SCOTLAND — I’ve been to Scotland to play golf before, but this trip was different. It had a different philosophy behind it. It was more satisfying, more authentic than my bucket-list quests of the past. I offer it not as a how-to but as an idea.
Members of the group I was with were not ticket punchers. Although three of our foursome had never been to Scotland before, the consensus was to skip the high-dollar, big-name courses. Our itinerary took us to courses most Americans aren’t familiar with.
The result was that in two weeks, we encountered only five other Americans, and four of those were in pubs. Instead, we met and interacted with Scots who were eager to hear what we thought of their courses — from the club secretary who met us as we finished his quirky hillside course in Aberfoyle to the greens committee chairman at Dunaverty Golf Club who walked several holes with us, pointing out lines of play and reading putts.
It was a clear contrast to the Grand Central Station feel of the big-name courses I’d played in years past. “I would love to tackle the Old Course at St. Andrews someday, but I’m not sure it could not be any more spectacular than the courses on our itinerary,” said Jerry Felts of Huntsville, Alabama, one of our foursome.
Our spirit guide for the trip was Jim Hartsell, a friend of Gregg Dewalt of Florence, Alabama, my partner at Alabama Golf News. Dewalt, our trip planner, said he wanted a genuine Scottish golf experience for his first trip abroad.
Dewalt had read Hartsell’s 2022 book, “When Revelation Comes,” in which Hartsell describes his month of wandering the back roads of Scotland, playing whatever courses struck his fancy and connecting with the Scots he was paired with.
I spoke with Hartsell on our return to the U.S. in early August. He reminded me that although Scotland has nearly 600 golf courses, American golfers can probably name fewer than a dozen.
“Almost every little town you drive through has a golf course.” he said. “And so, I just kind of said, well, if I see something that looks interesting, I’m going to stop and play. And that’s kind of the way I did it. I don’t even think I had a single tee time scheduled.”
At the time, Hartsell was grieving the recent death of one of his adult sons, and he hoped to find solace in Scotland.
“I think,” Hartsell said, “the people of Scotland, how wonderful they are and how empathetic they are to certain situations and just how much, especially in these places that are really out of the way — I mean, seriously, out of the way, places that you just can’t get to very easily — just how happy people were that some lone, crazy American was driving around and showing up to play.”
And getting the sense of a place: “There’s something great about staying in the same hotel for three or four nights in a row,” Hartsell said. “You get to know the people in the bar and the waitress and waiters and the manager. So yeah, to me, that’s part of the fun.
“To me, the way the people treated you and how they felt about their golf courses and how they wanted to know what you thought about their course — it’s just refreshingly different from the way the game is here. … That kind of golf is just sort of a way of life.”
Talking with Hartsell brought back a memory of a trip long ago that had somehow faded away. A friend and I had zig-zagged across most of the length of Scotland on a trip that was as much auto sightseeing as it was a golf tour.
We were at the Old Course at Moray Golf Club way up north. We hadn’t hired caddies. On the back nine I spotted a man, a woman and a boy walking along the margin of the hole we were playing. The man, I saw, carried a couple clubs. I guessed he’d drop a ball and play a couple shots when an opening presented itself.
As I looked, the man gestured and came my way. He asked where I was from and what I thought of his course. We chatted a bit, and then he pointed down the fairway and told me about the pot bunkers up ahead that I would never have spotted until I was in one of them. And with a tip of his hat, he rejoined his family on their evening walk.