No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 926: How to plan a St Andrews golf trip (Fife region)

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Soly and Tron welcome friend of the program, and native Scot, Ru Macdonald to kick off a new series as we take a for a comprehensive look at all things Scotland Golf Travel. For this first episode, we focus on area in and around St. Andrews and the larger Fife region on the east coast of Scotland. 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 Support Our Partners: Rhoback The Stack System Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the NoLayingUp podcast. Solly here. I am not officially back yet from Paternity Leave, but just checking in to say thank you for tuning into another episode. This is a really fun concept we've come up with here and kind of kicking off a series

of episodes that we're going to do about trip planning. We get a lot of questions about trip planning. We're going to outline all this as we get going here, but brought in Rue McDonald and TC here to chat about what it's like to just everything you need to know about planning your first trip to Scotland, which we think should be to the St. Andrews area. If you're listening in your car, I'm not telling you to turn it off, but there is a YouTube version. Hopefully you're already watching this on YouTube. It has a lot of video laid in on all this. I'm hoping that this will be a resource for people as they're planning their trips. You can send this to people that are, you know, maybe going to be on one of your trips or thinking about going on one of your trips as you go to plan it out and see

what some of these places are like. We've got a big archive of footage from a lot of places in Scotland. It was fun to dig through all that and combine all this into one place. We've talked about a lot of these places in this, you know, in this podcast over the years, but getting on one place to say here's the tiers, here's how these courses work. It's all right here. So love your feedback on this episode. We'd love to hear what other regions you'd like to hear us tackle as we are going to do several of these throughout 2025. We've already recorded one other these as well. So we're gonna

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That's 20% off hoodies, pants, jackets, and more. No code needed. Set over at roeback.com, r-h-o-b-a-c-k.com. Introduce others to the most comfortable active wear in the game this holiday season. Thanks so much for tuning in. Here's our podcast on planning a golf trip to St. Andrews. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here. We have a little bit of a twist on today, a little bit of a new series we're going to start. We've done a lot of golf travel content over the course of many years, but wanted to zoom out and start to make a few episodes on golf travel in general. We're going to start with one of our favorite places. We have The Pl planner, the guy that puts together many, many trips and has put

together many, many trips to Scotland from our side, Mr. TC. Hello, TC. Hey, Solly, glad to be here. Stoked to talk Scotland. It's this is, this is like the fun part of our, our job. This is the non job part. This is the non-pro golf part, right? This is the, uh, this is what, where a lot of our passion for golf is related.

Speaking of passionate people, long time guests to this show. I think we have to go back seven years. I think we did a, about a three hour podcast about Scottish golf. I'm just going to guess not everybody remembers everything about that. So we're going to, we're going to reheat a lot of that, but Scottish golf expert. And you'll be able to tell very quickly from the accent, a Scottish man himself, Mr. Rue McDonald. Hello, Rue. And Irish, my mom is Irish. So we'll go Scottish and Irish. And yeah, thanks for having me on.

And yeah, I've been lucky enough to travel around the world a little bit with my job. And I can confirm that Scottish golf is unmatched. So looking forward to trying to educate as many people as possible on the show. Well, and that's what it speaks to. You have a passion for not only just Scottish golf, but I could tell from, you know, when

we maybe met almost 10 years ago was like, you have a passion for like, tour, I call them tourists, but other golfers from other nationalities, other countries, getting the most out of their experience when they travel to Scotland, right. And you've created a lot of content around that you have a YouTube channel, you have podcasts, you've just done a lot of that. And we just, you're the first person I thought of when we were starting this series to say, you know, you'll be the, uh, the exact person that can help us drill down into what

makes Scottish golf, you know, especially enjoyable, you know, kind of the taste and the appetite of a lot of American travelers. And this is kind of a, really a broad appealing episode. I think, you know, there's a large range of travelers from age and you know, how much money they want to spend and what kind of golf they're all into. We're going to try to cover it as best we can from kind of what we're passionate about, kind of give some color on some things like, Hey, maybe that's not our taste, our favorite flavor, but you might love this exact thing. If you are into this kind of thing and touch on as much as we can.

But what TC, I'm gonna start this one actually with you. What makes golf in Scotland special? This is coming from an American, right? Why would somebody make a trip over to Scotland to play golf? I think first and foremost, it's truly the home of golf. It's where it started. It's everything about the game makes more sense

once you've played golf in Scotland. And I was actually talking about this last night with a buddy of mine who I fish a lot with and he travels all over the world to like go catch a particular kind of fish. And I was kind of relating that to like, man, I'm going to Scotland to play a particular kind of golf hole or to have a particular kind of feeling. And so he's like, you know, he helped fly to the Seychelles to catch this, this bonefish. And, and, and he wants to, you know, that singular feeling for 45 seconds or whatever is why he made that whole trip. For me, that could be standing on a course that I didn't

really know anything about prior and having that feeling of, you know, it could be twilight, it could be in the morning, wind could be howling, the conditions could be awful, whatever. But just having that feeling a few times in a trip of, hey man, I'm so far from home. I've never heard of this golf course before. It's just truly transporting me to... It feels timeless almost, where it's something that you're going to remember the rest of your life. Standing in that particular spot, looking out. I remember I took Zach Blair and our buddy Dan to Brora and there's a rainbow over the sheep

on the little par 3. And I was like, man, I'm going to remember this singular moment for the rest of my life. And that's really, really powerful. And that to me is like the golf's really good when you go to Scotland. But what's kept me coming back is searching for those unexpected moments. Like you have the expectations of going to certain places or taking off certain courses. But for me, it's the unexpected kind of washing over you. And I feel like, you know, Ireland's great and England's great and Australia's great. But for me, like that, like Scotland is such a unique package, as well where it's so there's so much variety in such a and the people are so wonderful. And the culture is so deep and rich that it's just

it's geographically very, very doable. And there's, you know, and you can do it in so many different combinations that it's like, it's the total package for me. That's well said. And I think it was something I want to kind of permeate through all of this is Americans at times can tend and trend towards the more American style courses in Scotland, like as kind of their favorites

and the ones they anchor around. And I just, a point of emphasis, I think we want to make through all of these is like, what I've found to be especially appealing about traveling anywhere to play golf is experience that you're there to do something different, right? Like you are there, you know, like a course, you know, like Kill Spindi, an under 6,000 yard golf course, would not be something I would seek out in the United States necessarily, right? Or, you know, that I wouldn't travel to go play, but there it's different. Like you want to go and experience things that are different about the golf culture there than, than what you get at home, right?

That's an important permeating thing because I think also what we're not going to, it's going to sit here and list off the, uh, go print off a list of the top 10 courses in Scotland and suggest that you go play those. We're going to help you try to build out a golf trip that has layers on top of it. That's like, all right, yeah, if you go to this region, you gotta play this course. Like this is the one, like this is the one

worth traveling for. But like what you're filling out with the rest of that trip doesn't necessarily have to be the second rank course and the third rank course. Like getting some variety in your experience, even if it's your first trip, like even more so if it's your first trip, is some of the most rewarding stuff of what we've kind of experienced in a lot of our travels. The courses you've found, TC, that we've played have just, you know,

because that is the instinct, right? The instinct is I'm going here, this is my one chance, I'm going to play all the courses I can in this area and that's not necessarily the way to fill out a golf trip. Do you see a mix? Go ahead. Real quick, I'll raise my hand and say I didn't find any of these courses. They've been around for hundreds of years and I rely on people like Rue or other relationships that I have to kind of, I'll have ideas or I'll look at maps and stuff and then bounce stuff off these people. And a lot of times it's, Hey, you know what? I've never been there. Tell me how it is kind of thing. And weirdly Ru, I'm almost shocked that there's

a certain percentage of Scots that don't seem to explore their own country, which is crazy too. Yeah. I mean, you definitely have made people like me feel like we're not exploring enough. But yeah, I mean, I guess we're so rich and like you touched on Ireland, the difference between Scotland and Ireland is the intensity of like really good golf courses. Like Ireland of course has incredible Lynx golf courses, but I would say like you're a bit light on sort of the second, third tier courses,

and you certainly drive longer between those courses. So yeah, we're so lucky to have so many great golf courses, so many great Lynx golf courses. I don't know if we're gonna get into it now, but the analogy I used starting off coming to Scotland is you're coming to Scotland to play Lynx golf. There's a couple of really cool Parkland courses, but if you don't come to Scotland and play Lynx golf,

it's like going to Italy and eating hamburgers because Scotland has got about a third of the world's links golf courses. Yeah. Glen Egos and not global and our love lane, but yeah. Come for the links golf courses. So I I've never been to Scott. I never played links golf. Why is, why is links golf different? Why is it the, the, the crown jewel of the game of golf? Well, TC you've played, you've played all over the world and then, yeah, links golf's a bit like playing on the sand belt. I just think you can get more creative with it. It's more accessible for everybody.

Tesa plays better cause your ball doesn't go into knee high rough. I mean, there's so many benefits. I'm probably not sophisticated enough to go into like a whole list of them, but like there's a couple straight off the bat. Yeah, it just makes sense, right? It's like that's golf was played on the links because it was, you didn't have to overly manicure it or, you know, sand cap it. It was already like that.

And so let's just start with that of like, this is land that is linking the land in the sea, right? This was his land that, uh, you know, is not, correct me if I'm wrong, cannot be used for farming necessarily, the soil types, it creates a firmer layer of turf. You have incredible views on almost all of these courses that you're playing, because you are right up against the sea,

and it's truly like special ground, hollow ground, like the sound the ball makes when it hits is different. The feeling when you strike a shot is different. The way you play shots, how much the wind is gonna be blowing in these exposed locations, how you have to play around these small little pop bunkers that are designed specifically for this type of land, how the holes are designed to play in certain different winds. There's layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, but most importantly to me, it's like you just get the ball

off the ground, just let it roll like that. It's so much fun to watch the ball roll. Fun for all scale levels. You're not carrying lakes and creeks and, uh, having, you know, massive houses on one side, water on the other, like you'd find in Florida. Like it's just the most brain activating style of golfer, no matter what the skill level. I would even say from a physical standpoint, even walking, like you're less sore at the end of the day. Totally.

It's a nice firm surface to walk on. Rue, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like these days the summer is going deeper into the fall in Scotland. Like the spring is maybe a little bit more wet and cold, but like on Lynx courses, talking to a bunch of guys on the West coast of Scotland that are members of Presswick and Turnberry, they're like, oh, we play these courses in the winter. We play the Lynx courses in the winter, and then we want to go play Parkland courses in the summer just because it's more variety and we don't get that during the winter. We want to spice things up a little bit. They drain well and they're playable year round. And you know, we talked about why links golf and if you think about why we're still finding

these hidden gems is because they're so sustainable to keep. The most modest of operations when you rock up, there's maybe one Greek keeper, there's one person manning the clubhouse. The cost to obviously manage the golf course is kind of done by nature. So it's a lesson for a lot of the world actually, and just how sustainable and cost effective running a golf course can be. Yeah. And green speeds don't have to be like 14. It's a lesson, but it also speaks to like the unique nature of the land too. Like you

can't just pick that up and do that where TC and I live, right? It is, you know, but that it also speaks to the whole culture of golf, right? People, Americans especially will rock up to some of these clubs and ask a member what their annual dues are and be completely shocked because in a lot of places it is less than what a lot of Americans would pay for a month of dues at their clubs back in wherever they live

and not be getting the same depth of golf experience. It's just a, can you speak a little bit to like what the golf culture is like and how it is different to most places you've seen? Well, I mean, to use my example of a member of a top 100 golf course in the world, Tom Morris designed it's a 27 hole facility, driving range, practice putting green.

And I pay less than a thousand000 a year to be a member. And yeah, it's kind of in the north of Scotland, but it's within 20 minutes drive of an international airport. So yeah, we are very lucky. Culturally, golf touches every part of society. So that club that I mentioned, the Modest Annual Jews, we could have your local painter and decorator, you could have your lawyer, you could have your banker, you could have your high businessman, executive. It just touches everybody and you're brought

up with it with your parents or your grandfather, your friends, your friend's father, and it just touches all society. I think given how accessible it is, given that 99.5% of golf courses in Scotland are public, given that we have the right to roam here, which is any member of the public can walk across any part of any land without fear of trespassing. That's why you see so many dog walkers running across the fairways of North Barrett or St. Andrews is because they have the right to be there. They have to be respectful of the golf and they have to be aware of the health and safety

implications of walking across a golf course. But yeah, like I think that's a huge part of it. Like that's why you guys are, you know, mutual friends that we have in the industry get excited at the sight of a golf course full of dog walkers because it's kind of symbolic, right? If a dog walker can be on the golf course, anybody can be on the golf course. And I think that's a really key part of it

because people grow up with the golf community as part of theirs and it's not some separate thing. Just connected to society so much better too. Like compared to country clubs are, you know, walls up, trees, fences, and hiding away versus like North Barrack just rolls right into town. St. Andrew's obviously the most famous course of them all. It famously rolls directly into the town. It just all connected exactly to society.

That's really well said. But what makes Scotland so popular then for Americans, Rue? Like what is the, what's the appeal? Kind of set the scene for what it's like from arrival, both from planning and arrival and getting around and kind of why there's so many Americans that just pour in year after year. Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that the Open comes back, you know, the biggest international golf tournament in the world

kind of comes back and other year, it feels like to Scotland. It's a great advert for Lynx Golf, but of course, a lot of Scotland's open road courses benefit from that. Obviously, I work and we work in the world of professional golf. That's got a huge impact in driving interest in the game and into golf travel. I think our main market for overseas visitors is North Americans and there is the intrigue and the interest in sort of the history of the game. And obviously the ancestry that is tied to both Scotland

and Ireland with North Americans. I think that's a huge part to play. And I think culturally, you know, without giving everyone a boring history lesson, the game of golf kind of took fire or caught fire in St. Andrews, Scotland. It was then spread across the UK. Scottish golf pros got on boats to the East Coast of America and golf grew from there.

And now we're going through this pro crisis at the moment. Who owns golf? Well, Scotland definitely created golf and America kind of ran away with it culturally and unfortunately, the rest of the world is going to copy them, the American model of golf, which is private clubs, expensive green fees. But yeah, there's a cultural tie there with America and Scotland, I think, from the very early beginnings of golf in America, I think. What one thing I was kind of surprised, I was always intimidated by Scotland, you know, prior to ever making my first trip of like one, you got to go drive on the opposite side

of the road to like, it's going to cost a fortune to do this whole trip. Three, how do you even get tea times at these places? Like, and I was extremely surprised. My very first trip in 2015, landed Edinburgh airport, rent a car. Yeah, I got to drive on the opposite side of the road. You kind of learn how to do it in the first hour. That first hour is a little harrowing, but you get it done. And you show up in Fife and like it like the walls come down on everything, right?

You show up in St. Andrews and like, yeah, it's kind of hard to get on the old course. We can talk about how you do that. But like, getting on the new course, getting on the Jubilee day, everyone there from the moment I was there was trying to make me have the best possible golf trip I could have without kissing my ass and expecting a tip handout of some kind, right? It was like, I was like, kind of like, what's the catch here? Like, I don't understand why this is this welcoming, but it speaks to what we were saying about just the Scottish golf culture and how welcoming it is to tourists. I mean, there's a dollar incentive tied to all of

that. Everyone in the town of St. Andrews understands the American tourists keep the you know, keep the restaurant industry absolutely, you know bustling and the golf industry and the tour operators. There's just a massive industry that follows that but that was a big takeaway that I want people to have to is like there's certain places where it's really hard to go travel and do a golf trip and there's certain places that are easy and that's kind of why we're starting with this of you know, suggesting what is

the first Scottish golf trip? We're going to default to Americans here most of our listeners are Americans but the first Scottish golf trip that Americans should make where is it to I have a feeling I know the answer I feel that's one for you guys but um I think St Andrews is is where people gravitate towards and I think it's very hard not to, given that it's kind of a symbolic part of golf and golf travel and certainly Scottish golf travel. One thing I would say on that is don't be like focused purely on St. Andrews. If your old course tee time doesn't work out, I don't think that should be a deterrent for coming over here. I think you should still make the trip and I see

and hear so many people kind of just say, oh, I'll wait another year if I can't get St. Andrew's tea time. I think you're slowing your annual Scottish golf trip down by doing that. You're going to come to Scotland regardless and fall in love with the place and plan your next Scottish golf trip. So don't be put off. But yeah, the answer to that question is St. Andrew's and Fife and that, that greater region. I would say there's a, going back to your, your kind of points about why Scotland in the first place Sally is I think also like there's a distinct lack of bullshit in Scotland where Scots are very frugal in a good way. I think Scots are very, there's a lot of pride there.

They don't ever want to be taken advantage of. And I feel like they pay that forward to visitors and to others. And I think maybe getting away from that a little bit, just with some of the some of the green feet increases these last few years, but that's the American way or that's supply and demand. And as long as they're pouring that back into the golf courses and taking care of the locals, that's fine. But I think for me too, going to Scotland feels like the best parts of going to Europe and everybody speaks English.

There's something to be said for that of there's no language barrier except for in certain parts of Scotland where I just can't fucking understand anybody. But you know, and like, you know, people legitimately, you'll go to a club and everybody wants to know what you thought of the golf course and genuinely excited. You're there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, there's that feeling of, you know, some of the smaller places, Hey, my, my green fee went towards further in this place. That's been around for a couple hundred years. So, uh, I would say the, the worst part about going to Scotland for a golf trip is the walk from baggage claim to the rental car facility.

The Edinburgh airport is, uh, is like the worst thing of the whole trip. That's what I, that's what I like having anxiety about more so than, uh, than driving on the left side of the road at this point. So, but yeah, I would say, you know, I think, I think right along the lines with Rue there too, is you're going to Scotland because it's the home of golf and to understand golf better. And if you haven't been there before, you want to go to the home of golf and that's St. Andrews in Fife. And I think if you really love your first Scottish golf trip, you're going to come back, right? Like you're going to, you're going to come

back and go up to the highlands or go to the West coast or go out to the Western Isles, all that stuff. But like, like, I think everybody has this tendency to want to squeeze three or four regions into one trip and, you know, cross off all these things because they don't think they're ever going to go back. And it's like, just trust yourself. I know it's, you know, I know it's expensive, but also like, you can do these trips for less than you think you can as well if you're not trying to just go play a bunch of open road of courses too. So I think like two regions, like you can do it from Fife.

You can go up to, you know, Cruden Bay or Aberdeen from there or down to East Lothian. There's some jumping off points there, but you know, like I don't like too many times, like I get probably a dozen messages or emails a week of like, Hey, we're going to Scotland and we're doing, you know, St. Andrews and then we're going down to North Baric and then we're going to Presswick and True and Turnberry and then, and then we're flying out of Aberdeen or we're flying out of Inverness, you know, and we're

doing two days at Dornick. And I'm like, like, what's going to help you appreciate a Dornec so much more is to go play at Gullsby or Aurora. Or what's going to help you appreciate St. Andrews so much more is to go play in Ely or Carnoose to go play at Panmere. Everybody has it in their mind that they want to go play championship golf courses. When really a lot of the people going over eight, 10, 12, 15 handicaps are used to playing in the wind are used to playing 36 whole days. And the championship golf course is like, yes, they're more notable or they're more famous, but it's like, you know, it's just longer.

It's a sample. It's just a sample of the offering too. Yeah. And it's like, you're just going to get the shit beat out of you for if you're a higher handicap and you're going to be tired and all of that, and you're not going to enjoy, you know, like there's, there's so much more quirk and charm and flair and some of these shorter quirkier golf courses that are there, you know, they just have a lot more personality to them and you're going to enjoy that, that just as much as you are the open road of course. So soapbox. Yeah. No, can you give us an idea before we kind of dive into to five St. Andrews area kind of give us an idea of the geography of Scotland, right? Where the top courses are and kind

of what the different regions are. I don't know how many you would classify specifically, but as TC was just saying, you can get caught up. If you're going off a top 10 list of some kind, you can get caught up in four different regions pretty quickly. That's maybe not the best way to go about your trip. Give us an idea of what's possible to do maybe together amongst those regions as well. What is like, no, just go to this region and do this? I think it's really important just to echo your points about the driving

because it's a mistake that I see almost all the time. A 90-mile stretch of road in the US, and I've been lucky enough to travel around the US, you've got some great infrastructure TC in the US and you've prided yourself on the infrastructure. And we just don't. Some of the roads are a dual carriageway, like proper highways. But some of the courses, or the roads between courses, are quite hairy, single, two-way roads that you're getting used to driving a shift stick car on the other side of the road.

It's not a nice drive. And 90 miles in America is a lot longer in the UK and in Scotland. So yeah, just slow down, try and find two places to camp up and stay for the duration of your trip, two regions. And I think Scotland is kind of broken into sort of five, you know, TC is making a sixth region in the Western Isles of Scotland. But we've got five, you've got the Highlands of Scotland, which people kind of

think is the whole country. It really is just the north of Scotland, which has your Royal Dornachs, your Castle Stewart, your Nairns, your Broras. That is quintessential Scotland. That's kind of what you see in the movies. Beautiful vistas, mountains, locks, you name it, it's up there. In fact, it's probably the region I would go on a couples golf trip to Scotland. If you're bringing your significant other, I'd probably bring her up there.

The East Coast of Scotland or the Northeast Coast of Aberdeen is kind of the second region. I'm just doing these kind of in a college quarter from North to South, but yeah, this is the region that I'm currently speaking from you from. So you've got the likes of Cruden Bay, Royal Aberdeen, Trump International. And then further East, you've got kind of the Carnoustie

and Fife region. So you've got Carnoustie, St. Andrews, and we can obviously go deeper into St. Andrews. So that's kind of like your East Newc of Fife. It's basically Fife, what we'd call that, or St. Andrews. So that's your sort of three regions to that point. Also on the East Coast, which is near Edinburgh, is the region called East Lothian.

They kind of brand themselves Scotland's Gulf Coast because they've got an incredible richness of golf courses, almost spanning, you know, they're almost next door to each other. They're sort of that close to each other. And the likes of Muirfield, North Barrett, Gullan are down that way. And then on the other side of the country, the West Coast, only an hour and a half's drive from the East Coast,

to give you a sense of how small Scotland is, is another incredibly rich region, which we sort of all watched on TV this year was the area of Ayrshire which is home to Troon, Prestwick, Western Gales, Turnberry. So yeah, there's not actually, there's a crazy visual which I'm sure you will find to support the audio here Chris, but there's a visual of Scotland's golf courses. The whole map is full on the East Coast, but when you get to the West Coast, we've got a bit more of a mountainous scene up there, certainly to the north of Ayrshire, so there's a few less golf courses.

That's a big shop. Exactly. It only took us 20 minutes to speak about him. Yeah, he's his region of open and sort of the Fort Williams region. There's certainly a lack of golf in that reason for for good reason. So okay, if we're going, we're going to cover Fife really within this episode, right of the first trip there, your first trip. So you land in Edinburgh, how far is it to Fife? How far, how do we get there? What is, you know, what's the best way to do that?

Do I rent a car? Do I have a car service take me out there? Will I need a car once I'm in Fife? How does that offer, differ if I'm doing it on my own versus hiring, you know, doing my trip through a service of some kind? Kind of paint the scene for how you would go about setting up accommodations, travel and all that stuff. Yeah, the travel side is super interesting. The cost of rental cars

seem to be quite high at the moment in Scotland. Having done my research before the recording, it's staggering to see the change in the amount of overseas, I'm going to say American again, North American guys that are gravitating to a concierge bus driver. Like 95% of golf trips built now are using a golf driver, someone to just basically drive around, which is pretty nuts. And that is a quick way to increase the cost of that because that isn't cheap. But it also just takes away the stress of having to drive.

And if you've got a group of six, eight, eight plus six to eight is ideal for a bus driver. And it would be kind of similar to what if you were paying for taxis everywhere. The St. Andrews region is unique in that there's so much golf in that region that you could take an Uber, which is about an hour and 20 minutes from Edinburgh to St. Andrews. You could also take the train to the nearby station, which is Lukers. Very easy. I'll just throw a flag there. The fact that you can't take the train directly into St. Andrews as a university town and somewhere that exists because it was on the train line there and the old course hotel was a train station.

Every time it just blows my mind. The last few times I've been over, I've taken a cab back. We've had a rental car, but we've got staggered departures and everything. I'm taking a cab back to the airport at 4 AM or whatever. And I'm just like, man, I'm paying $150 for a cab from St. Andrews to EDI. And like, you know, the fact that there's not a, a reliable train service trip, you know, point to point there's crazy. That's one for the cab draw. But yeah, I, but what I would say is that Luke Hurst is about a 10 minute cab ride from

St Andrews. So it's, it's very doable. I've done that before. Back when I was living in Europe and balling truly on a budget, I was, I was lugging golf clubs in and out of the Luchers station there. And then you go Luchers to Edinburgh central and then you have to take a, another train to the airport, right? Yeah. Or the trial, which we spent a lot of money on, which some might question the success of that. But the tram would take you right into the city center and out to the airport.

So I honestly would Uber. Uber would be my bet. And then you just take, there's a million cab companies in the St. Andrews that could take you to and from your rounds of golf. And I think it would just be a lot cheaper than then worth noting there's no Uber within St. Andrews when you do get their city cab, I think is the one we've used in the past, you call them up schedule it and they'll get you you know, to

and from right and I think and we'll get into some of these courses as well. But you could play three, four courses within walking distance right there in St. Andrews and not need a cab other than if you're going to Ely or if you're going to Kings Barnes or if you're going to Crayil or maybe Carnucis a bit more of a haul from there, maybe 40 minutes or so probably from Fife would be kind of stretching it out a little bit, but it is possible to do without your own transportation. But to your point for the larger trips, like that we got a van and a driver when we did our Ireland trip, which obviously different than Scott. If it was almost a must do in Ireland with how kind of tight those

roads are out there and like talk about releasing the stress too, because again, if you've never been to, you know, to a golf trip in the UK or Ireland, like your guys Americans like to have a couple, a couple of drinks after a round or something like that. You're drinking and driving laws are a lot more strict than ours. I don't know exactly what the tolerance is in Scotland, but don't want to be mixing alcohol with driving on the wrong side of the road

and especially with how tight your guys' laws are over there. That's a great flag actually. And yeah, I've worked a little bit in London in the last kind of decade and they have two or three pints after work and drive home. I mean, you couldn't even really have a bottle of beer in Scotland. We've got close to zero tolerance on drink driving. Culturally, we've had a problem with alcohol. I actually think it's quite good because it's black and white. You don't really chance it. So that's

a great- It kind of takes the decision out of your hands, which I think is refreshing. the point of that being about being in the car is like one, you can have your drinks in the back. I don't know if that's technically, I didn't necessarily approve of that. But like your time in the back with the people you're traveling with becomes vacation time as well, instead of stress of getting from place to place. Right. So I think it is, yeah, it's an added expense. But, you know, with that many people, you know, you need multiple rental cars anyways, like you might as well spend a people, you know, you need multiple rental cars anyways, like you might as well spend a little bit extra per person

and kind of have that time to talk about your round and then try, it really is some strong memories from the two times I've taken trips where you have taken a car, so. And part of the beauty of going to Fife and St. Andrews is you're posted up there and there's gonna be half the days of your trip, you probably won't need transportation. Yeah, exactly. So, okay, if I'm going on this trip, where should I stay?

I'm getting into Fife. What are my options and kind of what's the charming route? What's the expensive route? If I'm on a budget, where am I going? Kind of give me some of those options. I think hopefully you guys agree. Like St Andrews is one of maybe three or four like genuine golf towns in Scotland that I just think you can't avoid. I think you have to stay in. Andrews is one of maybe three or four genuine golf towns in Scotland that I just think you can't avoid. I think you have to stay in St. Andrews. People have been drawn up to the Fairmont St. Andrews, for example, which is out of town. You literally could be in any Fairmont in the world. Fairmont's a lovely hotel chain as there's lots of other hotel chains, but they're a chain because they want you to look and feel the same when you're in those properties.

St. Andrews is different. Get yourself in St. Andrews. The cost of accommodation is through the roof in St. Andrews hotel-wise. Consider I think self-care and accommodation in St. Andrews. I think that's the obvious place to start. I don't know if you guys agree. I've been like, we've stayed everywhere from Airbnb's to done like a little, you know, a little bed and breakfast. I've stayed at the at the little done vegan spot there.

I've stayed at the old course hotel, which I personally hate. It's like maybe the most depressing place I've ever stayed. It's just dark and I can see. Let me tell you, I stayed at Agnes Blackadder hall one time, a dorm, a little dorm there. Let me tell you, you did not say the most depressing place you could stay at St. Andrews, but man, was it affordable? Holy crap. Was it affordable? That's the thing. It's depressing knowing how much you're paying for it. And you know, you're paying the piper to get that guaranteed St. Andrews, you know, old course tee time

there, but it's, it's just, it's just a weird walk to back, you know, old course tee time there, but it's just, it's just a weird walk to back, you know, like you feel weird, like you're, you're so close to town, but you're weirdly disconnected from it as well. So yeah, I mean, you know, there's so, there's so many little like 10, 12, 14 room bed and breakfast that it's tough to go wrong. Um, you know, but yeah, yeah, I totally agree staying in town, because that's the magic of it. There's an energy there, there's the students, there's the bookstore, was it topping and company,

there's some great coffee shops, which is kind of a rarity in Scotland. Rue, you guys do not do, like I need a nice strong cup of coffee in the morning, and that's not a consistent theme. No, certainly not early. Like half eight might be the time yet. These coffee shops open which blow, certainly blow your guys' minds.

And I fully agree with you on that one. You made a good point there, Sully, about the Blackadder accommodation. I mean, it's definitely on my list here about if you're looking for budget accommodation in the summer, St. Andrews is a vibrant, one of the most affluent universities that you can go to, colleges that you can go to in the UK, made famous by the Royals that went there about two decades ago.

But when the students vacate in the summer, they actually lease the halls out to more and more golfers now. So instead of paying 500 pounds a night in a five-star hotel, which is pretty much the golden rate now in St. Andrews, you could probably grab a room there for certainly close to the 100-pound mark. And yeah, certainly slumming it a little bit. But I remember this.

We shared double beds to double those four of us shared two double beds. It was 70 bucks a night though. I remember that it was, I was trying to keep to 40 bucks a day on my accommodation back in those days. So if you really, if you want to do it on the cheap, you definitely have options there. And then I think if you want to splurge, I would say at the rustics or the Rusex or however you pronounce it, like that's the no brainer. That's the nice hotel in town, best, best location and you know, best food and beverage offerings.

So tie this in now, we're with getting an old course tea time service providers, uh, you know, tea time providers, uh, concierge, whatever you're calling them there. Uh, kind of the appeal of that, I've personally never done that through a Scottish trip, other than the one we did with a bunch of members that we took, which was through connoisseur golf, but kind of take us to the appeal of that. Does that help you get an old course tee time?

And if you're not doing that, how are we getting on the old course? They all have their merits. I mean, you guys in North America are quite tight on vacation time. so if you don't have time on your hands and if time is money, you would throw it to these guys and they would take care of it all. But I think now with the internet and the content I'm trying to share online, I think

you can find a lot of this out yourself. There's definitely cases where golf travel agents come in useful. The one thing I would look out for in St. Andrews is looking for an authorized St. Andrews links provider. They essentially have premium guaranteed tee times to sell, and they are premium that you're having to pay for additional golf courses. You're having to stay in certain hotels, and you do pay a premium, but it is guaranteed.

For me, that is the value of a golf travel agent in this instance, absolutely. Do we want to go into the different ways to get an old course to each other? Sure, absolutely, because that permeates through a lot of things here, because if you're not doing that, you're putting yourself a little bit behind the eight ball, whether or not you're going to be able to get one, as I understand it. Yeah. So you've got the guaranteed premium providers,

and there is probably 30 to 50 of those. You could Google them. You can find them. I've certainly got some recommendations as well of certain ones that I like. But then you've got your kind of advanced ballot reservation, which is they call them the Swelcombe package. You're essentially paying for the old course and the new or the Jubilee.

It's basically a two-round package. This is great. This takes place in August. We've just been through it. It's an advanced reservation ballot. The likelihood of you coming out of that is pretty slim, but it does give you a bit of a runway to actually say, well, look, I've got my tea time or I don't have my tea time.

And so results for that are coming out next month in October. So you've got from October to, I guess you've got nine months to sort of figure it out. That's a no brainer to throw your name into that every August. As I said, the supply and demand of all course tee times across the board and Scottish golf trips are just through the roof at the moment. So just manage expectations. The next one would be your, I guess, your 48 hour ballot,

which again is all done through StAndersLinks.com. And that is, as it sort of says, 48 hours before your day of play, you would go into the ballot. You're also in with locals, Sondander's ticket holders. So the likelihood of coming out of that is, less than 10 to one. So at the moment, I'm just hearing unprecedented demand,

just crazy. So- Do people like from out of town, are people from, do you have to be in the city limits or anything to enter that ballot? Or if really anybody can enter it from anywhere in the country and just try to turn up at St. Andrews if they actually get the tea time or something? Yeah. I mean, without getting into the weeds too much, local ticket holders, which are made up of clubs in the town including

the RNA or the St. Andrews Golf Club which I'm a member of. We do get a slightly better chance of going into the local ticket applicants but it's still pretty difficult. And yeah, there's people from all over Scotland, the UK, the world's putting in for that. So it's really, it's really, really hard to come away with an all course tee time. And it's also not an ideal way of sort of planning your trip to sort of be 40 hours out from your day of play and not having anywhere to play, it's difficult, or getting pulled out of the all course ballot

and sort of having wasted 250 pounds on a golf course somewhere else that you can't get a refund. The one time I've managed to do this, and this was I went through the singles queue, which is different, it doesn't really exist anymore and we can talk about that. But I will say I was extremely pleasantly surprised. We got a kind of a surprise tee time through that singles queue in, you're on the tee in 27 minutes is what they told us. And we had a Kings Barnes tee time that morning. Kings Barnes was not even open yet. We just said, we're taking the old course. We're going to do it. We'll see what happens. We called Kings Barnes later and said, Hey, we got in the old course ballot. Is there any way we can move

to this afternoon? And they were, this was in August of 2015. They were without a doubt like, yep, you guys can come out at 2.30 or whatever it was. And it was just like, man, that just spoke to the atmosphere around like, you're not going to be the first person to have to move something around for the old course there. And courses may have changed policies or whatnot since then and may vary from course to course. But again, that speaks to like, my experience in this area was

that like people are going to do what they can to make sure you have a great time. They're not out to get you and they can find a way to to get you, and they can find a way to get you in. Yeah, they can find a way to get you in. Now again, demand may have changed pretty greatly in the last nine years, and that may not be as easy, but that's not all to say that you're totally screwed if you go this route.

No, and then Kingsbarns still have that policy, and in fact, I think they're self-aware enough to know that people don't come to Fife or St. Andrews to play Kings Barnes. The majority of people don't. So they've built a business. Without going on to the trap draw again, TC, Kings Barnes must be the most profitable golf course in the world.

It's like the Scottish pebble, basically. And they've got 10% of the operational costs. They've got a very modest clubhouse, they've got a meeting great, they've got a couple of golf ops people. Yeah, sure, they've got maybe 15, 20 people on the green staff, but I mean, 18 whole facility, very easy to manage. Fescue, grass, greens, the whole lot. It's such a profitable golf course.

I mean, it's sold out from like 12 hours a day, every day of the week, no members, just visitor income only. It's crazy. And they have been super flexible. And there are a number of other courses that are flexible. But there are also others that are not flexible. But yeah, Kings Barnes was definitely a note to say like, sure, it's very expensive. I think it's creeping up to $500 around Kingsbarns, making it one of the most expensive green fees in the world, but people are still going. So they do a lot of things well there,

but yeah, it's an option. It's definitely that tier one bucket in that area. I gotta admit, I'm a little afraid to open my app for the stack right now because I'm getting dinged on my grid score. I was a 99% grid score for how dedicated I have been to the program. Had a couple babies last week. Haven't worked out in a week. I'm hoping to sneak in. They have these little makeup sessions you can do in there when life gets in the way a

little bit. If you want to do a little makeup session for you get back on your speed training program. You've heard me talk a lot about this program. I can confidently say before I went on leave, I hit my highest ball speed I've ever recorded personally, 175 miles an hour on the golf course. I think I can go even faster. I didn't make it to 180 in time for the twins to get here, but I got kind of close. I got a lot farther along than I thought I actually would. I set a lofty goal and wanted to see how far I could actually make it. But I cannot say enough great things about this program. It's very

easy to do. You can do it in your backyard. It's perfect for the winter. I in my opinion, this is not their words. In my opinion, the fastest way to gain strokes on the golf course in terms of you don't have a lot of time to practice don't have a lot of time to train online time to work out. It takes like 35 minutes to do in your backyard twice a week, and you will gain serious speed in yours. It is scientifically proven that you will gain serious speed in your golf swing.

You can go to thestacksystem.com, use code NOLAINGUP. That'll get you 10% off your order. We're gonna be a lot of other stories flowing in here. DJ's been doing it, Cody's been doing it. You can track your friends on it. The app is amazing. Thestacksystem.com, code NOLAINGUP. Back to our pod.

Solid, your point too, I think the, you know, I've met a lot of gruff Scott's, but I've never met a Scott that like, was just genuinely unhelpful. Right. Like it's like everybody wants to like, there's a, there's a distinct thread of common sense and like humanity there that every, you know, if you ask somebody a question, like they're going to give you an honest, direct answer.

They may not, like it may not be the answer you're looking for, but they're not gonna just kick you out and say, hey, you know what, like, I'm not gonna help you. It's like, they're very direct and blunt and honest, but in a way that I really appreciate and it's refreshing. Well, it's too, I've been a lot of countries around the world and it's pretty like what you're describing there aligns really well

with countries that have high percent of whatever income, GDP, whatever it is based on tourism, right? Like basically it's like if we're gonna be, everyone's nice to tourists when they understand like exactly what, you know, part like when I went to Ukraine, not necessarily, that's nice. They are not really relying on tourist income as much as they were in like Morocco which was like yes we this is a travel country we need people to come in here and you know spend their money and do that and that's

how I've always felt. But it's not even like I think you know I'm probably going to take shots from the Irish here but like I feel like sometimes the Irish can kind of just blow smoke up your ass a little bit or be so effusively positive or, or, you know, just kind of, I don't know, just like tell you what you want to hear kind of thing. Or I feel like Scots are more direct and honest, but at the same time, very hospitable and just, you know, it's, it's, it's very much like there's an authenticity to it that they, you know, it's, it's, it's very much like, there's an authenticity to it that they, you know, they treat you like they treat everyone else. It's, and they treat everyone else. Well, I think is kind of the thread. Back to the old course, you know, here, tying in what I was

saying about beyond move the Kings Bar and see time as well. And what I've also had luck with is when I've had, you know, like a new course or Jubilee course, time and gotten on the old, the ability to move those around as well. And also being in St. Andrews and being able to knock up to the new course or the Jubilee and get on day of in some capacity are kind of important flexible things in relation to this. We're going to break down some of these golf courses a little bit more specifically, because I think they're very much worth your time. But like that little bit of flexibility

is pretty important if you're showing up to St. Andrews without a specific old course tee time. Absolutely, and I think there's still an opportunity to do that. The likelihood of it happening has certainly become less. I mean, the number I've got here is, it's 15 to 20 times oversubscribed to the ballot every day. So it gives you a sense of just like the demand that's there.

And then obviously the sort of the offshoot of that is obviously the other courses are then oversubscribed if you don't get on. There's definitely a business case to be said. St. Andrews probably needs another world, like a really solid golf course there because the ones that are there at the moment are oversubscribed. There's maybe something in the works already outside of town. But yeah, it certainly leaves you scratching your head and wondering, right, if I don't

have an all-course tee like, where do we go? And I don't think people should be put off by St. Andrews, but I think they should know that it is very expensive. It's certainly the most expensive region in Scotland. I mean, the US dollar against the pound is pretty solid at the moment, I think. So it might not hurt too many people's pockets, but it's definitely the most expensive region in Scotland. Alex Sarris So maybe the yeah, I think maybe the

answer, especially if you're listening to this a year on from when we're publishing it is, maybe come spend two or three days in St. Andrews on the front end of the trip and then kind of shorten that versus you could have I've spent a week in St. Andrews at a time and I've just popped in for a day or two as well. Because Rudy, your point as well, like I think weirdly Fife doesn't have as much great golf. Like there's not the depth in Fife, I think when you get outside of St. Andrews as, as there is in like East Lothian or Ayrshire. I think there's definitely a, sorry not to like preempt our talk about all the courses

and everything, but like there's such an opportunity for courses like London and Levin to kind of raise their floor a little bit and attract more of these tourist dollars and be kind of, you know, just be more gravity there. Let's get into that now then. We've talked enough about higher level stuff of kind of the way we're going to structure this. I'm hoping this is a repeatable template that we can do in every region that we do. But we're going to try to build out, list out golf courses in four different tiers. I get so many, DC, I can't imagine how many you get. So many questions about building a trip to blah, blah,

blah to Scotland or whatever. And it does come down to personal tastes. Like it's really hard to do this, but if you're asking me and you guys feel free to chime in here if you feel any differently about it, but there's usually, it depends on the region, but tier one in a certain region might have four courses or might have one.

And I'm curious to hear how you guys do this, but tier one would be like, must play, no questions asked, base your trip around going to this course or these courses and do not miss them. Old course is a little weird in this one, I think we're all gonna put that in there, but I think we would still say it's worth going and trying to get on.

Even if you don't get on, you're still gonna have a great time in St. Andrews, but if you're going to St. Andrews and not trying to get an old course of time, I don't know what you're doing there. That's an interesting one. Yeah. I guess it's kind of like, how do we treat tier one? Is it relative to the other courses in the region or is it relative to the other regions? Is tier one in Fife would maybe be different from tier one, you know, on the West Coast. Well, I think you like for me, I mean, we can we'll get into this, but I think there's maybe only one tier one course in Fife and that is the old course. Whereas if you

do the West Coast, I would put Turnberry and Trune in tier one in terms of just kind of that that level. Now, Carnusty is going gonna be in my next tier of courses, but it's just 40 minutes away, right? So it is, you know, tier two I'm calling, you know, tier two is gonna be like a series of courses to select from, like you cannot go, we're sending you somewhere that's good and you're not gonna have a bad time,

but probably can't play all of them, right? And again, that speaks back to what we started in the beginning of the show talking about of, we think it's probably more important to add something from tier three, tier four, which like I would call tier three, like not going to be on a top 100 list, but you should play at least one of these courses if you're in the area and we'll explain why for each one of these courses. But you know, a course like Crayol is a very unique Scottish golf experience, whereas,

you know, insert other course, that's a great course, like, you know, if you're already playing a bunch of other top courses, you're not getting the variety maybe that you need to really make a trip a special, special and then tier four is kind of more, more expert level more of the TC angle here of like, let's get weird. If you've got time, if you've got curiosity, like going off the map, we'll explain kind of what to expect with each of these places. You know, some regions might have 10 of them,

some might have zero. I think that are especially appealing. But again, breaking it out like this, I think is interesting because it is extremely easy to, like we said, to print off that list and try to hit all the top courses. But I think you'd be leaving something on the table. I think we can explain why with some of these places.

So what's your tier one for five area you see must play, no questions asked, base your trip around these and do not miss. You're going to call me crazy. Obviously the old course. I think if you're in San Andrews and you don't play the new course, you're crazy as well. Like I would put the new course up there. I love playing the new course. I look forward to it every time. And then you're going to put it in either tier two or tier three. It's a tier one course for me.

It's among my favorite courses in the world. I think I think Ely is a freaking tier one golf course. And I just I like even the thought of playing that place makes me happy. And it's it's everything that I want from a round of golf with quirk and variety. I mean, 16 par fours and two par threes. And yet you feel like you're playing radically different par fours over, you know, like there's no notice. Yeah, exactly. There's a bar on the fourth T it's, it's, you know, it's freaking wild. You get down and it's great on a cloudy day, but man, you get out there on a nice sunny afternoon and there's not many places in the

world I'd rather be. So that would be my three in Fife that are tier one. If I'm in Fife personally, those are the three courses that I absolutely cannot miss. I love the fact you can talk about golf travel and sort of never be wrong because it's so subjective. We're all here with our own views and that's why these lists exist because it gets people talking. But can you just, the worst named course in Scotland is the new course, St. Andrews. Yes. Oh my God. Thank you. It's very old. Can you, I don't think you've done some great videos recently with the St. Andrews Lynx Trust and start showcasing the golf on offer there alongside the old course. TC, could you talk to what is the new course?

What course does it feel like that you've played maybe elsewhere? I just don't think people have any sense of what it's about. And we have a video, it could be out by the time you're listening to this on the new course. We've never filmed out there, which is a crime, but it is in production and we're recording this on September 25th, year of 2024. It's probably out if you're listening to this, but it's coming soon. So go ahead. Yeah, the new is just, it's like, I think in an ideal world, you'd almost play the new before you play the old. And it's coming soon. So go ahead. Yeah. The new is just, it's like, I think in an ideal world, you'd almost play the new before you play the old. And it's a great introduction to like, if you're going,

if this is your first Lynx golf trip, yes. And you're going to St. Andrews, I would say like the new course would be, you know, maybe go play the Eden, you know, the front end of the Eden, the day you get in and then play the new the next day and then build up towards the old. Cause I feel like playing the new first would maybe help you appreciate and understand the old more plays a little bit more within the dunes back there.

There's some par fives are exceptional. The par three, it's, it's pretty flat for the most part, but there's more land movement on the new than there is on the old or threes are like super, super fun. Yeah. I mean, it's what like 18, 1885, 1890. So I think it's 1895 old, old Tom Morris literally designed the new course, right? And the, to your point, people like for as much as we are kind of preaching here, like go and play the old shit when it comes to Scotland. I don't blame people that say like the new course, I don't want to play the new one, but like it does need need a rename, it needs renamed, it totally needs. I get why it's called the new next when it sits right next

to the old but you are like you're on the same piece of land as the old like you play the first what I mean, essentially eight holes, not literally all eight holes, but like holes 123 and then you got to a little zigzag and then you play all the way out to the eighth are all played directly next to old course holes, right? So it's literally the same land, and it's a different style. It's like a lot more basic links.

Like the old course is one of one, and we can talk about kind of what makes that special. Double greens, double fairways, kind of like an old, truly old concept of the game of golf. New is like a more traditional golf course in terms of 18 individual holes, but brilliantly placed pop bunkers that are the whole exercise of Lynx golf is avoiding these pop bunkers. These holes play so awesome depending on the different wind directions, just really, really entertaining long approach shots you have

into some of the par fives or maybe even to some of the par fours that the wind isn't in your favor. A ton of strategy and super well maintained in terms of like they keep that Gorse back and it is not a chore to play this place. You're going to hit your ball and you're going to find it. You can find some Gorse if you get really offline, but I feel like of the last 10 years when I've visited there, it just been trimmed back more and more and more. And it is just so enjoyable. I will join you on an embassive endorsement of the new TC. I would put that in tier two, just the way I would define it in terms of like, it would be a mistake to miss it, but it still goes in that category of like, you cannot go wrong with the new. And if you've got a bunch of other stuff jam packed in there

and don't happen to get to it, then, uh, you know, I think that you're still going to have a great time there, but tier two is also a very, very, very strong endorsement in terms of, I would be absolutely stunned if anybody turned up to the new and ever had a bad time. It's just a brilliant golf. And it's not gonna beat up high handicappers either. No. It's kind of a choose your own adventure.

You can take on the trouble, or you can try to go make birdies, or you can make easy pars, or hard pars and easy bogeys, kind kind of if you want to as well. Yeah What's how does your tier shakeout room to your well just just on the new I couldn't agree more I mean, it's got all the parts to you know One of your first golf experiences potentially being kind of a satisfying one the turf I'm not massive on turf

but like the turf there is so fast and firm and it seems to be always in great condition. And then as you said, it's sort of the feeling of it certainly is a Lynx course, but it feels like a Lynx course. And I think that's really important for people that are coming to experience it for the first time. The old course is of course number one, I think, like a lot of people, it probably took me a while to really fall in love with the course, but I've been lucky to play it close to a dozen times now and sort of fall in love with it more and more. I kind of think about golf courses in Scotland that I dislike more and more that I play which is never a good thing but certainly the old course is like a grower and I don't think at the age of 18 my golf IQ was at a level to really appreciate the old course

when I played it for the first time so definitely would sort of tell people to persist there. Certainly some of the holes when you're not looking at the town can feel a bit underwhelming. But as you start to get closer and closer to town, it certainly is an enjoyable experience. And you'll hit shots and putts, most likely putts, you'll never hit anywhere else in the world on the course. Tier two, Ely,

I've had some of my favorite rounds there. 2022 opened some of our mutual friends and I headed out there for a game and we didn't finish until half past 10 at night and it was truly one of the best rounds of golf that I've experienced. I think experiences matter. I think of the ambience and I think experiences matter. I think the ambience and Jeff Shackelford wrote a great book recently about golf architecture and why people love golf courses. And I think the energy you get from a place and the setting you get from a place for me matters and Ely gives you that kind of great feeling when you're playing the golf course. Yeah, that's where like, like going back to like why I go to Scotland. Like that's why I go to Scotland is to walk to crest the hill. And what is that on nine?

Yeah. And then, you know, crest the hill and you look out at the first and then you get the little par three there and then 10 is the short four where you cross the 10. Yeah. And then, and then, and then 11 and then 12 plus up the shoreline into that massive kind of, you know, dune feature. And it's just, man, like that's just seared into my memory and my eyes get wide even talking about it. It's a gift people an understanding here. So St. Andrew's is kind of sits to the north. It sits to the north of Ely, right? So it's kind of a, it's a unique kind of coastline. You'd have to look at a map

for it to get properly kind of described here, but it is about a 25 to 30 minute cab ride to Ely. But it's away from town. It's kind of like in a little, correct me if I'm wrong, where this is kind of a more of a vacation club for a lot of people, either Edinburgh residents or whatnot. Like I don't think, I think it's the month of July now, where they don't allow visitor play. Does that sound familiar to you? It's kind of a summer

club, but you can get on as an international guest, just not in July or not in August. Which month is it? Yeah, I'm not familiar with that. It's certainly like a touristy, non-golfer sort of seaside, quintessential seaside Scottish harbour town. And so there's actually a couple of lovely restaurants in Ely, a nice couple of pubs as well. I wouldn't probably say to stay there because you're going to stay in St. Andrews. But yeah, it gets pretty sleepy after about nine o'clock, eight or nine. Yeah. Yeah. But as I said, it's,

you know, think about that place 200 years ago, I mean, it probably was the heartbeat of that community, the harbor and how things kind of moved around. So crazy to think there was golf being played there at that same time. Another shout out for Creole, there's two courses at Creole. There's the newer Gil Hans course, or there's the Balcomie. I personally love the Balcomie. Again, it's like a par 66, I believe. So people will maybe be put off by that. But I think for somebody wanting to experience links golf, I think it's perfect. So I would

throw that in there. I think we mentioned Kings Barnes, certainly previously, I think it merits an inclusion in tier two. I can see why people don't wanna pay that much money. It certainly wouldn't be sort of on my top three or four in the region, but I think it's sort of set up to entertain the clientele that's coming. I don't think it's made for people like me, but another one next door to that would be Dunbarney, which is a kind of modern links course

operated by an American art consortium, very new, but one that has tea times and plays fast and firm and a good option. If you are struggling for a tea time, I think you can still pick up tea times there during the summer months. I don't know if you guys played there. You have, right, TC? I have not played there yet. I've walked around the site. I watched the women's open there or the women's Scottish when they had it there. It's very, um, I don't know. I've kind of torn on and I don't want to like give it a, a review just cause I

haven't played it, but I was a little surprised at like the, the inconsistency of the bunkering. It looks like there's some new modern stuff and then they're trying to do the regular pot bunkers. It just seems like there's not a consistent theme throughout. Yeah. It's pretty new. I think it's maybe five or six years old.

They've certainly had their challenges. But we talked about the desire for golf in that region. I think they're certainly tapping into it. It's made for North Americans. I want to spend a little time on that. You mentioned Kings Barnes, you mentioned the expense. It is an interesting wrinkle in this conversation, because I have that as a tier two course. I don't think you're going to have a bad day at Kings Barnes. I think it's beautiful. It is a more modern style of links. It's not, it would not, I would not refer to it as a true links. I know what TC is going to call it. He said it's like a pair of fake tits. I can see a little

smirk on his face. It looks really good. It's just not as beautiful. And I think it's just, even if it's not necessarily our cup of tea or why we would advise people to go to Scotland to experience things, you're probably not going to have a bad time out there. I really don't think you will, especially if it's your first trip. On my first trip, it was my favorite of the bunch, just because I was kind of struggling with the turf.

And like, it was a good merging of, like it's closer to like a whistling straight style than it is like a St Saint Andrews course. It's just worth knowing that going in and it's very expensive. So I would say like if you do not end up playing Kings Barnes, you can still create a real like a great trip like we would send you to Ely over Kings Barnes and it's not even half the cost.

I'm sure to play that and it is old-school true Scottish links and kind of again what we are recommending and what we've had the most Special experiences doing so it's unit That's the course that like you can get really varying opinions because to some or a fair amount of American travelers They clearly prefer something like that. They prefer the views They like the maybe a little nicer more modern turf and the way that it looks versus how things play. So, uh, just want to give the full spectrum of opinion on that to say, we're not saying avoid it. I I've had great times out there. I think it's a good

wrinkle, but it's still, it's not like top of the list of what I'm looking for out of a Scottish golf trip. I would say it's, it's like, I would put it in tier two, 2.5 for me. It's like, it's not a must play. You're guaranteed to have a good time. But you know, like as far as modern courses go, like I would, like I put Castle Stewart, a firm tier two up North, whereas I don't think Kings Barnes is to that level. And it's just more, you know, I don't know.

It's just farmlandy. Yeah, it's just not what I'm looking for when I go to Scotland. Yeah, and to play devil's advocate or in the defense of Kings Barnes and Dumbarnies, they'll tell you that golf was played there 400 years ago. And if they look back in the records long enough, but yeah, I would agree. I think if you were to give me 10 rounds between enough. But yeah, I would agree. I think if you were to give me 10 rounds between Ely and Kings Barnes, it would be eight, two or something to Ely. I would take up a game at Kings Barnes tomorrow if they offer me one, but I don't know if I'll be paying it myself. So yeah, I think it's probably worth, I want to put the question to you guys, like people that

have played Bannon-Junes, I got a chance to meet Mike Kaiser and I asked him this question. I said to him, do you think Brandon Junes and the success of your golf courses there are encouraging or taking away people from Scotland and Scottish golf trips? For a lot of people that are listening that have been to Bandin, how different is Scottish golf to Bandin? Because it plays, I'd imagine, quite like a Kings Barnes. That's a good question. That's a really good question. I would put that, I would say Kings Barnes feels more manufactured than Bandan does. Like I'm amazed at how every time I go back to Bandan,

how the feeling I'm left with of how natural and how real Lynx it feels. And I went to Bandan, that was my first links golf I ever played was in band in 2013, went over and played Scott played everything over in UK, Ireland, Scotland, all of that, and was going back to band and expected to be let down and was 100% not like it is. It's really freaking hold up. It's, it's done all the right way. And it's a really interesting question,

but somehow Kings Barnes feels a little bit more, manufacturer's not really the right word, but because again, whistling straights and Bannon are extremely different just in terms of, they're both just kind of on the coast, but Kings Barnes is a more aerial style game. Whereas like Bannon was like, no, no, you're playing this shit along the ground. Like that's how it was. Yeah like Bannon was like, no, no, you're playing this shit along the ground.

Like that's how it was. Yeah, Bannon was like, it was good land for golf before they built a golf course there. Whereas Kings Barnes was like farmland, right? Just like the, you know, the castle, like I don't get worked up about the castle course how to get it now because it's, you know, it's like, it was farmland, right?

Like they improved, they built a course on land that wasn't necessarily suited naturally for golf. I think abandoned, the one thing that's maybe lacking is the turf conditions aren't always, there's such a wider spectrum of weather. I think that they get there and it gets a little hotter as far as as the, you know, the Fescue is not really, not quite as, as bulletproof in coastal Oregon as it is in Fife. And like for me, I would go to abandoned more, but it's just really like,

it's easier for me to get to Scotland than it is to abandoned, which is, which like, I know it sounds crazy, but like, you know, it's, it's a's a two and a half, three hour drive from Eugene. That's two flights for me. I might as well go to Scotland and get the absolute real thing.

And then I think the stuff that I like at Bandit, I love trails. That's more like, that would be more Parkland style in Scotland than Lynx, I guess. It also is like, you're just a part of, there's not a ton of culture to experience at a resort like Bandon, whereas Scotland, we're talking about just getting 30 minutes

outside of St. Andrews, you're getting an entirely different scene on top of it as well. It's a good question though. Yeah, and having never been to Bandon Jones, my, your summation there would suggest that it's similar golf, but once you leave property at Bannon Dunes, I mean, that's where Scotland is unique, right? It's where you just can't replicate it. You can't replicate the old university town of St. Andrews, or walking into a restaurant and seeing the tight, a tightness logo on someone's hat because

people live and breathe golf, or, you know breathe golf or playing that hidden gem down the road that has locals in there drinking and asking you about your golf trip or visiting a 500 year old Scottish castle. I mean, that's cultural experiences that you just can't get in America looking for that type of experience, right? Yeah, Roo, I would say like from a band perspective,

I think you're probably looking more towards the stuff up in Aberdeen, like a Royal Aberdeen or Trump Aberdeen or even some of the stuff even up north of there that a little bit more similar to that than say Kings Barnes or as Bannon goes. So where does car news do fit in this for you Roo? I mean, again, where it Bannon goes. So where does car news, D fit in this for you, Rue? I mean, again, where it's about 40 minutes from Fife and from St. Andrews, it's obviously an open road,

of course, that a lot of people are gonna recognize. How do you recommend a car news to the people and it kind of where does that fit in, how you would tear things out? I think it would be like a 1.5 for me. You guys got it. You guys got to stay in your tears here. You're making it more confusing. Oh yeah, so we're counting this as part of Fife.5 for me. You guys got it. You guys got to stay in your tears here. And you're making it more confusing.

Oh, yeah. So we're counting this as part of Fife. We're saying I would say it's within the same trip. I think it would. I know it's not technically in or is it technically in Fife? I don't know, but it is, you know, it's an Angus, which is separated by the River T, which is Scotland's largest river. And we've got some great infrastructure there, TC.

The bridge is over the Tee. That's great. It's a nice drive. Yeah. And it's about a four-minute. I mean, the Dunghill Links is taking place next week in that the players and amateurs kind of ferry between the three courses, the Kings Barnes Old Course

and Carnoustie. And yeah, about a four-minute drive. You know, I think we've all grown up. I mean, one of my earliest golf memories on TV was watching Paul Lorry snatch that victory from Van de Velga. So it always has a special place in my heart, Karnoosti, but so subjective, right? I think I enjoy Lynx golf courses. I enjoy Lynx golf courses that kind of provide views. and that's just my taste. Sure.

Craner Street doesn't offer views. It offers you, you know, you're only less than a kilometer away from the shoreline, but you don't actually see the coastline at all. I'm sure for like a scratch players like yourself, like that's a really enjoyable, like thorough test, but somebody who floats around sort of six, seven handicap didn't do it for me. But it's still like for people that want to go see and play open road golf courses.

And that's a total different conversation as well. Is that still in vogue? Is that still something that people like to pursue? I feel like you've done as a knowing up, have done a great job of shining a light on some other courses and maybe shifting their attention away from the open road courses. But for me, it's one that you've got to play, you've got to feel and play Holborn's alley, you've got to remember the Open Rotor shots

that you've maybe seen through the years, but it certainly wouldn't be top of my top 10 in Scotland. That's interesting. TC, where do you net on Cardnose, Steve? I'm probably a little bit more favorable on it. I think there's a little bit like a club. It's more of like, Hey, this is, you know, kind of a little bit like some of the places played in, in Ireland. And it's like, all right, the tour bus is pulling up here. You know, a couple of times a day. That said, I think it's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club.

It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club.

It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like a club. It's a little bit like some of the places we played in Ireland. And it's like, all right, the tour bus is pulling up here a couple of times a day. That said, I think I was extremely pleasantly surprised by the variety in the routing. There's so many fun holes out there, but I do get that sense through that. It's like going on a ski trip and skiing double black diamonds one morning. It's very technical. It to, it's like a, it's very technical. It's very like, you know, all right, I gotta, I gotta lock in here or Sally. It would be like coming, coming to the Jack's area and playing TPC sawgrass. Like you're near the ocean and it's, it's a little bit more, but you know, it's a little

bit more point to point or Hey, you know what, like you get off your edge a little bit and it is going to be a long day for you. See, I think what tends to happen with people is they picture 99 with car new, Steve, in terms of how thick that rough was lost balls off the fairway. And every time I've been there, it has not been maintained that way. It's an, it's a tough golf course. Don't get me wrong, but not the kind that just ejects you and makes you not wanna play and pick up your ball and just go home. Like it's kind of a fun ass beating.

Again, that might be low cap privilege shining through in that, but I have not found it to be- That'd be a good shirt, carnyasty, a fun ass beating. Yeah, like I've not found it to be overly penal in that regard. And again, that could be low cap privilege as I say that, but it's just, it's surprisingly

fun and I think there is some charm into some of those holes. Like it's, I think there's, I think there's charm in the holes. The setting is just not like, it's like you're playing in a bathtub or something and you're, you're kind of like, you feel like you're near the ocean. Like, like Rue said, but you can't see the ocean. You can't, you don't really feel the ocean. You know, it's, you just sense it. What's a good example I've talked about,

like is Keewa a good example here in terms of like a golf course that like might be a thorough ass beating, like no matter what your skill level that isn't that fun. It's pretty, but not that fun. Whereas, Yeah, Carnegie sees a lot more, a lot more charming as far as the actual holes themselves.

Yeah. I think it's a fun, fun play. That's where it goes in tier two for me in terms of like, if you go up there, you're not going to have a bad time. I really don't think you will. Um, do you, do you need to play it because it's a championship golf course and it's in the area? I would say no to that. Like it is 40 minutes away. Like it would make sense in a lot of itineraries. But,, it might tier two of courses was new car news,

the Ely and Kings Barnes. Uh, and I don't know if you can get to all of those in the same trip was kind of my point of if you're doing Kings Barnes, maybe you're not doing car news tea because it'd be a crime to miss both Ely and the new course. Like that would be a major problem. I would send people probably to the new Andy Ely before I'd send you up the road to Carnoosty because of that variety that you get out of it. But it comes down to personal taste. It is really fun to watch open road of courses on TV after you've played them.

I've been there. I've hit the shot that Rory's hitting right now. There's a lot of charm in that as well. And there's so many different spots there that, you know, you know, those spots from the broadcast and then it's the holes that you're not expecting. Yeah. They really blow you away that you're like, Oh man, like that was a great, that was a great hole or that was a great mid length par four or the par threes were really fun. Finishing stretch is a blast. Just like that's where I really get the sense of what you were saying, Sally, like that fun ass beating. I'm like, all right, man, like I'm going to try to par these last three holes. That is going to be, you know, like buckle up, put my hard hat on kind of thing.

But that's why I put Kings Barnes in that 2.5 in car news in two. Cause I think carny, I would play car news, the, you know, similar to what you said with like Kings Barons versus Ely through output car news see like eight two over Kings Barons Yeah And you know car news didn't know what people really need to know this but it's going through our interest in sort of ownership thing At the moment and whether it's gonna, you know change over hands to sort of a private ownership Which would be really interesting because I do think they have work to do and making it feel more charming.

I think that was the word we used. The hotel is ghastly. It reminds me of the course in Orlando that they play in with the massive hotel. Forget the name, but they always play the little, it might be one of the- The Ritz. Oh, it's the NC father son.

Yeah. Yeah. At the Ritz, yeah. It's maybe not quite as bad as that, but yeah, they've got work to do there. And Cardinostia is a town that doesn't have a great deal going on there. But one thing I would do, what I give Cardinostia credit to is, you know, that's an open world golf course that you can literally go on the website

and book. You can email the reservations team if it's fully booked that day and join a waiting list and they keep you up to date. You know, they routinely go live with tee times on a certain date. So you can be front of the queue for your booking your trip. So planning and booking Cardinals Day is probably the easiest out of any open road golf course. I'll say as well, they've got like for what they lack in charm as far as the setting. Both times I've been there,

the staff has been exceptional. Like they're so friendly and helpful and just, you know, it's a well-run operation for what it is. Yeah, and you know, some of the lack of charm in the tourist bus, tour bus thing is like, you kind of need some of that infrastructure for places that are gonna be really popular, right? Again, it might, you're not,

that feeling of you discovering a place is not found there, but at the same time, kind of need some of that infrastructure for places that are going to be really popular, right? Again, it might, you're not, you know, that feeling of you discovering a place is, is not found there, but at the same time, kind of necessary for some of these, to your point of like the waiting list, their efficiency and getting people out there is, would the answer be different at all if, if Carnustie was 15 minutes from St. Andrew's? That's a, that's something I thought of too, of like, be kind of hard to miss if it was just down the road versus, you know, kind of the 40 minute drive. It's a good question. I think like that's where like I always look when we're playing the old or the new, I always

look across the Eden estuary towards there's like this fort, there's like these forested dunes right next to the, the, the air force base there. And I'm like, man, if they could just build a golf course, like know, different. Yeah, definitely. So officially TC, what is your tier two? Gosh. All right. Tier two would be car news. I think just car news. Okay. You're not putting, you know,

you're not putting the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Uh, gosh. All right. Tier two would be car news. D I think just car news. D. Okay. You're not putting Kings Barnes. I'm not going to let you do 2.5. So that's going, uh, where does that, where does, I mean, technically, all right. So tier three, you said not going to be on a top 100 list, but you should play at least one of these, uh, tier two. All right. We'll put Kings Bar and stuff. I think it should be in the bottom of tier two from here to Rue. What is your official tier two? I think I had Creel.

You have Creel in this list. Let's, let's do Creel now then tell us, tell us a bit about Creel. So Creel has two courses. They've got the balcomi and then they've got the Gil Hans, umans second course there. The Balcomie is the old one. And as I touched on earlier, I think it's quintessentially Scottish, Scottish links course. Some short, short par fours, par 66, played along the sea, great views.

Certainly a great place to start or finish your trip, a clubhouse and a membership that embraces the visiting golfer. They claim to be the seventh oldest golf club in the world. My friends at Fraserborough dispute that strongly. They claim to be the seventh oldest. 1777 or thereabouts is kind of how that club dates back. And a little bit closer to town than the Neely, a touch closer.

But I just found the whole experience there kind of, it's a vibrant, busy member Scottish club. And I'd imagine their dues are a little over a thousand dollars a year. I wouldn't say it's certainly any more than that. So yeah, I think it just kind of characterizes exactly what Scottish golf clubs are about that place. So just so you don't scare off all the Americans, it's a par 69, not a par 66. But it has one of the best opening stretches

anywhere. I mean, that first tee shot up on top of the hill is fantastic. Then you play the second hole, a par five right along the ocean or sea see I forget what you would define it as their third hole par three again right along the coast, the fourth hole just this incredible cutoff. How much do you want to cut off par four around a natural bend? Great par three combat. It's got some really freaking good holes. It gets a little, little tight, a little might need a helmet in there in that middle stretch with a couple of Jason Fairway. Yeah. And then the final little four stretches a little tight, a little might need a helmet in there in that middle stretch with a couple of Jason Fairways. A lot of forecalls. Yeah. And then the final little four stretches a little tight over on that back part of property.

I love that 15th hole though. I think that's one of the coolest short par fours in Fife. A little niche thing that I always think people that maybe don't play a lot of old golf courses can appreciate is the short walk between the green and the tee. And it always is a sign of an old golf course. And obviously, the ball and the distances that we all hit nowadays, that's maybe changing. But you certainly spot that at places like Creel, Balcony, or some of the other courses,

like Hillsbendie, for example, and North Berwick. You can just basically walk off the green straight onto the tee box Yeah, I think man like krills krills itching to get in my tier two as well, but it's just I think the more of me Yeah, the more I play krill You know the more I'm like, oh man that place is awesome. It's charming and all that But if it's between krle and going and trying somewhere new, I'm probably going to go try somewhere new just because, you know, like that sense of, you know, exploration or curiosity. I do remember my first time playing Krayle,

which was back in 2015, knowing nothing about any of this. And it was like a whole new world, right? I mean, it's, you get out, you've got to drive to it. It's, uh, you know, maybe 20 minutes away from, from St. Andrews. I don't even know if it's, if it's that far. And you're like, holy, I'm this place was built in the 1700s. How's this even possible? And it is like, it's in that fit that that list of not going to be in the top 100, but you should play one, a course like that on your trip, uh, is kind of the flavor that we're looking for. I, I'm not like, it's not good. I, I, this is kind of what I want to be clear on on delineating

is like, Ely is a different level than Crail. Like in terms of what kind of golf experience you're gonna have. Crail's a little bit more rustic. Yeah, it's cool. Don't get me wrong, but like the Ely-Crail split for me would be closer to eight, two or seven, three, I think. That's, yeah.

I think Crail too, it's like, it's cool. You know, you got the life boats there and you feel like you're kind of out of the edge of the earth, you know, to an extent. And like 14 is a great, great part of three down the hill there. And there's just, there's fun, cool walls. There's cool walls too. Yeah. I feel like it's a must. It's, it's an absolute must if you're going on your first Scottish golf trip. And then with each consecutive

trip after that, I think it's less important or less consequential. And it's more of just like, Hey, that's a fun course to go play. But I think this is the kind of course that's going to help you appreciate the cork and the charm of Scottish golf. And, and, you know, to, to go back to that eight to question, which I think is a good way of thinking about things. If you were to plan a trip and say, right, I've got a week and I can repeat around somewhere, I don't think it would be krill.

I think playing once is sufficient. And that's why I said top and tail, top or tail your trip with the round there. Another one worth thinking about promotion on the border of promotion between two and three, and that really has made an effort. Going back to the Carnoustie region is Pam Muir. Pam Muir is really working hard on attracting the... Not just appeasing the overseas, but

really working hard with their visitor experience, doing daily tours of the clubhouse and giving golfers a history lesson when they're there. Greg Foss Cool clubhouse, cool vintage vibe there. If you're going up towards Angus, towards Cardnoustie, that's polar opposite in terms of the old school nature of it. Nick Bate Yeah, and I think it's been made famous. Hogan prepared for hers as one and only open there, practicing on the sixth hole, I believe. But yeah, it's, or it could be the seventh hole, but yeah, it's a cool spot and a really nice links course,

and you always feel like you're gonna get a huge warm welcome there, so. Yeah, that's in tier three for me. Just, again, another equation of like, that's a little far from Fife. If you're, I don't know if I would send someone from there specifically to go play there. If you've got more lengthy trip and you're doing car new state and you want to get 36 and up, up there, that's definitely an option. That's a big 36 whole day. It is playing car news, the in the drive and all of that as well.

That's where I struggle a little bit with Pam Muir of like, man, it's how do you fit it in? It's tough. Yeah. It's maybe not good enough to go play it on its own. If you're not staying up there, but at the same time it's, it's, it's worth seeing as well. Yeah. I think it's one, you know, if you're trying to melt together the Fife region in Aberdeen, I think it's like a good place to play, play on that travel day. It's kind of on the way up the road. And if you're in an especially busy time period and struggling to get T times at

places, this is another option I think is, uh, is where Pamir falls in for me. Yeah. Anything else in tier, uh, tier three for you guys? Where does Jubilee, where does Jubilee end up falling? I've got it. That's where I was getting. So Jubilee is hard. It's good hard. Like you can kind of, you know, there's, there's a lot going on out there. There's some of the holes out by the point there, like nine is just spectacular.

And just for listeners sake, Jubilee is a St. Andrew's course. It is on the same land as the new and the old. It is like the probably the third of those, I think third ranked of those been through a lot of iterations in the past. It's, it's kind of on its fourth iteration those been through a lot of iterations in the past. It's it's kind of on its fourth iteration and has some characteristics of the new is more similar to the new than the old, of course, but clear step below the other one for me. But I always really enjoy playing the golf course.

Yeah, maybe this is maybe the wrong time to even bring up this question. But like, how long have we spoke about St. Andrews and now we're talking about the Jubilee, it's maybe an answer for, in terms of how much we wanna play it. Like, I don't know enough about the history, but like, has anyone thought about bringing in like a Bill Coor or someone of that standard

to actually touch the Jubilee and get people excited again about it? Cause it feels like a forgotten child a little bit. And then they do the composite course with the Jubilee and the new during the Dunhill or the Opens and kind of, you know, because they use the new for driving range and all of that. It's a little bit, yeah, it's a little tricky. I think, like for my money, I would rather play the front nine of the Eden. I love the front nine of the Eden. That's so much fun.

The back nine is like, just there's two or three holes in the back nine that they added after the fact because they built the driving range, took some holes away. But for me, like the front nine of the Jubilee, I would put that, like I would just go play nine holes. You can play it in 90 minutes. That to me would be like tier three of like, cool. I just go do that. You can squeeze it in whenever, wherever in your itinerary, you can do it, you know, as a Twilight round or whatever. And whereas I feel like the Jubilee, I'm like, all right, like if I absolutely, you know, am'm hard up for a round, cool. Go play that. There's some really cool holes, but you know, it kind of lacks the consistency or the continuity

throughout the round. I think that's fair. I do. I feel like I've the last like two times I've played Jubilee, I've gone in with lower expectations than I've left with. I've kind of like, you know what? That was, that was solid. That was a pleasant experience.

I think if you are, look, if you need a place to play, if you are coming unprepared into St. Andrews and have some free time, it is worth your time. Like it is, it's, I would not, uh, uh, you know, like that's the reason we're kind of tearing them out there. I would not put it above any of the other tier two courses that we've mentioned though. Like would you rather play London or the Jubilee? I'd love to see, chat with you guys about London and Leavenling.

I've never been to either of those courses, so I don't know how to rank those and where those fit in. I mean, there's something to be said about the ease of the St. Andrews links courses and it all be under the same umbrella, certainly for people that are planning their own trips. I've played both the Eden and the Dune Malie and the kind of full kind of vanilla for me a little bit. But if you have time in St. Anders and you need to fill out two times, I probably would gravitate there. Again, TC, I feel like you've played these other two more regular than me, but they don't, they're not overly inspiring pieces of land. Yeah, they've been around for a long time and parts of both have nice undulations to them and a bit of a lengthy

feel, but yeah, neither get the heart racing. But again, we're dealing with a subjective topic. Yeah, I think London, I mean, and part of that is because it was one golf course. Explain that. Yeah. So it played from one town to the other. And again, London and London, this is about 30 minutes probably. Like Southwest kind of back towards back towards Edinburgh, but a little bit out of the way. If you're, you know, there's like six different ways to get from St. Andrews to Edinburgh.

And one of them is through London 11. But they play kind of long ways along the shore. And so it was kind of 18 holes going all the way from one town to the other. And then they split into two separate clubs and they added each of them added nine holes on flatter kind of farmland to make up the difference, to net up to 18 for each one. I know London just did a big bunker project. I haven't played it since they did that. I think London's a little bit more captivating. I think there's better views. There's better... It's a fun... It's a really nice course to play like in a nice afternoon. You see the, you know, you look across the Firth or as I think Levin was in pretty poor

condition. Again, this was like four years ago, five years ago that I played it. So I can't speak to it now. But part of the reason I would say like go like rent a car is I like building in a day where like I don't have any, any tee times planned and I just go drive around and like, I won't even play courses. I'll just, I'll walk around or I'll say, hey, let's go, let's stop by these three or four courses,

see what they're all about. If one looks great and they have an open time, cool, let's go play it kind of thing. That's where like, you know, tier four for me, like last trip over played a place called King Horn or stopped at a place called Kinghorn. And I'm like, holy shit, I am coming back and I'm playing this place, like first round off the plane

on the way out to St. Andrews next time I'm back there. Because it's maybe 25 pounds, 30 pounds, and it looks spectacular, tight piece of property, kind of up on a bluff, of a more of a headland course But like DJ and I stopped there. We stopped at Gosh the Burn Island, which looked cool a lot more Parkland kind of forested woods and then we stopped at Aberdour as well right there and

You know really cool probably coolest like first two holes, kind of, you know, weird par threes over a cove and stuff. But that's the kind of stuff that I love is like to just see, you know, that's where it's like, I think London and Leavener in that kind of spot right now, as far as, hey, they're cool curiosities. And, but I think the potential exists for those to be more than cool curiosities. I think they're, you know, they're cool curiosities. And, but I think the potential exists for those to be more than cool curiosities. I think they're, you know, they're right along the water there. They could do cool things between the two clubs if they wanted to, like that would be a cool, like bucket listy kind of thing of like, Hey, you know, four times a year, we're going to,

we're going to play from one clubhouse to the other. And then we're going to play back or something like that. You know, but yeah, and like late, like you drove, drove past lady bank on my way through last time too. And that's another one that's like, I know American tourists aren't going over to play Parkland, inland, you know, tree lined golf courses, but they have open qualifying there. And you know, there's cool stuff. Or Glen Eagles is up the road. I've never been to Glen Eagles, but we should probably talk about that as part of this, you know, because it's technical. What tier are we on now, TC?

This is the one you went through every year. I don't know, I don't know. That's why like three and four just get, you know, mixed in where I think tier three, I'm putting Amstruther in tier three. Well, yeah, that's the mainstream kind of tier four. I feel like that's kind of shot to certainly people's Instagram feeds and there's been countless features

on Anstrother. Nine hole course that hugs, again, not the most linksy of LAN, in fact, not linksy at all. But they've done good with the kind of land that was there and just a great spot to play in the in that in the afternoon if you've got an afternoon free or you saw the evening was nice you want to pop out play short drive from St. Andrew's and maybe the best fish and chips in Scotland so definitely a consideration and yeah, unfortunately not

as niches are bizarre place to play nowadays. I think that's certainly more on people's radar. Roo, what's the, have you played the Strath tier or Strath tier? I have not, no, but I, if the standard links want an idea, I think they should turn that into floodlight course Modernize make it different. I don't know like it's it's place that st. Andrews locals start the game if you're getting to go I think that's the place you you go with your your your kids Is it fair like so this kind of tier four Level, of course, I title it with like, let's get weird.

Like kind of a, a re, you know, the way I think of this one is kind of like some, so there's some Scottish golf courses that'll make you think differently about the game of golf than like standard 18 hole golf. This specific area though, Fife does not scream. Like there's a ton of, there's not a lot that comes to mind in this tier. Whereas when we get to different parts of the series and go to different parts of the country, there's a lot more courses that I think will fall into this bucket. So I didn't have much to nominate in here for this one specifically, but there is one other course we do need to talk about that I've not heard slot into any of these. It was mentioned though, the St. Andrew's Castle course. We did a podcast about

this golf course this past summer. We did a video on it as well. I think that should be out sometime soon. I don't believe it is out as of right now. For those who don't know the history of it, it's a David McClay kid course. I believe it was built for the first in 2005 around then and has been been redone a couple of times. It's about seven minutes drive from like the downtown area, city center of St. Andrews. It's a little bit outside of the town. It carries the St. Andrews name. It gets a lot of controversy. Doke, Tom Doke famously rated a zero in his confidential guide,

meaning the course should never been built on land like this. It didn't come up as a recommendation. Ru, can you tell us about what your response is when people ask about the Castle Course? And I bring that up especially because it seems like people are pushed there. It seems like a lot of tour operators end up lumping this course in.

A lot of first time Scottish visitors I hear from are when I asked their itinerary, that almost inevitably does include the Castle course. Can you tell us why that might be and what you recommend to people with this course? I definitely have not a great deal of warmth or encouragement when people mention the Castle Course.

I mean, it feels like it's being, you're going there because you're being sent there because you have to go there, if that makes sense. How long have we spoke about golf in the region before the Castle Course? It's a long time. I mean, that's not to, you know, Tom Doak's done some incredible work. He's built some of the best modern golf courses, been lucky to work with some incredible landowners that I've had the trust to do, you know, what he wants to do. Unfortunately, he was given a bit of a dud hand in terms of the land he could use.

David McClade kid. You said Tom Doak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to hunt you down. Two very different personalities. So we might want to edit that out. But I guess David McClade kid was starting out his career and he, he couldn't, if St. Andrews come and ask you to build a golf course, I mean, would you not say yes to that? I think you would. But maybe in hindsight, you would want to work with a different bit of land. I mean, you can only craft whatever you can with the land you're given, but it feels like

it's not, you know, you would look at that land like the farmland that was mentioned previously. I think, you know, it's not ideal for golf and it's on top of a cliff. Sure, there's nice views of the town, but it's not the golf that I can close my eyes dreaming of playing in Scotland. So a bit too much elevation change on it for it to feel it's not like golf, right? It's not natural. There's not a lot of natural feeling on it. I will say, again, this is kind of where I'm hesitant to give recommendations on some of

this for some people might love it because the views are the best of anything that you're going to get in St. Andrews because of that elevation change. You see the ocean on 18 holes like it's a you know, a pretty special spot in that regard. Now, there's a lot is definitely a manufactured field, the greens have a lot going on with them. There's a lot of places you can get yourself in trouble out there. It was extremely wet when we played it this past March and into April, which was a unique I know it's a very unique winter you can get yourself in trouble out there. It was extremely wet when we played it this past March and

into April, which was a unique I know it's a very unique winter and spring in terms of how much wetness there was there. But you can feel the difference in the land versus just where the other St. Andrews courses sit, you know, seven minutes away. But it's a complicated one, because it's hard to say like, like, would I rather play the castle course or not play golf? No, I'd rather play the castle course, right. But like, I think I would also end up recommending to the almost the entire point of this episode would be to go pursue places like Ely, Krayle or even other like more down the down the list places rather than the castle course because it took me

Five six trips to the area before Actually going to go play this course, because of how much there is to offer and how much like where I tend to want to get my golf, you know, itch scratched is not at a place like the castle course. TC. Yeah, I think I wouldn't want to play it if it's been wet recently. I think if it was dry, that would, you know, there's some really fun holes out there. There's some, I think there, you know, on the front nine, there's some really fun holes out there. There's some, I think on the front nine, there's some that kind of played down towards that corner.

I like that stretch seven, eight, nine is really cool. And then, yeah, I think that stretch early in the back nine, it just kind of runs out of gas a little bit as you make your way up that big hill. And then it's like, you know, electric factory on the way in like 15 through 18. So, yeah, my thing is, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's a very great or a very good golf course, but I don't think it's a very good piece of land. It's not really a reflection of David McClade kid. It was like, he wasn't, he wasn't set up for success there. Now talking to a bunch of the locals, like they love playing it because it's a change of pace and it gets you out of town and the views are spectacular.

And that's where it's like, I think it's probably, it fits in with the Kings, Kings Barnes is a better version of that, but it's still like, it's like the same coin, right? Of like, that's not why I'm going to Scotland to play golf You know from that like Sally like we played a we played a scramble when we're out there and like I had a blast Because it was it was like low stakes You can hit all the shots you can try to pull off the hero shots

That sort of thing versus like I wouldn't want to just roll the balls out and yeah, you know count them all up that day So yeah, and I can see it's a palette cleanser for locals. It's just a different... You've got views, for example, that you just don't have. Like St. Andrew's links down by the links pavilion there, if you're playing the new and the Jubilee, it's quite claustrophobic. The old course is right there, but it's got a different feel about it. We didn't mention the on the tier four, the Himalayas potting green. I would put the Himalayas on tier two or tier three. It's not that fun. Not good. Himalayas potting green sits just right between kind of the old,

right next to the old course right near just off the second tee there. And tell us about that room. Yeah, well, if you were giving me 10 rounds between the castle and the Himalayas, we might be close to a tie. If you had an hour to kill in town, I would almost encourage all of you to go down there and do that. I mean, you think that's five pounds to the ladies putting green. You might have to wait for some older ladies and members to finish up in front of you. But wouldn't golf be in a better place if there were more St. Andrews, Himalaya putting greens? I mean, I know it's becoming a thing now. I think there's multiplied in recent years. But yeah, I mean, again, without giving people the history lesson, there was

a growth of golf in St. Andrews and St. Andrews was really inclusive and allowing women to play and old Tom Morris built them a patting green because there was lots of them wanting to take it up. So, you know, St. Andrews has always been an inclusive place to play golf. Still really popular. So many crazy put parts. It's almost like, you know, crazy golf, mini golf played on Fescue, really well maintained, maybe running at like an eight on the stem, would you say seven? Yeah, which I don't think you'd want to get it above that because it would be unplayable. So yeah, I think it's great. I think, as I said, if more places had it, then the golf

would be in a better spot. I think we're going to call an end to our Gulf related portion of this part of the episode because we've gone on quite some time just on Fife. But I still get a lot of messages about food recommendations, places to go, pint recommendations. Obviously people know about the Dunvegan, which is the famous pub that sits not far at all from the 18th green at St. Andrews. There's the Jigger Inn,

which sits right next to the 17th Fairway, which is our two just fantastic spots to go post-round. But if you've got longer time there, what are the top places you recommend for places to people, places for people to eat, other places to get a pint or anything, either one of you can go into this one. I know TC you've spent a lot of time there as well. TC, I want you to just remind everyone that

or educate people that about Scotland and its food and how it's not as shit as everyone thinks it is. Yeah, it's not. I mean, you know, you got to seek it out, right? You got to go find some good spots. I would say the, I think the best place in Fife to eat, it's out of town, you gotta drive a little bit, but I'm probably gonna pronounce it wrong.

The Kinuker in K-I-N-N-E-U-C-H-A-R. Kinukar or Kinukar. It is like, that is, all right. Bruce not jumping in to correct you. I think he wants you to just keep guessing. Well, no, I would correct you if I knew I knew of that restaurant. I haven't heard of that restaurant. It's excellent. It's I think that's that's among the best meals I've had in Scotland.

It's probably 20 minutes outside of town. There's Balgov Larder as well. But this is I think this is like the place that chefs from Edinburgh, like when they leave town, they go, they go to a place like this to eat. So that's a spectacular place. Gosh, I always like this, the St. Andrews, uh, sh sh sh shwarma place. The, you know, that's, that's kind of, I'm always like eating late there and it's, know it's one of the few places that's still open you know go there and then go to go to the the gelateria to get a get a spot of ice cream after that yeah I mean so that is is you made it make a good point about eating eating late I mean st. Andrews is definitely

open a bit later than some other towns in Scotland. I mean, you could go into Dornoch 8pm and most places are closed. Going to Dornoch at like 7.15pm, most places are closed. But yeah, I said it before, St Andrews is a bustling St Andrews University town. It's got a real ambience to it and it benefits from that and obviously the golf revenue comes into town. I mean the place is busy and there's nice restaurants and there's nice bars so not sure of places to go and eat and drink. Don't be sucked into maybe the jiggering is maybe my advice. Like TC said about the Old Course Hotel, I think sure it's nice to sit outside and watch people play on 17 on the one day a year that you can do that. Head into town and walk between bars.

How good was the Open in 22? Obviously it was the Open Championship, but you were going from bar to bar and they all had outdoor seating. It was so cool. Then everything's a short walk in St Andrewss. So make sure you, um, you stay in town and, uh, and drink and eat, um, and walk back. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Adamson's good. That Thai place is really good. Thai pop-up spot. Um, what's the name of the Indian place?

We always end up at it. It's true Indians. Uh, there's two Indian places in town. Ash, uh, Maisha or, or. Both are good. I've sampled both. Um, There's two Indians. There's two Indian places in town. Maisha or? Both are good. I've sampled both. It should be a DJ Pi question probably because he spent like a month in St. Andrews. Sometimes against his own will over the last couple of years. And then the 2N restaurant, I'll be going to the Dunhill next week and that'll be where I go on my

one night that I'm over there. So actually, it's efficient. Shout out to the Lynx Clubhouse, like the kind of the new, the new and the Jubilee. That clubhouse has a fantastic like offering, especially for lunch. That's an excellent place to go grab lunch. They've got great stuff. Ham's ham is good as well. Um, that links comp as you're talking about too. You can get bacon rolls, sausage rolls and stuff in the morning. They'll get you coffee before your round of golf. Like it, they get you in and out.

That's a really, really nice restaurant with good breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's fantastic. Yeah. Uh, and then I think if you want to like really, I've been to that horror place a few times, if you want to splurge, they've got a good tasting menu too. But in, in my experience in Scotland, most of the good food I've had has been either in Edinburgh or like out on the West coast, like in, in, you know, open and like really seafood focused out there. So, but I think, I think Scotland's kind of turning a corner as far as, Hey, we're not just pub

food. We're, you know, we have great local ingredients. We have, you know, we have great beef, we have great seafood, uh, we have great vegetables and you know, it's not just a bunch of fried fish and chips and stuff. Yeah. I think the seafood stuff is like world renowned and finally we're figuring to try and have some of it ourselves. So, yeah, definitely. And then obviously the meat that we have, lamb or beef, I mean, some of the steaks are, are, are world-class as well. So don't just come to school and thinking you're going to have burgers and chips every night. I think we're better than that in most places.

Yeah. I would say also the, the highlight of any trip to San Andrews is the, the steak pies and the sausage rolls like out on the course at the turn is like, that's, that's a highlight. I look forward to that as much as I do the golf. Those are so good. A hundred percent. Anything else for the Fife region as we, as we moved to wrap this portion of this opening episode? Roo, where are you putting dumb Barney? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to retract my statement.

It's probably into three. It's new. I mean, Luke, they're set up to cater for people to give them a, you know, like a two and a half, a hundred percent. I'm going to retract my statement. It's probably into three. It's new. I mean, Luke, they're set up to cater for people to give them a two and a half experience. They certainly think themselves as sort of that one category. But yeah, so very new. Lovely people.

David Scott, the general manager there, is going to treat you really, really well. So yeah, I've got pretty positive things to say, but I think it's something different to the region. It's American prices, it's set up for North Americans, so it's not going to be my cup of tea. Ely, Creole, all course, give me all that before Dunbarney, but yeah.

The other thing I was going to say about St. Andrews is just the fact that the weather, of course, not exclusive to to St Andrews, but the weather is going to be pretty shitty at some point on your trip. And that is just Scotland. And then the way I think about it is, you know, you might be thinking I mentioned, you know, how sustainable these courses are again, but like think about how these courses have survived. Like the climate is conducive to golf and fescue grass. And part of that is having cold and wet and yeah, not very enjoyable weather. But I would say that Scotland has a lot more dry days

than you might think. The East Coast in particular is a lot drier than, apart from this summer, of course, it's been horrible this summer, but it is quite dry on the East Coast in the summertime and to expect lots of long days, hopefully dry days and pat the waterproofs. Has the fall been any better or is it just a continuation? It's been a little bit better, but I mean, I was at Kerry down in near Belfast there

and it was freezing and it's pretty cold here at the moment as well. So yeah, but I would agree with kind of an Indian summer is what they're calling it a bit of a later summer. But then you certainly feel the night strong in a little bit now into September, October. One other question. Have you ever played Scots, Craig? I have not for a very, very long time. Is that worth going into that tier four like we're seeing? Even for personal perspective, like Monofith, Scott's Craig, places that aren't necessarily

links but they're kind of parklandy with some gorse and some sandy soil. Yeah. I mean, you group it with with Lady Bank in that category. You know, a tier four that I didn't mention. Sorry, sorry. I know you're trying to finish this. Kingaric, a hickory experience, kind of go back in time. If you want something unique, something different, something that you can only find in Scotland.

And that's a cool spot, like 30 minutes, the other direction from St. Andrews that you can sort of go back in time a little bit and try some hickory clubs on a, on a hickory designed kind of golf course. And then we're one other question, just as far as like people wanting to add. How do you recommend people do Cruden Bay? Cause this is, that's kind of a, if you're going to the East Coast and you want to get a little bit more variety, and this is obviously a separate episode where we'll get up into Aberdeen and Cruden Bay and all that. But I feel like Cruden Bay kind of sits alone amongst, you know.

That's very kind of you to say. But yeah, I mean, that would be doable for St Andrews. I mean, we've got lots of people come up here and do Aberdeen and St Andrews. I think naturally St Andrews is paired with the East Coast at some point. So whether it's the Highlands up north or the East Lothian region or the Aberdeen region. I talk about the roads. I mean, from Kairouste, it's probably an hour and probably a 90 minute drive. So on a pretty doable, easy road. So it's definitely doable. I mean, it's only going to be two hours max from Kairouste from Tikkunumei. So it's doable. But look, you're kind of edging towards, you know, what people do is sort of, I edging towards what people do is all do that one and then

I'll do that one. Totally. But I think a lot of the time people always want to pair East Lothian and Fife together when really, as far as like you do Edinburgh traffic, crossing the bridge, all that stuff. You might as well, I think it probably makes more sense to go do Aberdeen and Cruden Bay and even up to Fraser Borough, you know, with the same trip as Fife versus it looks, you know, as the crow flies, it's probably what 15, 20 miles across the Firth there, but it's, you know, like it looks super close, but it's not a functional trip to think you can just, you know, ping pong back and forth between those two.

Yeah. Yeah. And what I would say, just a final thing on that is the Aberdeen region is definitely a quieter region. So the chance of getting your tee times there, pretty straightforward. When you're dealing with North Berwick, Muirfield, Gullan number one, it becomes difficult and it becomes busy. And parts of Aberdeen region still has a kind of authentic feel to it. Whereas I think most of East Lothian is kind of all around with North Americans in summer, which is not a bad thing. Of course, that keeps the whole, it's my green fee and my membership. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but for your tier three or four courses, you want to feel a bit of the local field, right?

Not even North American. I mean, I feel like it's just, you know, people coming out from the city, people even coming up from London or, or from England as well. Like it's like the Hamptons, the Scottish Hamptons now, how to do with Barrick and that whole coast. All right. Well, that's going to wrap our first edition of this. I promise future iterations of these episodes. We need to kick off Scotland with a bang. This is a, you know, covering that first region and how to play in your golf trip there. We're going to go region by region around the country with Rue for as long as until he gets sick of us talking, talking Scottish golf with them.

But thank you everyone for tuning into this first episode. Well, you can find Rue in the, in the episode description. We'll give links to all of his content as well. And stay tuned for next time. Our next episode of this series, we're going to be covering the East Lothian region. And I promise and I promise we'll be somewhat briefer on that region, but we look forward to bringing it to you. Thanks for tuning in.