After postponing it twice, we finally executed our Scotland / Ireland trip earlier this month, playing 11 rounds in 8 days. We started in Glasgow, spent one day in St. Andrews, and then flew to Belfast and returned from Dublin. We played Western Gailes, Troon, Prestwick, Turnberry (36), Kingsbarns, Portstewart, Royal Portrush, Potmarnock, and finished with an epic 36 holes at Royal County Down. A few items of note:
- If you can just manage the logistics to get over there, traveling when the courses had few American tourists was great as it felt that we often had the clubs to ourselves. I've never felt more welcomed at these clubs and we certainly reciprocated by spending lots of money in the pro shops and bars. If we wanted to play more another 18, we had little issues. We also got extremely lucky with weather and only had rain on the back nine at Portrush.
- Six golfers is the maximum number of people you can travel with in one vehicle without a driver. We had originally planned on drivers, but many of those companies were shut down so it wasn't an option. The 9-passenger Volkswagen van was perfect and we somehow survived two car rental returns without any additional charges.
- The COVID testing rules were manageable, albeit confusing. The pre-departure test has to be no more than 3 days before you arrive (not when you leave), which leaves a small window to take the tests and get them back in time. The day-2 tests are a joke, as all you have to do is simply order them. I'm still waiting for my day-2 results. It was fairly easy to find testing sites for the final test, which is days before departure.
- While it wasn't easy in the US, we got off relatively easy compared to the UK. People couldn't leave their counties. There were military checkpoints in Dublin up until May, for example.
- We had hoped to play the Old Course on a Saturday, and COVID did mess that up. Due to COVID rules, they were not pairing twosomes or threesomes with unrelated groups, which ruined our plan as none of us won the lottery 72-hours beforehand. We tried everything and couldn't make that work. However, we did play Kingsbarns instead and its hard to find anything that isn't spectacular about Kingsbarns.
- Only course that didn't live up to my expectations was Western Gailes. I know its top-100 world, but a flat course with high dunes made some really tough visuals and awkward landing areas (hitting into a 30-yard landing area with high grass and dunes on each side). Perhaps, I'd like it a lot more a second time and not directly after a long flight.
- Troon is such an underrated and special Open site. It probably was the best bunkered golf course we played and the highlight in the middle of the round is so special. We ended up playing 7,8, and 11 at dusk and it was a lot of fun. We all tried to hit the tee shot on 11 from the back tee and none of us were able to find our tee shots.
- I remember every single hole at Turnberry, especially after playing it twice. After a good but not great opening hole, its just great hole after great hole. Is there a more dramatic set of par-3s in the world?
- Prestwick was great, but definitely the quirkiest of them all. Maybe, one day, I'll figure out how to play that opening tee shot!
- Flying from Edinburgh to Belfast was easy and there were no COVID checks or anything as you were flying within the UK. We originally were going to play Macharanish and boat over to northern Ireland, but that plan became problematic without drivers on each side.
- The town of Portrush is awesome and one of the best golfing towns in Europe.
- I played Portstewart for the first time and it was awesome. The back-nine is not a let-down either, although obviously not as great as the first.
- The new holes at Portrush are really special (Seven and Eight), and replace two former mediocre holes. 8 is an absolute beast into the wind. 4 might be the best par 4 in the Open rotation.
- If you were going to take an American golfer overseas for one round, I would take them to Potmarnock. It is a great introduction to links golf without being too quirky for the golfer unused to links golf. I haven't played a better-conditioned course in the UK / Ireland. The fescue was a hazard, but manageable. Balls would land pin-high and be a tough chip coming back. It also felt most like a US private club.
- Royal County Down gets better every time you play it. Its still one of the most penal courses in the world with multiple tough blind tee shots, but you learn how to play it better the second time. We had a couple of people that improved their scores by ten shots their second round.
- Staying in Dublin for the final three nights worked out well, albeit you need more time than you think for morning tee times due to traffic. We could have stayed near RCD for one night, but it would have required changing hotels two more times and the morning drive was only 2 hours.
- Speaking of hotels, we booked all our rooms after we arrived as most hotels have switched to non-refundable and we didn't want to deal with cancellations if the trip didn't happen. We had no issues finding good places to stay.
Overall, COVID really didn't do anything to diminish our trip and we all had a blast.