rank that course, because you have to talk about that. That's why I didn't want to just sit here and rank all of them. I wanted to put them in

tiers of being like, you got to get down into these lower tiers. I had that like, it's gonna sound bad when I say I had it in tier three, but I have that as in like, this is the exact kind of course you need to go pursue. Like it's not on the same level as, you know, maybe I was thinking Dunbar was going to end up in the in the two range, but like this exact course like is the you know, smaller clubhouse not like set up for if you got a group of 16 people, like it's probably not the best spot for you. I don't know if they if they're going to be ready for you there,

but down this little narrow road to this little corner of the earth that you you'll be out there and you'd be like, I never thought I would be here. And you just play these beautiful little pop bunkers, short par fours, 240 yard par four finishing hole with the coolest little trough, uh, grass bunker behind it. You're hitting right at the clubhouse. This tiny little clubhouse is just all the elements of Scottish charm. And the big thing for me on a Scottish trip too, is like, you want to just go play where Scots play. You don't want to only play the visitor, like hubs, the North barracks where, you know,

they're just lining up, you know, visitor, visitor, visitor. You just, you want to go places where people are a little curious as to why you're there. Like, how'd you find our place? Like that's kind of part of where you're going to have an amazing kind of Scottish experience. So there's that par three over the water there as you get out. Yeah. Yeah. It's like seven, eight or nine. Yeah. And there's, and it's the kind of course that you can go out with your full bag and try to hang a number or go play a match play, or you go out with a half set, or you could go play hickories out there. It'd be a brilliant hickory

course too. And the turf's firm and it's as, it's as, it's as lanksy and seaside as you're going to get too. And it's got great views and, uh, and it's, it, yeah, it's like, it's like kind of the first like real golf course you see when you're heading out of Edinburgh. And you guys have done them, you made the mistake that so many make, you could have just skim the surface, like you would go to a North Berwick and you would go to Muirfield and then you would leave. Like now that you've seen what's on offer,

if you hang around for long enough, like how much of a better experience does these really feel like having played courses like Kilspindy? Oh, well, it just helps you appreciate the other places too. Like, all right, this is everything I love about kill Spindy. North barracks even better. And it makes you appreciate North barrack more for, you know, what sets it apart. Like you have context and you have something to kind of compare and contrast.

And, and then, you know, like you get down that rabbit hole and then, all right, long nidri looks cool down the street from there. I've looked across at craggy law. That doesn't look necessarily my tempo, so I'm good there, but like, lofnest looks awesome. You know, Archerfield looks like a really, really proper golf course there. Roo, have you played Renaissance? golf course there. Roo, have you played Renaissance? I have, yeah, I have. I've been going there with my VP World Tour hat on now for, what was it, four years. It's a great tournament venue. That's my politically correct statement. It wouldn't be on my visitor playlist. Definitely wouldn't have it in tier one or two, but yeah, I mean, I don't know what I'm going to say without getting us having too much trouble.

You know, great, great way for ball mackintyre. All right. So tier two for you is what you've got. We had going to, yep. Andbar and Kilspindy. Okay, so Kilspindy in the tier 2. Okay. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty busy tier 2. I don't know if you want me to delve into my tier 3, but I had Glenn in there. Loughness would be in there as well. I mean, it's quite traditional, believe it's still a men only clubhouse. You know, that is quintessential kind of Scottish member golf right there, you would see the locals of Gullen playing Lough Ness. Not nothing to get your heart

racing in terms of anything spectacular on the course, just really solid links golf course, in the close vicinity of Gullen sort of wedge. Yeah, on the side of town there. And then, yeah, the Glen, which is named the Eastlinks, North Berwick, and so the other side of town to the west course of North Berwick. Yeah, not the most spectacular pieces are golf holes kind of in the inner land, but the stretch of golf along the coastline is pretty special. And I mean, I say this quite a lot, but like classic case of having too many golf holes, like if, if a golf course could have like nine holes or 12, then I think more people would talk

about Glenn and North Berwick. I think Glenn. Yeah, I totally agree. I think Glenn could be like I think Glenn could be like an exceptional 12 or 14 hole golf course. It's a big walk, like kind of unexpectedly big walk. There's some weird like traverses back from green to T where you feel like you're walking backwards or, you know, there's some spectacular holes like that par three along the coast coming back in there. There's, you know, it's like, but like the first hole is just solid. It's like the first hole at Collin a little bit of, she's going like straight up straight up. That's the second, or the second hole. I caught Collin going to show up this cliff side there. And then, you know, 18 is fun. Is it a good hole? Probably not, but it's much more, it's like headland versus links as well. It's, you know, 18 is fun. Is it a good hole? Probably not.

But it's much more, it's like Headland versus Lynx as well. It's, you know, it's not necessarily sandy soil or, you know, it's, yeah, firmly tier three for me of like, yeah, you're not gonna have a bad day out there, but I don't think it's absolutely like, you're not, like I'm not gonna play the Glen every time I go back to this region. I think the, I struggle with tier two just because I don't like, yeah,

like I don't have that experience at Gullen or I feel like all, all of those tier two courses that I would play, I'm not necessarily, I just haven't played them yet. So it's kind of, well, it's all number one, going number two, Loftness. Some regions are going to have weird balances of, of how you would tear out some of these places too. Right. And that's kind of where we would definitely want to lean on route because this this feels very, this region feels very different than the

five St. Andrews region in terms of, of what the offerings are. And again, like we said, just looking at the map, like it's just, you just literally drive down this road and you keep stumbling on stuff and then little layers on top of layers of like, yeah, just on the other side of that course is another course. And it seems like this area, it has more in that just so many tier two or three, however, you want to classify them. Like, dude, you almost can't go wrong with so many of these, all these offerings. And a lot of American tourists don't get to a lot of these places, I would have to imagine.

Yeah. Roo, what's your like between Gullen one and Gullen two? What's kind of how would you describe those two courses like are both like is one far far and away better than the other or? I don't see it personally. I mean, one is definitely ranked as one and the green fee would suggest that. But yeah, I mean, they've done a good job of sort of trying to drive people to play the second course. I mean, you're getting very similar views. I mean, they play the composite layout there when they came to the Scottish Open, went to Gullan in 2017,

I think it was, or 2018. So no, I think Gullan is a special place. I think Jeff Shackleford does a really good job whenever he comes to East Lothian and speaking about Gullen. It's kind of a golf village. We're speaking about golf towns, but Gullen is a golf village. And there's just a richness of enthusiasm for the game that's unmatched in many places. I always find Gullen to be a good option for her late Twilight game, especially when I'm working down in the Renaissance club for the Scotch open, you can always try and get a game up at Gullen when the people are queuing up to play in North Berwick.

That's what it says. East Lothian in general is just seems like the volume is going to offer you more opportunities to play. You got to worry less. It would seem like about finding a tee time. There's always going to be a place to play. I mean, you drive down that road like Gullen is fast, man. I mean, it's just like, takes up all of the views and it's just hard to, I mean, what's the deal with Gullen three? Is that, is that a totally different category? I think that's more like your executive type cause you're like, you know, you're at entry level. I haven't played it,

but I think that's the sort of one that your kids would start playing. Driving through there, I always just see that big hill and I'm like, oh my gosh, like that looks like a bear to walk up and down that hill. I mean, they used to train racehorses up and down that hill. So yeah, we haven't talked about, we haven't talked about the kind of epicenter of golf and Musabara, which I think, you know, again, Jeff Shackleford would hate us saying it, but it feels like a tier three or four course, but like somebody would have a tier one. I think that's the epitome of tier four. Yeah. It does not mean fourth level quality. That's not what we're going for here. It's like most, again, how most American tourists are going to think of

this. They want to play 18 hole traditional rounds of golf where Muscleboro is definitely not that. Like it definitely is classified as weird. It's inside of a racetrack. Like it is, you know, tell you, you tell us about it. I mean, it, it, but it would definitely be a tier four golf course of let's get weird. Yeah. I mean, it's the original, the original home of the open championship. And it was played on six occasions between 1874 and 1889. So it's got the first evidence of golf dating back to 1672. So Mary Queen of Scots was believed to have played golf there. So it's steeped in history. As I said, it's now played in the middle of a racing circuit. So it's bizarre. But I've played there with hickories. I've played there with normal clubs.

It's a unique golf experience. And as I said on the previous podcast, you travel for unique experiences, right? So I think you travel, if you're a golfer, you travel for places like Musselburgh. It makes you appreciate the game, I think, and makes you enjoy hopefully the game. It's not one to be taken seriously, I don't think, and not one to sort of count towards any sweep stakes that you've got. But yeah, I mean, it's obviously that the Open Championship started at Prestwick, but like the genesis of golf and competitive golf really started at Muscleboro. Yeah.

And saw a shot, saw our guy, David Brown, the roofer, they pulled him off the roof. They cleaned them up. He won the open. Yeah. Kind of a singular experience in golf, like playing, playing inside that racetrack and everything. We can put links to these as well in our travel series back in 2018. If you're watching this on YouTube, we'll have some links in the show notes of we played that racetrack and everything. We can put links to these as well in our travel series back in 2018.

If you're watching this on YouTube, we'll have some links in the show notes. We played Kelspendy, filmed a video out there, played Mosselboro, filmed a video out there and played North Baric and have a full video on that as well. But need to keep going back to keep expanding our video library from these courses. I think there's just some courses that like we're not tiering out too, right? Like, you know, like not everything's making our courses that we're not tiering out too, right? Not everything's making our tiers. That's the whole thing. We're putting in context tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four, and then there's some courses that are like, cool, I'm just not playing those on a trip. That's the thing. Versus tier four, those are no less worthwhile.

They're just, that's again, kind of, if you, if you didn't listen to the very first episode and maybe I should have done a better job at the top of this one of saying, you know, you don't just print off this top 10 list and go play all the top courses in a region. Like if you want the Scott, if you are like Rue just said, like if you are traveling for experiences, you want to experience a variety of different kinds of clubs and golf courses. Right. And I still maintain, man, there's, I, gosh, to top my head, I've struggled to think of like a Lingus golf course I've played that I hated or didn't have a good time on, right? Like the whole

thing is just kind of like, the floor is just so high on so many of these courses you could walk up to and find some sort of variety or some sort of challenge and fun that, you know, it's, it's, it like, I always, I made this comment many times in the past and people like roll their eyes at it. Like kill Spindy would rank 20th for me of Scottish golf courses. Maybe who knows? I'd have to think on that a little bit harder, but like, would I rather play kill Spindy than like TPC Sawgrass? Yeah, I would like, or name it.

So many of the top American courses, my 20th favorite Scottish course, I would rather play golf on. I like to experience a variety of different things, but as far as just going and if I could be transported to either place tomorrow, there's something different about that experience that is the most fun pursuit I've had in my life traveling golf courses. Got solid. I just, I keep thinking back to Dunbar. You start out with two par fives, then you get this downhill par three, then like the next like 15 holes or however, 14 holes are like on the water. It's insane. You like you you'll it'll blow your mind the routing the way that like How would you down the coast the total?

Rana, how would you split ten rounds between Ely and Dunbar? I Knew you were gonna make that face. I think probably five five man. Like it's it's up there. It's in grand I've only played it once maybe maybe I'm overrating it in the company and all that. But we had a nice day. It was kind of cloudy. It wasn't like a bluebird day or anything like that. It wasn't like, man, I had this chamber of commerce day and we had great company that we were playing with. But man, I would struggle to ever feel like, it's kind of a choose your own adventure. You can go, you can go out and try to attack the place or you can go out and try to just have a really nice walk and kind of, you know,

hang out and hit the shots. So Rue, have you, I know it's not, I'm pushing the bounds of East Lothian here. Have you ever been to Gossick? No, no, no. I mean, I thought you were going to say Southern Ness there, which would really be pushing the boundaries. Southern Ness, we'll talk about that when we get to the west coast and Ayrshire. Southern Ness, that would be what? Still off on Solway and that stuff down there, kind of way down into England. But Gossic seems like, that's one that's on my list for next time I go over to just, it's right along the train line there

and you can pop down there and it's what, 45 minutes to an hour from North Barrick, just directly down the coast. And that's one that's like, all right, that looks like a cool quintessential links experience. But your question about Dunbar and Ealing, I feel like both of those are ranked in the similar category as it pertains to planning a trip. You can get your claws into a trip.

You can get like meaty main courses to a golf trip instead of holding your breath and wondering if you're going to go to Scotland based on a tea time that you might get. You could literally flesh out a trip with those two nice solid offerings to kick off your planning is how I would deal with it. To your point about sawgrass, I think you obviously are saying that hyperbole a wee bit, but you're saying it because it's different. The different tiers that we're speaking about here, like doing like ones constantly for six, seven days dilutes what one means. Like you don't have any, I'm very lucky to do a Sandbell

and King Island trip in March and like playing Ocean Dunes was quite nice because you could compare it. You could appreciate Royal Melbourne or Kingston Heath more because you had the contrast of tears and TC will push back on Ocean Dunes. He loves it. And I love Cape Wickham, too. These guys were all like, oh, Ocean Dunes is sick. I'm like, I like Cape Wickham, too. So to my point, like, you know, you're having these tears, you could actually smell the roses a wee bit more in the tier one. Yeah. Or like solid, like playing Sandy Lynx makes you appreciate Westmore or, you know, going and playing Lonsdale Lynx or, you know, uh, yeah, I don't know that. And then I think

too, have just, you know, some of it's like, it's the same quality. It's just that smaller scale, right? That's, that's part of it. And speaking of smaller scale, you know, some of it's like, it's the same quality. It's just at smaller scale, right? That's part of it. And speaking of smaller scale, Roo, have you ever played the Brunsfield little pigeon putt in town? No, I haven't. No, Jamie Kennedy, who we know,

Edinburgh resident will take you to all the spots, Braids Hills and other spots. Braids Hills was on my list as well. Those were the two I was going to ask you about because I played a little pitching putt. I've stopped there. It's delightful. Oh sorry, I have played it. Yeah, I have played it. And yeah, it's essentially in the middle of town and you're surrounded by tenement blocks. And yeah, struggle to get part because you're in the city centre. But once you get your car and you're off, it's great.

And I think that's a key thing for East Loughlin is Edinburgh, like, you know, not only do you have incredible world-class golf, but like you have like one of the coolest cities in the world, you know, very close by that you can enjoy when the golf, you know, at the end of your trip, when the golf's done or before the trip starts. That's the thing too.

I was just a lot of what we talked about within this episode as well in terms of like basing yourself in one spot and not overdoing the locations can make, if you are going to do a 36 whole day, it makes it that much more palatable, right? Or it just makes like kind of your appetite to get farther down into these tiers instead of bouncing around, spending your time driving,

you're spending your time in a place and it just, you can reach a level of comfort that can make you pursue more things. Tough question here as we move towards wrapping here, Ru, this is the second region we've covered on this series. How would you tear out the actual regions, right? I mean, like we've talked a lot about what makes the East Lovian great. You really are choosing between five really tough ones. And I would

guess if I asked you tomorrow, your rankings might be, might be different, but where does, where does East Lothian tear out in terms of, uh, you know, of those five regions we mentioned in the first episode, uh, you know, how would you, how would you just set that up? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like, it's kind of like what flavor of the month is it? Right. If I was going on a guys trip, I think East Lille might be number one in terms of just out and out, great golf, giving people a sense of Scotland, but keeping it on golf. It's different to the Highlands.

I think if I wanted to go on a couples trip,, a golf trip or, you know, a water just slower pace, like the Highlands would be right up there. But like, get away from the world. Yeah. And like to do like, hell, I mean, hell walking or like, you know, you know, do these trail trails or whatever, or walk around a lock or visit a castle like that is definitely the. Highlands is way up my list. As somebody that's got a young family now, the Highlands is where we're going to go to when we're a bit older. From a pure golf standpoint and charm, I think East Loughlin out. Air shower is great for golf, density of golf, but I don't feel like there's quite the ambience of the towns and the base camps to really enjoy as much as East Lolly and there, you

know, I'm, I probably favor Glasgow as a city of, for me to spend my time, but as a visitor, I think they gravitate to Edinburgh. That's good answer. Where do you put like Kintyre in and Aaron, do you like, cause that's like, I feel like that's getting lumped in with the air shore coast or, you know, but, but it's really, it's really not, it's its own, you know, and I know there's not a bunch of golf on Isla,

but you know, you get out to Isle of Harris, you get out, like there's a bunch of really, really wild shit out West. Yeah. To be honest, when we said, you know, which, which region that didn't even cross my mind because it's kind of like the band in June's too, you know, it's my band in June's. I, you said I want to go to band in June's more, but it's such a hassle. I want to play McManus old course more, but I don't. And there's a reason for that. And there's actually some great news this past week about McAvoy's June's and then another

golf course down there. So to Navratri and the two McAvoy's June's courses, the old course, and then, yeah, Aaron, Isla, some great golf, great golf that you can do by ferry and rental car, but certainly for maybe your third or fourth trip to Scotland. All right. All right. We're talking other regions other than East Lothian here. This is where we got to move to wrapping here. I saw the headline that what was the, what's the, um, what's the gist of the, the macro Hanish dunes 2.0?

I mean, yeah, very quickly. I mean, the first course that David McClay got permission to build on was probably the most environmentally sensitive golf course ever built. Like, they couldn't move anything. Like there's some 150-yard walks between greens and teas because of the environmental factors that were put on the course. Similarly for this other one, it's going to be north of the Dunes. The Dunes is north of the old McReynolds golf club, so you're just further away from there. Significant development, like massive sort of spa, like think about a rural retreat.

That's kind of what they're trying to build there. So yeah, hotel, spa, the full works. So hopefully they don't do anything stupid with the golf course and that, you know, all that infrastructure can be a good thing for all the golf that's down there. Love it. Sounds like we've got a lot more to cover in future episodes. So that's cool about me and like thinking about Scotland is as I try and create more content about Scottish golf trips, like there's so much investment into Scotland. There's always something new popping up. There's always a course improvement.

There's always a new hotel or, you know, there's always things happening. So golf trips will continue to evolve in Scotland. Well, this has made me want to book my next trip. I don't know when that's ever going to happen again, but it's definitely inspiring. And that's hopefully what listeners will take away from this as well. So, Rui, we thank you very much for your time.

We'll look forward to, what region should we do next? What we'll get third on your list of what we should cover next. You know, Highlands. I think that's, I was gonna say come up to my place, but Highlands is the next, I think. Highlands will be next. We will record that hopefully shortly. We really appreciate your time. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you back here next time. Crack on. Cheers. Must be 21 and older in President-Select states. Opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-mitrable. Profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including

any token expiration and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Fandal is offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.fandal.com slash RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit www.ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE and why or text HOPE and why in New York.