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Scotland on my Mind by Dan King
Thursday June 27th
Blairgowrie Golf Club (Rosemount Course) |
Our original plan was to play another round at Carnoustie on the trip from Dornoch to St. Andrews. None of the four of us were all that impressed with Carnoustie the first time we played it. Besides, with it sandwiched between Royal Dornoch and the Old Course at St. Andrews, it was destined to have trouble stacking up. We changed our plans and decided to go with something completely different than most of the courses we'd been playing. We decided to go parkland. This worked out very well since one of Scotland's finest parkland courses was between the Highlands and St. Andrews.
It was sad to leave the Highlands. Dornoch had been a great town to spend some time in. When I return to Scotland, I'd love to have more time to spend there and sample some of the other courses in the area. As it was, every round played somewhere other than Royal Dornoch felt out of place. Why play other courses, when the finest links course in the world was right there.
The drive was nice. It took about three hours to go from Dornoch to Blairgowrie. The drive through the Grampians was scenic. We drove through many ski villages along the way, reminding us of the ski areas of the California Sierras during the off season.
Blairgowrie is in the town of Rosemount, just south of Blairgowrie. Rosemount is about 25 miles north of Perth on the road between A9 and Dundee.
By March 30th, 1889, a 9 hole golf course was laid out by the members of the newly formed Blairgowrie Golf Club. The original 9 holes had a par of 43, 655 445 635. After numerous attempts to expand the course, the members finally agreed to allow a young Alister MacKenzie to come in and build a whole new 18 hole course in 1925. The opening of the new 18 occurred in June of 1927. In 1934, the members brought in James Braid to redesign some of the course, and he created 8 new holes replacing 8 of MacKenzie's design. Nobody around Blargowrie seems to know for sure which holes were MacKenzie's and which were Braid's. I could pick out 4 or 5 holes that I didn't believe were MacKenzie's but this would only be an educated guess.
The course does not have MacKenzie greens. The greens were lost to a fungus in 1962, and the membership had new greens built with far less undulation in them. On a hole such as the long par-4 16th hole, you can see what MacKenzie might have had in mind, but the slopes of the green are significantly less than MacKenzie would have done.
After 2 weeks of links land courses, the Blairgowrie course took some getting used to. The first thing that hurt my eyes were the group ahead of us on the tee were 4 chaps sharing two buggies. Luckily the course isn't covered in cart paths, and walkers out-numbered riders by a considerable number. The next thing to get used to is the trees. Blairgowrie is routed through a pine and fir forest, with heather growing within the tree line. At least the forest could mostly be played out of, something not possible in the many fields of gorse bushes we had seen lately. Many of the holes are right out of the forest, giving each hole an isolated feel.
On the first hole, we all ended up being so attracted to the trees, that we all ended up in them at some time during play of the hole. But we settled down, and it eventually felt just like playing golf in California. All four of us had some of our best scoring day of our trip. Seems we can still shoot for pins when it is required. The old bump and run that came in so handy at Royal Dornoch was mostly useless at Blairgowrie.
After our round and the 45 minute drive to St. Andrews we arrived at 8:00 p.m. The others were very exited about being at St. Andrews. I could not shake the feeling that St. Andrews would be a let down after my wonderful experience, especially the early morning round 16 hours earlier in Dornoch. As soon as we arrived, our landlord of our Bed & Breakfast informed us we didn't make the ballot for Friday, but that two others in the house did. Therefore, there was an opening at the Old Course for two from our group. We agreed that Mike Smyth and Dick Gunderson should take the spots. Darla Cowden and I were going to find something else to do or possibly play the New Course in the afternoon. More on what happened that day in the next report.
My favorite holes on Blairgowrie:
Hole#1 Par-4 429 yards (Black Tree) The first shot is through a forest on the left and heavy rough and a single bunker of the right. The hole is a dogleg left. The fairway slopes down toward the left. Since the grass is thick it is easy to end up with a very un-even lie in this first fairway. The green is small,but looks much bigger with the grass shaved closer to give the green a very large false front.
Hole#9 Par-4 320 yards (Birks)
A short slightly dog leg left. With bunkers up toward the green, it is tempting to hit an iron to stay short. However, most of the bunkers are actually in a long iron range. There is a large bunker on the left which has the appearance of being close to the green. However, in reality there is 50 yards between this bunker and the green-side bunker. The longer your drive the more this fairway opens up. A few pot bunkers right and left prevent anyone from attempting a bump and run to this green.
Hole#12 Par-4 293 yard (Straight Away)
A very good short par-4 that has MacKenzie written all over it. The bunkering is definitely his. There are 3 small bunkers down the right with two larger bunkers down the left. A somewhat hidden bunker waits long. The short hole should be drivable, but most hit irons off the tee to stop from hitting into what appears to be a sea of bunkers. In reality, MacKenzie tricks us with the sizes of the faces of the bunker to make this hole appear much tougher than it is. The first bunker on the left, and the first two on the right are in reality not even in play for a decent drive. The longer your tee shot, the more wide open the hole. But you don't know that on the tee.
Hole#16 Par-4 475 yard (Black Loch)
A long par-4 that gradually dog legs to the left. The tee shot is over a small finger of Black Loch, which should not be in play. O.B. runs down the left side, just off the fairway. A good tee shot is aimed for the large pines on the left with a slight right to left movement. The green is accessible from the right and shots can be run up if they avoid the small bunkers in the front. The green is in a little bowl, so long shots can roll back onto the fairly flat putting surface.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Dan King
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