Island Golf Hopping
BY ED HODGE
6 MINS READ
There has always been something magical about throwing the clubs in the back of the car with care-free abandon, hitting the road, boarding a ferry and teeing it up at a take-the-breath away remote venue. A whisky in hand to toast the trip with your pals at the 19th hole never goes amiss either.
With more of a plot line, self-confessed lapsed golfer Gary Sutherland did just that. This year marks the 10th anniversary of his book, ‘Golf on the Rocks: A Journey Round Scotland’s Island Courses,’ chronicling a tour of Scottish golf perhaps like no other. A book borne from the sad, early loss of his dad, James.
“No man is an island, but he can golf 18 of them if the mood strikes him,” reads the bio, which perfectly sums up a warm, humorous and insightful guide to golf on Scotland’s beautiful islands.
Sutherland’s descriptions of his exploits, the tales of the people he meets, the animals he avoids and the thrill of playing courses a world away from championship layouts raise plenty smiles. It’s golf in the wild, golf at it’s very best… and here the prolific author brings it all to life once more.
Barra Golf Club
Emotional pull…
My dad’s history was a key part behind the book. It was in November 2007 when we lost him. Golf was always in the family and dad was more of a golfer than me. He was a fisherman and if he wasn’t at sea he was quite often to be found on the course at Hopeman, a seaside village in Moray where I grew up. He was your average kind of golfer, just loved the game, with a mid-teens handicap. A lot of my memories of my dad are playing golf with him.
We decided to start playing a round on his birthday, 16 September, every year as a way of celebrating him together – myself, my mum, Helen, my brother, Stewart, and my sister, Julieann. As a family, we came up with the idea of a trophy, the ‘Magic Putter’. My dad simply couldn’t chip a ball, he was one of these guys who would putt from 40 yards off the green, which you can do on a links course. Hopeman is not a links, but it has links-type holes.
So, every year since 2008, we’ve played for dad’s ‘Magic Putter’. I think we played Boat of Garten first, a sad occasion 12 months after losing him, and we’ve maintained it all these years. Last year we played Blairgowrie, we’ve been all over really. In the wake of that first year, I came up with the idea of the book. I ended up on 18 islands and played 17 courses!
Colonsay Golf Club
The concept…
I’m always looking for an adventure and I wanted to remember dad. I immediately thought about the high seas, him being a fisherman, and taking his putter with me. I didn’t want it to be standard golf courses, but something a bit quirky, so hit upon the idea of islands. What confirmed it for me was a free golf map of Scotland I had in my possession from the Scotland on Sunday newspaper from a Christmas edition. I opened it out and started up adding all the island courses, arriving at 18 really quicky. I thought ‘there we go, I’m going to go to 18 island courses with my dad’s putter’. It was the summer of 2009 that I did the journey, taking over six months between trips. I was a dad by that point myself, which resonated too.
Planning…
As I said, I picked out 18 islands, but there are probably 30 you can find a golf course on in Scotland. I was drawn like other tourists to the white sands and turquoise waters of the Outer Hebrides, with beaches that look like they come from the Caribbean. I thought I could knock off three or four courses there. My dad was often out in the North Sea and his boat would be in Lerwick in bad weather, so there was a connection to Shetland. There are courses there, as there are in Orkney. With Barra and Harris too, I knew I was well on my way.
I knew Islay was going to be the 18th as my dad’s mum, Grannie Sutherland, lived latterly on Islay, while my uncle was a whisky distiller there. I had childhood holidays on Islay and played The Machrie a couple of times, once with my dad too, I think. There was that family connection, so I wanted to go back and play The Machrie and finish there. I was so excited starting it all off, as it was extreme, especially in the far north, in terms of golf.
Whalsay & The Machrie
Teeing off…
I actually started close to my home in Glasgow. The island of Bute has Port Bannatyne, a 13-hole course, which I thought a little strange but a good story. I kicked it all off there. It wasn’t the only quirky one I threw in, like the island in the middle of the River Tay in Perth with the King James VI club. It offered a nice contrast. Then there is Arran over on the west coast, where there are seven courses. A lot of people rave about Shiskine and rightly so. It’s a quirky, eccentric 12-hole course, especially with those back-to-back par-3s and the views they offer across the water. The blind holes add to the magic
Other favourites…
I ended up on Whalsay, inhabited by deep sea herring fisherman, and the most northerly course in the UK. Everything came together that day, the weather, the company, playing with locals, it was incredible. I don’t drive, so everything was done by public transport, but it was gold dust for a book, bumping into people and meeting islanders. It’s an epic island and we caught it that day at 27 degrees with not a cloud in the sky, absolutely beautiful on a long summer’s day. It was a lovely course in really good condition, with one of the holes on a cliff top edge. We were fed fresh fish and tatties from a local croft. My brother also birdied the northern most hole on the course, a long par-4, so the most northern hole in the UK!
Harris, off the west coast, was also special. The golf club overlooks Scarista beach. It’s a rollercoaster, dune-like, up and down test. It’s a 9-holer and the beauty of it is really special. It was then memorable to finish on Islay at The Machrie, which has been re-designed over recent times. My daughter, Isabella, was on the final green aged about 18 months, shuffling about. It was special.
On the ferry to Lerwick
The one that got away…
We believed there was a course in North Uist in the Outer Hebrides that only appears in the summer when not being used for crofting purposes. There was nobody to phone ahead of the journey, so it was a gamble. An old friend, Brian Noble, who also dabbles in golf architecture, joined me on my entire adventure. We took this local bus, of which there was only two a day, and the driver dropped us off to walk down to fields and an area of pasture. It was just broken bits of farm machinery, no evidence of any flags at all, just sheep – and then the heavens opened! We were a bit confused but later realised we had probably got there too early in May, as the course wasn’t ready yet! I wrote about the journey, the disappointment, but I like the imperfection, as it’s a bit like life.
The last word…
I would recommend playing island courses to any visitor coming here, or any golfer in Scotland for that matter – my word it is affordable! At some of the courses, you put £5 or £10 in an honesty box for your game, which is unusual in itself. There was the expense of travel for my book, but on a short window holiday you could create a mini-tour and just do the Hebrides, for example, with Skye, Lewis, Harris, Barra and South Uist, which has the wonderful Askernish. That was epic as well. It was wild. The flow of the 1st as a links hole, with the angled green, felt like I was playing somewhere special. There is a social side to the islands as well, you meet some right characters! If you have the spirit of adventure, a sense of humour and want to do something a bit different, then island golf is for you.
You can purchase Sutherland’s ‘Golf on The Rocks’ at Amazon.