Hooked On Scotland

I am hooked. Hooked on Scotland and not just the golf.

Watching the Open Championship last week, The Scottish Open the week before and now the Ladies Scottish Open and The Senior Open Championship has me yearning for those beautiful, crusty, brown links.

I am currently fighting a bad case of vacation withdrawal as I have just returned from three glorious weeks of fun and sun, yes sun, in Scotland.

Over the next few days I’ll recount some of my golfing adventures here but for now I am writing about the entire trip I spent in my ancestral homeland. My paternal grandparents both came from Scotland and I have a deep affection for most things Scottish…even the haggis.

I started my Scotland adventure with an overnight flight into Edinburgh and I can rarely sleep on a plane so I was a bit bleary eyed as I carted my bags to the rental car counter. After a chat with the seemingly always friendly Scot behind the counter I was soon behind the wheel of a sporty Volkswagen with my clubs across the back seat as they would not fit anywhere else.

I had driven in Scotland two years ago when my brother and I spent two weeks on a “Once In a Lifetime” trip but two things had changed: I was alone and had no co-pilot and I vowed that there was no “once in a lifetime trip” to Scotland. I was back.

So the itinerary had me driving to St. Andrews and staying at a University of St. Andrews dorm which the smart folks at the university rent out each summer to visitors like myself. It must be a great revenue stream as it was jam packed with visitors from the world over.

But my first task was managing to drive on the “wrong” side of the road with the steering wheel on the “wrong” side of the car. It took some adjustment but with some focus and a little helpful reminder taped to the dash I managed to get there in one piece while only scaring a few Scots to death as I drifted right instead of staying left, left, left.

After calling the Old Course from my room and being told, expectedly, that there was little chance of getting out on the Old I grabbed my camera and headed down there, only a five minute drive to see some sights and maybe hit the beach since we hadn’t spent anytime on the West Sands last time we were in St. Andrews. I threw my clubs in the car…just in case.

Moments later I was in the Old Course Pavilion chatting with Bruce, the counter-person feeling out my chances for a spot on the Old Course for the next day. To my surprise he said I had a better chance of playing today, like now, like in an hour. Really, I asked. He said to go get my clubs.

In a matter of an hour I was teeing off on the Old Course with three other singles, one a first timer like me and the others with many Old Course rounds under their belt. I won’t cover my round here as I need a few pages to tell that story but I will say this: It is all that it is hyped up to be …and more.

We teed off after five and were finishing up in that glorious golden light as we made our way around seventeen and finished on eighteen on such a high basking in that wonderful glow. It was all I dreamed of but little did I know I’d be back there very soon.

The next day I was out on the New Course having been invited by Ken, one of my playing partners on the Old the previous day and we had a ball walking those tanned, firm links.

On Saturday morning I was driving back to Edinburgh Airport (with two St. Andrews rounds already, more than I had expected) to meet some of my kids who were flying in that morning.

You see, this wasn’t a golf vacation. It was a family trip I had dreamed about for a long time. I wanted my children to see Scotland and I wanted to share that experience with them.

So on that Saturday morning I traded my little VW in for a large, seven passenger van to cart this crew around. Did I say it was large? And the streets in Scotland are anything but.

Soon my son, his pregnant wife, his brother and his girlfriend and I were driving (anxiously) to see the sights. In a few days my daughter and her fiance joined us and now we were whole: dad his three kids and their mates ready for a week of fun and adventure in Scotland.

You can’t do it all in a week but they sure tried. We did the New Town, The Old Town, the castles, the museums, the monuments took a boat ride to a bird sanctuary and a road trip to the mountains and the charming village of Pitlochry.

It was a week filled with plenty of adventure and fun and laughs and most of all memories. I had spent so much time planning this and with just a few minor issues we pulled it off. We all had a great time and as I told one of the gregarious tour bus drivers, ”I have six kids here all figuring out how they can move to Scotland.” It was a dream come true.

But I was just getting started as after week one and I shipped the kids back home I was back at the airport shuttling my brothers and sisters back to our Edinburgh flat. Yes, one week wasn’t enough I was set for another with the ‘senior set’ as I called them.

One huge difference between the youngsters and the seniors was getting round Edinburgh. We took a few more Ubers and bus tours during week two but I admonished those slackers all week with “If my preggo daughter-in-law can walk it so can you.” That rarely worked.

Walking or not I had another extraordinary week of fun and adventure as we toured many sites that the kids and I hadn’t. Of course we did the castles and the towns but we also took a boat trip on Loch Lomond, saw the Botanic Gardens, the Kelpies, Wallace Monument and an engineering wonder…The Falkirk Wheel. Google it please, it’s amazing.

And we ate and ate and ate…sometimes more easily than others. But one wonderful Scottish find was Edinburgh Gin, a tasty drink if I ever had one and soon my brothers and I had adopted the Edinburgh Gin & Tonic as our vacation drink of choice.

One key to a group vacation is being flexible, ready and willing to adopt changes in the plan. And my brothers and I were indeed thrilled to make a change to the plan during week two: we landed a tee time on the Old Course. So I was back out on St. Andrews again and so very satisfied that I got to play it with my brothers. During my first round I was constantly thinking how wonderful it would be if we could all get out together and it happened. Great stuff for sure.

After a week full of activities with the senior set we weren’t done yet. In the planning stages of our trip some smart, forward thinking member of the group had floated the idea of the girls heading to France for a girls trip tacked on to our Scottish Adventure. That idea was well received so after a full week in Scotland the girls flew to Paris for a little adventure of their own.

So what were me and my brothers (Greek and older) to do while in Scotland? While golf of course. And so we packed up the van with our sticks and took the exciting and breathtaking drive through the Trossach Mountains to the little village of Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula. It’s where Paul McCartney was inspired to write “The Long and Winding Road” and indeed it was.

We spent the next four days playing two of the best courses in the world: Machrihanish, an Old Tom Morris course and Machrihanish Dunes a newer David McLay Kidd layout that the pundits rave about. They are right.

These two courses are links personified with The Dunes offering views of the Irish Sea on nearly every hole and Machrihanish asking you to hit over it to open your round. You can actually see Ireland on a clear day. We played our asses off for four days and only dealt with rain on one day. In fact I spent three weeks in Scotland and had rain for that one day and just one cool day back in Edinburgh. Who says the weather in Scotland is bad? Not us.

After four days of golf we headed back for our flight home and while I was a bit down about our trip coming to an end I delighted in the fact that I had pulled it off. Six days of golf with two weeks of family vacation and trying to please twelve different people was a task for sure. But I did it…or I should say we did it. We all had a ball and so many memories that should last us a lifetime.

Or at least til we head back. I’m planning it it already.