We left the Moray Firth after a Fraserburgh lunch to head south down the east coast of Scotland through Aberdeen, Fife and past Edinburgh to East Lothian.
We had spent only one night there at the start of our trip and headed back for three reasons. There are numerous wonderful links courses there after all it is called Scotland’s Golf Coast. It is an area we have spent little time in on our trips so we wanted to explore an uncharted area of Scotland for us. And maybe most important from a logistical aspect, we needed to be close to Edinburgh Airport for our Sunday morning departure.
That’s something we learned over the years: either be close to the airport for a morning flight or fly out late in the day to allow for driving time. We planned this trip well.
Our drive down the A90 was mostly uneventful and I did the bulk of the driving as George tried to nap.
Our rental house was a little bit cramped but it was clean and quite adequate and right in the middle of everything in Aberlady and minutes from all the golf we had scheduled.
We had a morning tee time at Gullane Golf Club (pronounced Gullen) which is home to three heralded links courses, with two acknowledged by the club to have been designed by Willie Park Jr. And while the club states the designer of #1, the most famous of the three was unknown both George Peper and Tom Doak claim it also was a Park Jr. design.
They have hosted many significant events including both the mens and ladies Scottish Opens.
This was a big day for us as well had booked both Gullane #1 and #3 to test our legs for a 36 hole romp across this linksland.
Gullane is in the heart of Scotland Golf Coast with the more famous sitting right next door. They say that golf has been played on these links for over 350 years with Gullane #1 officially opening 1884. We were primed for some serious links golf.
We started on number one and immediately fell in love with the place. It’s as rumpled a links as any we have walked and the bunkers here are so very penal. And there are bunkers everywhere, 124 of them in total. And we needed all our skills to avoid them and even more to extricate ourselves when our ball found the sandy bottom.
We both had brought our A Game and George was driving the ball so well and damn long. Me, I was keeping pace by finally mastering the run up and low chips from off the greens.
I manged to keep up with my traditional 3&1…three swings and one putt. It made for plenty of pars to tie my big bro who was hitting greens and two putting his way around.
We were all square at fifteen tee and George let loose a massive drive that rode the wind clear out of site. I maneuvered my way down the fairway with a punch drive and then a hybrid over the fairway bunkers but we still hadn’t found George’s ball.
Up to the cross bunkers that are 300 yards from the tee we walked and there it sat. In the sand nuzzled up against the front lip. It was dead. Brother could only try to play it out sideways and he has a great sand game. But this was the toughest of shots either of us had encountered the entire trip.
He took two swings to get it back in play. Advantage Jeff.
I normally choke going down the stretch on days like this but three solid swings and two putts gave me a one up lead with three to play.
We pushed on sixteen and seventeen and it came down to the last. Could George battle back for a face saving tie? My best drive of the day gave me the advantage off the tee but George is a gamer. He cranked one well past me and was thinking birdie on this short 330 yard par four.
I hit a decent approach and we headed down the fairway and again had trouble finding his ball. “Oops” I said as I stood on a small hillock peering down into a well hidden bunker. He had found the sand again. “Damn, did you even see that bunker from the tee?” he exclaimed. “No” I replied “but I saw in on the course guide but knew I couldn’t reach it.”
George did hit a good bunker shot but his two putt gave him a bogey to my two putt par. Victory for little brother.
Lunch in the clubhouse was grand as the Scots we have been meeting just seem to be nicer and nicer each day.
I suggested we forgo our usual match play format for the afternoon round at Gullane #3 and play a two man scramble like we had a Royal Dornoch in ’16. Maybe it would save us some steps and a little aggravation. Truthfully, I was trying to avoid the payback George was looking to give me after his morning loss. Luckily, for me he agreed and we enjoyed our trip around #3 tremendously.
This is the shortest of the courses here but probably has the best views. With Edinburgh off to the east over the Firth of Forth and The Kingdom of Fife sitting across the Forth. It’s as pleasant a walk over links land as one could take.
Our delight with the beautiful setting most have translated into our game as we were striping it down the middle, hitting greens, bumping and running it and dropping bombs on the green.
This course, while short (5100 yards) with five par threes is no slouch. It’s a thinking mans course with plenty of links style trouble. Amazingly we found ourselves standing on the final tee at one over par. I said to George we needed a birdie to shoot even par.
And I begged him not to hit his driver off the tee as there was a bunker out there with his name on it. I convinced him and he launched a beautiful, drawing hybrid the sailed down the middle.
I followed his great drive with a second shot that bounded on the green and settled twenty feet form the cup.
“Come on” I said, “two tries at it for a birdie, one of us has to sink it.” Since we were using my approach I putted first and just slid it by. But George went to school on my break.
He dropped it in center cut with authority and a Tiger-like fist pump to match. An even par 67 over a lovely links course. We celebrated with a Macallan 25 in the clubhouse.
We were both too exhausted to think of going out for dinner and opted for some sandwiches at home.
George passed out on the couch with the BBC playing in the background.
I had some work to do. Earlier I had said our drive down was mostly uneventful. Well there was one incident that worried me.
As I drove down and George slept a bit we passed a huge billboard along the A90. On it was the picture of George at the Stirling Games. The image that has been making its way around the digital world. Now, here it was in plain sight of the thousands of daily commuters.
Along the bottom of the ad were the “hashtags” those so common links to movements and social media links.
Some needed no interpretation:#F**KTRUMP and #Trumpsucks but it was the last one that intrigued me: #Oodismerican. What the hell did that mean?
I fired up my laptop to find out.
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