Golf Scrapbook Blog (The Top Ones)

St. Andrews: Castle Course

May 2022 – The Castle Course is the seventh and latest course to be opened of the St. Andrew’s offerings. It’s about a mile or so down the road from the town and features a vastly different golf experience than the other courses at St. Andrews – similar to the later offerings at Pinehurst versus the original courses that are on property. It gets some pretty critical press from the design nerds including a zero rating from Tom Doak. While I respect Doak, I don’t agree with him here and whether they softened some of the features since he reviewed it or the rain we played in softened it up, this played fair and definitely makes my top 100. Sure the greens were tricky but that made it pretty unique to the other courses here. There is a great review that sums up my overall take on the Castle Course right here. Make sure you also click through to the article on Doak and Kidd burying the hatchet. BTW that’s the only other place where I see the golf architectural fans referred to as nerds!

So let’s talk about four things here in no particular order: 1) How the UK fucks up breakfast 2) Rain golf 3) David McLay Kidd and the Castle Course and 4) London (reason to be revealed).

1. Breakfast in the UK sucks: First you can’t get a drink in Scotland until 11 AM. For all but Prestwick, they held firm to that (points added for Prestwick IMO). So no restaurants feature bloodies, screwies or even Mimosas. How can you drink all day if you can’t start at breakfast?!? Luckily I assumed this was going to be the case so we bought our own makings and outsmarted the prudes by making our own bloodies/screwies for every morning tee time. Then the “take away” meal at every course we played was the sausage sandwich. This is disgusting and you are likely to poop yourself shortly after ingesting. Do not get this no matter how hungry or tempted you might be. My buddy Mike missed the 18th at Castle Course because he had a post-sausage sandwich emergency. Then bacon. How can you fuck up bacon? You can wrap shit in bacon and it would still be tasty. Not in the UK. They practically serve you bacon raw. Even if you ask for it to be crispy, it will come to you slightly less raw but still barely digestible. Runny eggs. Hate ’em. I guess those rotten-toothed bastards in the UK love ’em because your scrambled eggs will come to you: (a) runny snot consistency, (b) lumpy liquid egg style or (c) drink with a straw liquidy. Finally, English Muffins. Even when you’re in London, ENGLAND you can’t get ’em. WTF you’re in ENGLAND!
2. Rain Golf: Not a fan. Of course, if you’re going to Scotland you prepare by packing golf wear – gloves, rain pants, golf rain jacket, et al. In reality though the weather in the St. Andrews area is actually less rainy than in Philly. St. Andrew’s averages nine rainy days and less than two inches of rain in May. Philly? Eleven days and almost four inches. Then there was the day we played the Castle Course. We got nearly the entire month’s worth of rain in one day. We were soaked even with rain gear. The caddies said no way they would play in that kind of rain. I’ve been lucky in that for most of the top courses played, I avoided rain. Notable exceptions are Firestone, Bear’s Club (but we persevered as we were playing with Gary Player), here and as we were scheduled to play 36 holes this day, the last one is Kingsbarns which we only played nine. Even with the rain clothes we were soaked. Pissing was an adventure – gloves off, rain pants down, peel off wet pants and soaked undies and since it was cold try to wrestle out your cold turtle. In fact, I fucked up the most picturesque hole on the course – the 17th – as I was all discombobulated post-piss. I borrowed the photo of 18 above since the one I took was inside of an umbrella (a wind-buster that the Scottish wind and rain busted) or the crappy one posted below.
3. David McLay Kidd: So imagine your rookie effort being Bandon Dunes. This was the second course of his I played. While I don’t like getting kicked in the nuts for eighteen holes I didn’t find that to be the case with either of these courses. Of course, unless you consider the relentless wind and rain we played here. The course was beautiful and would fit well in Cabot or Bandon, let alone here in the birthplace of golf. I shot a 92 here which was probably the best I played for the entire week. Even in the rain, this is a beautiful course and you will enjoy it. I’ll try and label the photos below but there was a great variety of holes and the views were unbeatable. Despite my post-pee-in-the-rain trauma on 17, it is among the top par threes I’ve ever played. I plan on playing Gamble Sands later this year and have a Mammoth Dunes trip planned for 2023. I’m in LA in a few days too so I may try and get on Rolling Hills Country Club in Palos Verdes to really see whether Kidd rocks here as well (see what I did there).
4. London: Our Scotland trip featured six rounds in five days. You know you will pay for that dearly with the spouses. So we back-halved the UK trip with London. I got to spend an early afternoon in Harrod’s department store (the eight circles – or floors – of hell in my own oh so humble opinion). But I like London, despite the fact you can’t get English Muffins. We saw “Witness for the Prosecution” at the London County Hall – highly recommended. We ate at Gordon Ramsey’s in Chelsea (which was good but awesome for you Ramsey nerds). I’m a closet foodie but I am the rare un-fan of Gordon Ramsey. I thought Hell’s Kitchen was so-so and not a fan of his acclaimed Beef Wellington anywhere. We stayed at the Tower Hotel – highly recommended and see if you can get upgraded to the suite (was great – photo from the conservatory below). Went to Windsor Castle out by the airport and ate at Brown’s there (recommended). I was supposed to go here in 2017 for the Jaguars-Eagles game and play Royal St. George but a work commitment killed that. Will be back to play it. My buddy is a Tottenham fan. There is way too much soccer crap in the UK. My thoughts are below…