Playing Banchory
BY MURRAY BOTHWELL
5 MIN READ
It’s always useful when visiting a new course to have a member to play with who can give you the best lines to take, explain the history of the Club and the layout, and help you look for your ball when you carve it into what looks like impenetrable forest. I was that lucky golfer on my first visit to Banchory Golf Club, and my friend on Committee was the perfect partner for a wonderful afternoon’s golf in the heart of Royal Deeside, just west of Aberdeen.
The quality of the course has been the catalyst for some recent Junior members to progress to scholarships abroad, hoping to emulate some of the Club’s most famous names: ex-club professional Harry Bannerman (of Ryder Cup fame) and a young assistant professional named Paul Lawrie who served his time at the Club before embarking on a very well-documented career. It’s no wonder that the course encourages latent talent: there’s a calmness to playing Banchory that can bring out the best in anyone’s game. Perhaps it’s the stunning scenery surrounding the course? Set within mature forests of pine and silver birch upon stepped levels of the banks of the majestic River Dee, the nearby foothills of the Grampian mountains feed the river which gently strokes the course on its path past Braemar and down to the sea. As an OOB, the river never really comes into play because of the wall of trees that will always catch your power-fade.
History surrounds you as you tee off on the higher section of the course’s estate. Nearby sits the course clock, held in a replica of the old doo’cot which lies about 100 yards away, gleaming white with its pointed roof. This ‘Dove Cottage’ sits off to the side of the par-3 16th green, a marker to steer left of when playing this fascinatingly short blind hole from the lower stretch of the course. At only 88 yards from the back tees, you’d think it would be a breeze but the average score from each of the white, yellow and red tees proves decidedly otherwise. In fact, for a par-69 course of just under 5900 yards it has three par-5s and a tantalising number of par-3s (six), so for an outing it’s got everything to test the higher handicapper as well as the low. Those par-3s on their own provide a stiff enough test for Banchory’s members with an average of bogey being scored off the yellows, so any visiting group is assured of plenty of fun.
The course winds its way into the forest off the 1st and 2nd, eventually dropping down at the 3rd to a gorgeous par-3, played over an old boundary wall to a green protected by no less than six bunkers and a tree thrown in for good measure. A series of parallel holes follow along the wide river bank, flipping you back and forth, offering help from any wind whistling down the valley before snatching it away again. The west-facing 8th hole is a tight, rising dogleg from my fairway drive position, and any following fade that’s pushed by the prevailing wind runs the risk of finding itself on the nearby tennis court. New balls all round then.
The 12th and 13th holes are particularly memorable. Banchory’s own Amen Corner is the 12th, a par-3 of no more than 183 yards but playing across a stretching left to right burn which protects a narrow green that’s also running away from you. Teeing off from beneath a canopy of pine beside the dark, timeless waters of the Dee to this gorgeous green set against the dusky forest, with explosions of coloured azalea and rhododendron forming a backdrop in the season, it’s hard not to pause and reflect on how beautiful a course this is. Having achieved better than the average 4.3 for this hole I climb confidently to the course’s higher level to gaze back down to its lower section. An impressive par-4 dogleg awaits that demands accuracy and instinctively forces the player to try too hard. Any ability to draw the ball accurately is ideal (not my game sadly, at least not on purpose) but there’s even more required here: there’s a burn crossing the fairway just beyond the optimum landing area. As my ball flies into the clear blue sky above tree tops and mountain, it’s no wonder that this tee echoes to the sounds of joy and woe in equal measure. It deserves its rank of SI 1 and has no doubt seen the end of many a good score in a medal. Thank goodness for the views!
Our gentle climb back to the uniquely octagonal Clubhouse, a nod to the Club’s equally unique and historical old round mill now used by the well-stocked Professional’s Shop, brings to an end a glorious afternoon’s golf in a quite unsurpassed setting. The natural highs and lows of Banchory’s beautifully presented course exist without the trials and tribulations of my own game. Whether dropping down to the river bank or playing to its plateau, a game here is never easy but always rewarding.
This royal gem sits right at the heart of a landscape brimming with majestic scenery, and proves that course length certainly plays second to providing the visiting golfer with memorable and surprising challenges. Had Queen Victoria played golf I’m sure she would certainly have been amused.