Chapter 6: At first known as the ‘Music Hall Founded by Andrew Carnegie’, it was subsequently changed to the ‘Carnegie Hall’, as the term ‘Music Hall’ had different connotations in London. It was discovered that foreign performers were turning down invitations because they thought the hall was intended for cheap variety artists.
The Beatles’ first tour of the United States started on 7 February 1964. On the 9th they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, on the 11th they played their first US concert at the Washington Coliseum and the following day they performed at the Carnegie Hall. They opened with a Chuck Berry song:
You know my temperature’s risin’ The jukebox’s blowin’ a fuse My heart beatin’ rhythm And my soul keep singing the blues Roll over Beethoven And tell Tchaikovsky the news
Music was one of Carnegie’s passions, along with golf and fishing. It is difficult to guess how he might have reacted to the popular music of the 1960s being played at a venue which bears his name.
Skibo Castle satisfied Carnegie’s sporting passions, and with the help of his wife Louise it also became a home for music. It was Louise who hired an organist to greet them with Beethoven’s Fifth as they stepped over the threshold of their new home. The organist became a permanent institution:
Every morning we come down to breakfast greeted by swelling tones, beginning with a hymn or chorale, and swelling into selections from the oratorios, etc. In the evening our musician plays for us on our fine Bechstein piano … *
It would seem that castle guests had no hope of lying abed. In addition to the swelling tones of the organ, a lone piper would circle the main house before sweeping through the downstairs hall, assuring that all were awake and primed for breakfast, and then returning at dusk to ‘pipe’ the guests to dinner. **
As well as revelling in her role as the sadistic host, Louise Whitfield Carnegie also played golf.
* Louise Whitfield Carnegie: The Life of Mrs Andrew Carnegie by Burton Hendrick and Daniel Henderson
** David Nasaw’s, Andrew Carnegie – Chapter 29 – We Now Want to Take Root 1897-1898.
The following article was printed (with some edits) in Golf Quarterly #47 – it is reproduced here for those who don’t subscribe, but I recommend you do – a fine magazine with not a single advert for the next, or any, golf club capable of launching your over-priced golf ball into orbit:
The golf course is approached by rough single-track road about a mile from the main A888 which circles the island, also single track. There is no clubhouse, just a shipping container with an honesty box attached. My playing partners opted for an exciting arrival by plane, splashing down on Traigh Mohr beach in a scheduled flight from Glasgow. I arrived by the equally exciting combination of ferry and motorcycle, so none of us had clubs. These were available for hire in Castlebay at the very reasonable price of £5 for 24 hours. A mixed bag, they proved no less successful than my own set which I had imagined my game was dependent on.
After posting the £10 green fee in the slot, the first challenge is finding the right tee and choosing the correct target. There appears to be several possibilities – a choice of square greens, they are all protected by solar-powered electric fencing, with access gained through distinctly agricultural, galvanised kissing gates. It is evident from the start that this is a quite different golf course. Golf, but not as we know it.
Closer examination of the scorecard map revealed the intended destination. An opening par 3, where coming up short, as we all did, is ill-advised, but it does give some hint of what lies in store. In short, there is nothing but semi-rough or very rough, combined with water filled gullies and turf so receptive, it can swallow balls whole. Nobody scored better than a six.
Amy Liptrop describes the Orkney farm she was raised on, in her book, The Outrun: … historical agricultural records list farmland in two parts: the ‘in-bye’ arable land close to the farm steading; and the ‘out-bye’ or ‘outrun’, uncultivated rough grazing further away, often on hillsides. The Isle of Barra Golf Club has been built on the out-bye. It is not suitable for the plough and even less so the mower, instead, the course relies on grazing cattle who lack the necessary close-cutting skills of sheep. Unlike the ovine, the bovine are untidy eaters. They also take relief across the course, forcing the golfer to do similar. At least, when we played, they kept to the high ground where they surveyed our every move from atop Cnoc an Fhithich.
The second, a par 5 running along the coastline, is tough. With nothing but semi-rough and cowpats, my best drive of the day flew straight and true but was never seen again. Another feature of the course is scattered, rocky outcrops which provide an element of randomness akin to a pin-ball machine – one of the many possibilities for my disappearing golf ball. Despite these travails, I avoided despondency by simply raising my head, if not my game – the views in all directions, from every part of the course are simply stunning. The third and fourth, both par 4s, ascend Cnoc an Fhithich where the rain of eons has carved deep gullies into both fairways – hazards abound. The fifth tee is another steep climb from the fourth green where the course finally reaches its summit, a suitable location to draw breath and take in the scenery. The skies were blue, the weather benign so we should have counted ourselves lucky – quite what the course must be like in more traditional Outer Hebridean conditions, it is hard to imagine.
A hard course to master, the locals must be made of sterner stuff than me, but under all golfing circumstances, the trick is to remain level-headed and fully focussed. I belong to that rare tribe who are passionate about both golf and motorcycles. There should be more of us as both demand exactly the same frame of mind – living in the moment, 100% concentration and no letting your mind drift. If you do, you are likely to end up in the undergrowth – hunting for golf balls or retrieving a bent motorcycle and/or rider.
The drive from the par 4, 5th is between rocky outcrops. Successfully negotiate this blind drive and you have a sharp right dogleg, downhill to a partially concealed green – my ball found the green from a bounce off the kissing gate. I think it is called good course management. Survive as far as the 5th green with a semi-decent card and, in my experience, the final four holes provide the opportunity to make amends. The elevated 6th tee delivers a glorious high-flying drive and the opportunity for a similar 2nd shot into the heart of the green. Two par 3s and a finishing par 4 make for a much less demanding finish than the opening holes and my sixteen shots over four holes turned an untidy card into something more respectable.
Would I honestly recommend going to Barra to play golf, maybe not. Instead, go to Barra for Barra, it is a wonderful destination with scenery as remarkable as anywhere else in the world … oh, and while you are there, don’t miss the opportunity to have a unique golfing experience.
David and Anne – my golfing buddies who arrived by aeroplane.
The views compensate for everything
And, in case you missed it, here is Steven Spielberg’s take on the adventure:
Golf Quarterly #47 arrived on Tuesday. Not only does it feature my trip to Barra GC and my golfing buddy David Shaw Stewart writing about the 1972 Open at Muirfield, but we made the editorial. I know all about David’s story which he brought to life when he invited me to Muirfield in 2017:
Chapter 5 – It is not clear how long golf was played across this testing terrain, but by December 1925 The Scotsman was reporting that Lybster Golf Club was seeking to re-establish the course at Black Park, as there had been for some time a strong desire to form a golf club for the use of the inhabitants and of summer visitors, and that, with that object, a sum of over £300, sufficient to meet the expenditure necessary to lay out a golf course, had been collected.
So once again golf would be played close to the steaming Coffee Pot, only this time it would be the railway that would eventually vacate the plot. Over time the course was reconfigured, such that the original clubhouse at the first green transferred to the old ticket office and the future of the building was guaranteed. Sadly, the platform is no more, but the stationmaster’s house remains, and as you play the top end of the course, you are traversing a cutting for the old line.
Golf in the Wild – Going Home. Chapter 5 – Heading South
Chapter 4 – The Wick course follows a familiar links format: a north-heading outward eight hugging the landward side of the course, an east-facing ninth par 3 at its furthest reaches and a return nine running south and parallel to the mutinous sand dunes that divide the course from Sinclair’s Bay. For those members or visitors short on time or energy there is a formally assessed 9-hole, par 35 course which goes north as far as hole five and returns to the clubhouse from holes fifteen through eighteen.
To play this nine is to tread similar ground to the original 9-hole course first established in 1870.
Succinctly named Angle, Cross, Long, End, Bent, Cable, Plain, Tower and Home, the poetry was reserved for the bunkers, not least the monstrous Hades which had to be negotiated from the second tee.
The July 1904 edition of Golf Illustrated describes it as a yawning sand bunker which necessitates a carry of about 140 yards. It is so close to the tee that there is no escape for a topped shot; in it must go, and the player who forgets that extrication is the first duty in a bunker and attempts the heroic is likely to regret his rashness. The carry is, of course, not too much for fair swiping, and once over, all that should remain is a careful approach.
Sadly, Hades is no more; at least not in this world. Also gone is a style of golf reportage that includes a fair swiping within its lexicon, even though it seems a more accurate description of my golf swing than any other I have heard.
Golf in the Wild – Going Home. Chapter 4 – Reiss Links
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
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 1: Elizabeth Sparkes is buried in the small graveyard at Balnakeil, but I cannot find her. Somewhere, she is lying among the old stones, eternally listening to the sea. She is so far from home and days from her sisters: Mary, Anne, Julia and Harriet. She has no hope of escape, eternally at rest in bad company. In the same graveyard, Donald McMurdo is easier to find; his tomb is immediately visible, built into a niche in the south wall. A serial murderer and henchman for Clan Mackay, his speciality was to throw his victims down the blowhole at nearby Smoo Cave. Such was his reputation, that the local clergy would not countenance his burial at Balnakeil but were persuaded, by a compromise and maybe the greasing of palms, to bury him half in and half out of the sacred ground. The result is that his memory is better preserved than those of the good souls that surround him. He would no doubt have been proud of his epitaph: Donald McMurdo here lies low – Was ill to his friend, and worse to his foe.
The Road East – Durness to Reay
Golf in the Wild – Going Home is available to purchase from Amazon and from this website.
Printed versions of the first book, Golf in the Wild, have sold out, but can be read on Kindle.
… 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.
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.
