What do we get when an idyllic Scottish vacation is combined with a lazy blogger? Not much, it so happens, at least on these pages....
Friday presented as a warmish, mostly dry day, and we collectively decided to to head North To The Links of Dornoch, )with apologies to Herbert Warren Wind), for a walkabout and a mini-picnic. But, en route, we caught sight of the first hay bales of the trip:
In case you were wondering, we will revisit all of your humble bloggers obsessions. We've now in Pittenweem, having driven down from the Strath yesterday, and on the drive we saw a wide array of bales of hay, including some that were rectangular. You can therefore expect a disquisition on the virtues of those rectangular bales as compared to these more elegant and visually pleasing cylindrical examples.
We took a quick look at the Skibo Castle course, one that Theresa and I had tried unsuccessfully to grab a look at many years ago:
Those were the only players visible on the course, but Skibo is that kind of posh place that one imagines doesn't get much play.
Ostensible, our purpose was to see the new clubhouse being constructed by Royal Dornoch:
That's the old structure to the right that provides the relative scale. And while clubs have been known invest excessively in their clubhouses, it would be hard to think of an example where more space was so obviously needed (and where the resources are adequate).
Dornoch's problems might be of a higher class than our own clubs, but they still exist. This new facility is essentially shortening the first hole of the Struie Course, RDGC's members course. That may not be quite the accurate characterization, because one is required to accept a period of membership in the Struie before ascending to membership in their Championship Course. The problem, shocking in these post-Covid times, is that nobody is resigning, so that Struie members are being admitted to the Championship Course in a trickle. I had contacted RDGC about the possibility of an Overseas Membership, and received this e-mail in June from the club:
Dear Prospective Member,
At the Council of Management meeting held on Monday 3rd June it was decided that applications for Struie Course membership would remain closed.
There were only 10 offers of upgrade from Struie to Full membership approved this year and with 564 Struie members still waiting for the upgrade it was deemed that there was no space to accept any new Struie members this year as the prospects of being upgraded are well into the future.
We are sorry not to have better news but with member retention so high, movement is very slow.
I can't see where there's a problem. At ten per year, it'll only take 56 years to clear the backlog, and one assumes that all will be content with that timing...
We made our way down to the beach, where the tide was out
Dornoch is private property, but there is a pedestrian right of way that allows you to cut in from the beach to a pathway along the inward nine.
That path had a dangerous section we'll just call gorse alley:
Keep those arms close to your body....
Then this image cause my PTSD to kick in:
That grassy knoll in the center of the frame is above a bunker strategically placed to grab your second shot on the Par-5 12th, and is the spot where I ripped an inch of skin off the index finger of my right hand back in 2022, extricating my ball from a dep lie. The shot came of well, unfortunately so did my skin.
And this from the back of the second green:
Hard to see where Donald Ross got the idea for push-up greens, eh?
Theresa and I always love to pay homage to Stuart Shaw, a lovely man who caddies for her on our first visit. The Carnegie Shield is the major amateur event at Dornoch, and (as pointed out by my caddie that day), Stuart won two of them 23 years apart (you can see his name at the bottom on the left as well).
A quick walk to the tidal swimming pool last evening:
It was here last summer....
That stone house in the center is us, those three gabled windows being our aerie bedroom.
This is the sky through our bedroom window as we turned in last night:
Off to Crail this morning for our first go at the Balcomie. Our nephew, who performs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is on his way up for a short visit as well. More later.
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