A Kindred Spirit

Tales of Warkworth Part One

By Richard Pennell

Once again, word of mouth opens a gate I’d have otherwise walked past. A free morning on this winter golfing pilgrimage, towards the shore that peers out at the North Sea and Holy Island; a chance to retreat into golf, and writing, and to meet fresh horizons with that energy that always accompanies “the new”.
I ask a few people for ideas for this vacant slot, and Warkworth is one of a few in contention. I call, eager to speak in person, and the conversation that follows tells me that this is the sort of place I should be seeing. For the person on the other end of the line is friendly, funny, welcoming.

… from Warkworth GC

 

I ask a few people for ideas for this vacant slot, and Warkworth is one of a few in contention. I call, eager to speak in person, and the conversation that follows tells me that this is the sort of place I should be seeing. For the person on the other end of the line is friendly, funny, welcoming.

And it is a chance to connect with another soul touched by golf, whose writing on these same themes beguiles me. R’s path to his golfing prose is different from mine, but we have each arrived in a similar place – the game an avenue for a deeper exploration of who we are; the lives we’ve led. Before we meet, we’ve spoken a little on the phone, and exchanged a few messages, but nothing can compare with the freedom golf provides for this sort of relaxed conversation.

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Golf in the Wild – Going Home – Further East

Chapter 3: Among the Skerray headstones is this touching tribute to another George Mackay, erected by his friends in London. Enough is known about young George to imagine his last days …

It was early morning, 12 April 1912. The house was slowly coming to life, and George was wide awake. In fitful excitement, he had hardly slept. Some last tearful farewells to the early morning maids, a final check that his tickets were secure in his pocket and quietly he slipped the safe moorings of 11 Queens Gate, Kensington, and his life as a footman. Emerging from the colonnaded porch, he touched the iron railings one last time, turned left, and then right onto Prince Consort Road, heading for Waterloo and the 07:45 train to Southampton. He was dressed in his Sunday-best suit and wearing a Sunday smile. He did not look back. The city was already bustling with the clatter of hooves and the too familiar smell of horse manure, soon to be replaced by the salt sea air he had known as a boy.

The young George had only just turned twenty, but already he had travelled far from his humble beginnings on a croft near Tongue, in Sutherland. One of twelve children to William and Christina Mackay, he was determined to better himself. Too often he had heard tales of regret, of lives half-lived in the bitter north. George, the Heilam ferryman, spoke of nothing else but his plans as a young man to travel to Canada and how he was persuaded to stay by the Duke of Sutherland. This George would not make the same mistake.
The third-class boat train from Waterloo pulled into Southampton Docks at 09:30, stopping at Berth 43/44. Clutching a small brown suitcase and ticket 42795, George alighted into the dockside sheds, crossed the road, controlled by a man with a red flag, and momentarily stood, awestruck by the sheer overwhelming size of the ship. It was beyond anything he could have imagined. Nothing like this was ever seen in the Kyle.

As a third-class passenger, George had a simple berth, shared with six other passengers. Keen to escape the claustrophobia of steerage and the company of strangers, many of whom could not speak English, he quickly found his way to the open decks. He was there when the ship cast off and was towed into the River Test by tugboats, there for the near collision with USMS New York, there when Cherbourg appeared on the French coast and there when the ship set sail for Cobh in the dim light of an April evening. All the while he grasped ticket 42795. It had cost £7 11s, all his savings, but he was bound for Rochester and a new life in Detroit. Of one thing he was certain: he was never going home.

Golf in the Wild – Going Home.  Chapter 3 – Further East

Golf in the Wild – Going Home – Reay

Chapter 2:  There is a wild beauty to this place which is quite different from the west. After the high uplands of Sutherland, Caithness is a gentler, flatter and a largely treeless landscape, where landmarks stand out like exclamation marks on the horizon. The golf course at Reay (pronounced Ray) owes its existence and survival to the occupants of Sandside House to the west and the Dounreay atomic energy site to the east. Both are visible from various parts of the course.
Thomas Pilkington, the St Helens glass manufacturer, acquired Sandside House and some of the surrounding estates in the late 1800s for use as a shooting and fishing retreat. Like many landed families of the nineteenth century, the Pilkington clan, relatives, friends and accompanying servants would up sticks from smoky Lancashire and spend the summer sporting in the far north. The contrast between industrialised St Helens and the wilds of Reay could not have been more pronounced. When not shooting, contemplating salmon or installing an early version of double glazing, Thomas’s thoughts turned to golf. Looking east from the upper, condensation-free windows of Sandside House, he would see the perfect location for his very own course …

Chapter 2 – Reay

A different sort of golfer …

…  a different sort of biker.  Durness is the place where Golf in the Wild ends and its sequel, Golf in the Wild – Going Home, begins.  The image of the 8th green shows a ball adjacent to the pin – it will not have arrived in regulation.  The approach has the characteristics of an infinity pool – just fairway and water.  It takes confidence to go for the invisible green, anything long seemingly destined for the briny sea.

The view from the 8th/17th green takes in many highlights of the course: the dunes and the edge of Balnakeil Bay; sturdy Balnakeil House – available for rent to the well-heeled and grubby – it has six bathrooms; the graveyard where lies the Clan MacKay henchman, Donald McMurdo – was ill to his friend and worse to his foe; the 18th tee, which provides such a glorious finish across a rocky inlet and the Clubhouse which resembles a coastguard station, forever keeping watch for those in peril on the course.

The image does not sparkle, it was not one of those days – hazy sunshine turned dreich, but I was grateful for the benign conditions; when the winds blow strong across the Parph from Cape Wrath, this will be an inhospitable place for golf and much else besides.

The view from the 8th green, looking east

It was taken in August 2012 and, sad to relate, I have never played the course since, despite becoming a country member for a couple of years when the club’s finances were stretched. Their secretary, Lucy Mackay, has always been very supportive of Golf in the Wild.  That is not to say I have never returned to Balnakeil and Durness – I have been several times, most recently in 2021 by motorcycle.

The NCA Motorcycle Club at Balnakeil Bay – May 2021

My standard line is that I have yet to fathom how to carry golf clubs on my BMW GS, but as I proved on Barra, dependence on my own clubs is entirely illusory, indeed, my game seemed to benefit from using a mixed set of hire clubs.  With this in mind, I am planning more extreme wild golf by motorcycle – in 2023 the intention is to ride to the Lofoten Islands in Norway and play golf under the midnight sun on Lofoten Links.  I have travelled there by car, sea, ship and aeroplane which only leaves the motorcycle to complete the set.  On my last trip I travelled with my eldest son by train from Oslo to Bodø and then took a short flight to Svolvær.  It was the beginning of March and snow was still thick on the ground – the Lofoten Islands are well within the Arctic Circle such that Lofoten Links will only open from 5th of May until 15th of October in 2023.

The road to Lofoten Links – March 2020

Near Lofoten Links – March 2020

Why post this now? It is all part of the process of making it happen – a commitment to myself, and now, to others. It is about not losing face.

Golf Mates at Covesea

The Golf Mates have discovered Covesea!  This entertaining video captures the essence of Andy Burnett’s course in a way that the written word never can.  It is the perfect companion to Chapter 9 of Golf in the Wild – Going Home – the Moray Coast:

Built around natural features, high ground, cliff faces, enormous rocks and ideal links land, it is remarkable.  Andy Burnett bought the land about fifteen years ago and, with his brother Graeme, expended huge effort in turning it into a 9-hole golf course. … as soon as I saw the place, I fell in love with it completely.  Unusually, Covesea is not a members’ club, so the course is entirely Andy’s domain, thereby avoiding the plague of the grumpy golfer who will seek to blame all his misfortune on anything but his inadequate game. Consequently, the usual rules, regulations and members’ priority are entirely missing. “We’ve always run the place without any airs and graces—everyone is welcome to come and play.”  It is an operational model that I find extremely attractive.

The heroic trio came to the same conclusions – a remarkable course that golfers must be encouraged to visit – they will not be disappointed.

 

St Andrews & Anstruther

I guess most golfers have an ambition to play St Andrews, the home of golf.  Scheduled to play Anstruther at 13:30 we had some time to spare so we drove the extra ten miles north and spent an enjoyable hour gongoozling at St Andrews’  first tee and the eighteenth green.

Much as I would like to play the Old Course, I have some reservations.  I would feel obliged to use a caddy and I would imagine a continuous analysis of my fragile game by an old hand who has seen it all before, not least the incompetent hack.  There is also the gallery, especially at the eighteenth where a wayward finish is all too publicly on display – and always remember Doug Sanders.

This good man cleared the Valley of Sin but, his ball ran through to the rough at the back of the green and found a testing lie which he wanted the ‘gallery’ to know about.  Despite this he chipped to within feet of the pin – a fine effort in spite of the attentions of the man with a camera.

Look at this lie!

A great chip

To within feet.

The final drawback is the cost – all well and good if you are in reasonable form but a recipe for certain depression if you are having a poor day.  Nevertheless, I suppose it has its compensations – later that day when I parred the eighteenth at Anstruther, there was nobody present to admire my final putt, just my good buddy who slightly resented me adding salt to his wounds.

Anstruther’s second

 

Anstruther proved to be everything I had hoped for – a fine course with some challenging holes, not least, the three consecutive par 3s at the southern end of the course.  The first of these, the fifth – The Rockies, was deemed the toughest par 3 in Britain in 2007 by Today’s Golfer. Ian parred this on the back nine, something I feel obliged to mention 😉 And, yes, but for Covid, Anstruther would have been in the sequel.

Tomorrow we head south again – this time to Jedburgh, a course I have not played since it was extended to eighteen holes. If the sun stays out, it should be a fine finish to an excellent three days of escape.

The tee is back beyond the gorse – near the square structure

Gifford

First golf impressions are influenced by the weather and how well you play.  The skies over Gifford were an unbelievable blue and the scoring surprisingly good.  Consequently I consider Gifford to be a spectacular golf course.  A parkland layout surrounded to the northwest by Blawearie Wood and  in the lee of the Lammermuir Hills, it is well presented with large, immaculate greens.  The Speedy Burn runs across the course and comes into play at the second, seventh, eighth and ninth holes.  The small but tidy clubhouse could feature in George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces.  At not far short of 6000 yards off the yellows with just three par 3s (6000+ off the whites) good distance off the tee will help post a reasonable score.

A nine-hole course, there is some variety on the back nine: the first is a par three whereas the tenth tee is at the edge of the car park – this being some 200-yards distant from the clubhouse where the first tee is positioned; the fourteenth par 3 is significantly shorter and easier than front nine fifth; the eighteenth tee is set back some distance in a small copse and turns the front nine par 4 ninth into a par 5.  The narrow perspective from this last tee presents a challenging finish.

Had Covid not interfered with travel plans in 2020, it is almost certain that this course would have featured in the sequel – Golf in the Wild – Going Home. If asked what has been the greatest influence on writing the sequel, I would have to respond ‘Events, my dear boy, events‘ (H. Macmillan).  As I head for Anstruther with my long time golfing buddy (Ian the L Plates – see book #1), I feel certain the same will apply.

The second

The eighth

The fifth

Yester Parish Church in the centre of Gifford

Golf in the Wild and Kindle

The first print run of 1000 books has nearly sold out and so I have reached a decision point – reprint or make available online.  I have always much preferred print media to e-books and it was this that motivated the high production standards for Golf in the Wild.  It was the unknown book I wanted golfers to find on the shelf at Waterstones which would immediately inspire them to rush to the check-out.  Not that Waterstones was ever persuaded to stock the book but, therein lies another story.

The sequel, Golf in the Wild – Going Home, is due for publication in September 2021.  At the same time I will reprint the first book.  With a gap in availability of several months, this seemed an opportune time to experiment with Kindle.  After several frustrating hours with Kindle Create, I eventually decided to upload as a Print Replica which, in plain English, means that the content appears exactly as it does in the printed book format.  Retention of the original formatting and imagery means it is a large download – more megabytes for your buck.  The Kindle price is £3.49 in the UK, with equivalent pricing in other worldwide territories – Kindle Unlimited members get to read if for free.

Going Home – progress

The text is finalised, the route set in stone, the website partially updated and the target for publication forecast as September 2021, to coincide with the Golf in the Wild Open at Allendale (date to be confirmed).  The journey is not quite as planned.  World events intervened, the Scottish border closed and the trip to Anstruther abandoned.  This is a major disappointment as it would sit nicely in the return journey and the setting for the course looks wonderful – see Anstruther Golf Club’s gallery.  Consequently, there is a journey of 108 miles between Blair Atholl and Lauder without a golf ball being struck – needs must.  Perhaps this is the basis for a trilogy – a return journey, playing all the good courses I missed the first time around:  Golf in the Wild, Going Back.  Will the Good Wife tolerate yet more golfing adventures, I wonder.

Carrbridge

You don’t have to be Inspector Clouseau to realise that, while Golf in the Wild is written as one long glorious journey of golfing delights, the reality is that it is ‘researched’ over several years and many different trips north.  As I progress towards completion of the sequel, there has been a longstanding gap between Cullen and Blair Atholl.  Heading north on an annual visit to Traigh, I had to take the opportunity to find the missing link.  It was a half remembered conversation with our greenkeeper and club secretary, Neil, that went something like “have you not played Carrbridge, it’s first class” – the implication being that any itinerant golfer worth his salt could not possibly have passed it by.  I confessed that I had not.

Neil was not wrong.  Immaculately presented, a sensible length with nine very different holes and each one imprinted on my memory.  And here’s the thing – clubhouse door to clubhouse door, give or take an inch or two, it is exactly half way between Cullen and Blair Atholl – 56.3 miles from Cullen to Carrbridge and 56.2 miles from Carrbridge to Blair Atholl.  In every sense, this course was predestined for Golf in the Wild – Going Home.

A late afternoon round was played under ever changing skies but rain did not spoil the experience.  I will save a full description for the book but these are some immediate memories:

  • The first would be a fine introduction to any course – blind from the tee, I guess a long hitter might find the diagonal burn about half way along the fairway but, for an average Joe, it presents no problem.  A neat wooden bridge, a ‘bell’ inspired by the J. Arthur Rank gong, it is a visual delight all the way to the green.
  • At the second I clipped a drive an unusually long distance, assisted by a down-slope, it ran too far left towards the first fairway and the burn.  From down there and probably elsewhere, what to do next had me perplexed.  Protected by tall trees left and right, heavy rough and minimal fairway, the green is nestled in a dip out of sight. I could spend a life time trying to master this hole – every course should have one.
  • The third is more straightforward but the fourth is protected by another burn which looks too easily driven.  From an elevated tee the fairway heads down hill and slowly but surely, the once visible pin disappears from view.
  • The fifth and sixth play across the top of the course – a birdie at the fifth at first attempt and a par at the sixth made for one happy golfer – modern course designers take note.
  • The seventh and eighth are both from gloriously elevated tees – there is real satisfaction in the soaring, high-flying ball that descends in slow-motion to the centre of the fairway.  The seventh green is on a plateau at more or less the same elevation as the tee so there is march down into the valley and a march up again.  The bank in front of the green looks deceptively close so, sad to relate, I selected a mid iron and left myself too much to do with my second – a recurring problem.  The eighth, a par 3, looks straightforward except for a house encroaching on the eye-line to the left.  Which tolerant soul lives there, I wonder.
  • And then to the ninth – a steep climb to another elevated tee with a fine view of the Carrbridge Hotel and the mountains beyond – it’s a tough finish.  A dogleg, 231 yard par 3, the green invisible from the tee.   As the final act to a golf course, it takes some beating; another hole I could take a life time to master.  Carrbridge has it all.
... Carrbridge

The Clubhouse

... proceeding down the 1st fairway, Carrbridge

The view down the first from the gong with the second fairway to the left

... and a ditch in driving distance

The view from the 4th tee with a burn in easy driving distance

... birdied at first attempt - very satisfying!

The 5th – birdied at first attempt – very satisfying!

... from the 7th with the valley between green and tee

Looking back from the 7th with the valley between green and tee

... Carrbridge - a first round at this immaculately presented Highland course.

The eighth green with the elevated tee in the background

... and a 'driveable' house!

The eighth green again – this time showing the nearby house!

... down the 9th from the elevated tee.

The view down the 9th from the elevated tee with the Carrbridge Hotel and mountains in the distance