The pandemic has forced us to cancel our Scotland Golf Vacation this year. But we refuse to let that stop us from doing all the things we love in Scotland. So for the next two weeks we’ll be in Scotland, not physically but mentally. We choose to take our own imaginary vacation to those lovely links. We’re not crazy…not yet anyway.
The Craigielaw Comeback for Jeff, 3 down at the turn to a 1 up win, got my little brother revved up, for sure. So we headed to the clubhouse bar and grill for lunch and a victory drink.
But I was the only drinker since Jeff insisted he would do the driving up to St. Andrews. Fine by me.
Ham and cheese toasties for both of us, a ginger ale for Jeff and two cups of coffee with a whisky chaser – Clynelish 14 year old, one of our favorites- for me.
In my past life, when I was a working stiff, I did a fair amount of travel in the UK. I first drove on the wrong side of the road in 1992- an experience I was lucky to survive after a close call with a lorry. Over many years I grew accustomed to the left side driving and that experience was a positive factor in our decision to go our own way on our first two week excursion in Scotland during August 2016.
That initial trip I did all the driving the first week. Jeff took the wheel when we moved up to Dornoch from St. Andrews. He’d paid close attention to my method and initially took instruction quite well. He got the hang of wrong side driving quite easily and I didn’t need to hit the phantom break in the passenger’s seat to often.
Well, this is our fourth golf trip to Scotland since 2016 and Jeff’s mannered, law abiding driving habits have gone the way of civil political discussion in the US – down the toilet.
It was like he was channeling Jackie Stewart when he slammed the Audi A5 into gear and laid rubber out of the Craigielaw car park!
GPS had us headed west in the A720 which would circle south of Edinburgh, then lead to The Queensferry Crossing over the Firth of Forth, up to the A90 North, finally to the A92 East into St. Andrews. A drive of 75 miles, scheduled to take an hour and 35 minutes.
Jackie made it in just over an hour, a lead foot like no other.
He must have been thirsty as we headed straight to the Dunvegan for a few rounds of Guinness and G&T’s.
The Dunvegan sits just a full 7 iron from the first tee at The Old Course and we had rented a townhouse two doors down in 2016, so we knew the place pretty well. It’s a famous little pub, with some rooms above, that serves standard pub fare and it’s walls are plastered with photo’s of golf royalty and proletarian alike, usually standing beside the wife of the proprietor. It’s a lively gathering place with a cachet due to ambiance and not it’s victuals.
With some time to kill before check-in at our AirB&B on the south side of town, we strolled over to the shop and restaurant district along and around Market Street.
Luvians Bottle Shop is a whisky drinker’s paradise. We could have spent the whole day in this tidy shop, a distinguished keeper of the rites and heritage of Aqua Vitae. This business, as were so many others, had been closed until recently due to pandemic mandates. A friendly staff was welcoming and eager to help even two scruffy Americans. The director, Vince, a stout fellow and fellow baldy, steered us to some of his personal favorites.
We settled on a reasonably priced (£60) Highland Park Valfather. We were familiar with a few Highland Park offerings but this was new and intriguing.
Vince’s tasting notes described this single malt as having “a crisp apple with sweet fragrant pear on the nose. The palette is creamy vanilla, brûlée with toasted cedar wood and warming paprika. Long floral smoke on the finish, perfectly offset by notes of fresh fruit”.
All that sweet fruit and smoke sounded like a meal in a bottle to me -we could skip dinner and sail off to oblivion.
Happy to have replenished our store of essential sustenance, as we’d done in the Bowmore on the course earlier in the day, we found the car and headed off to find our cottage.
I would drive.
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