This Scottish stunner was my favourite course I performed this yr

I want to reside out extra days just like the one this summer season after I performed the Ailsa Course at Trump Turnberry for the primary time. Once I give it some thought now, impressed by the sundown images on my cellphone, I’m reminded of the innocence (and ignorance) I felt, principally as a result of I had no concept a Covid prognosis was coming. 

If you traipse round Scotland with a sniffle, everybody tells you to take a hay fever pill. Agh is johst the pohlen is goht ya. However in my case, no pill was going to avoid wasting me. An actual fever was on its method quickly sufficient. I had only a few extra hours of normalcy to spare. 

Which is why they have been so effectively spent on one of many biggest golf programs on this planet. The Ailsa is finest referred to as the place the place Stewart Cink made (however actually spoiled) golf historical past, beating 59-year-old Tom Watson in a playoff for the 2009 Open Championship. It was not possible to not take into consideration that whereas on web site, particularly as a result of most of the rivals within the Open at Troon have been ripping down the Ayrshire coast for a knock round Turnberry. 

Scottie Scheffler, Adam Scott and Sam Burns had all gotten out over the weekend. Luke Donald had snuck out only a couple teams forward of ours. I puzzled if (and even hoped that) the routing would allow us to cross paths with the European Ryder Cup captain. Keegan Bradley had simply been introduced because the U.S. captain, and I knew Luke had some ideas. 

However that’s when Turnberry took over, and I quickly forgot that Donald was forward of us. The huge dunes, gorse and heather will try this to you, working as boundary bumpers to your golf ball but in addition centering your consideration. You scale on high of them to hit tee balls and play to greens minimize into them. There’s lots to like about these high-dune programs — Cruden Bay is one other — as the trail house is at all times abundantly clear. In the event you play waywardly — not like at your tree-lined parkland American course — right here you’ll at all times see your ball down. You could not discover it within the fescue, however a minimum of you understand the place to look (and the place to take a drop). 

There are a lot of hallmarks of Turnberry value clamoring about. The course actually begins sprinting on the par-3 4th, your first alongside the coast of the Irish Sea, while you begin to admire the distant Isle of Arran. It hits hardest on the eighth, ninth and tenth — a par-4, par-3, par-5 stretch that takes you as near the ocean as attainable. By the ninth is the enduring lighthouse and a shoreline the place we discovered locals having fun with the setting solar. 

Partly as a result of prohibitive greens price, you’re not going to seek out many individuals gaming it each evening at Turnberry. The worth is extremely steep — approaching 4 digits — however for us there was a silver lining. A foursome of buddies forward of us have been itching for a recreation, so that they invited us as much as play inward with them, from the twelfth gap on, in a sixsome. 

As a rule-follower and former golf-club employee myself, the proposal made me uncomfortable. However there wasn’t a soul behind us and never a push cart within the group. A upkeep staffer drove by and instructed us the place was ours. It was baggage on our backs as we battled the clouds that started to masks the sunshine.

This type of scene stands out to a variety of us American golf writers as a result of it feels so totally different than what we’re used to at dwelling, and in addition as a result of it appears to occur in Scotland on repeat. The windy afternoon settling into a relaxed breeze as you play your 18th tee shot at 9:49 p.m. The sky over there appears completely prepared to show pink.

The same vibe settled in 24 hours later as a colleague and I ran round Prestwick. You don’t have any alternative at that time however to neglect about your rating and snap psychological pictures of the surrounds as a result of it seems like a portray has been created round you, and it’ll be fairly some time earlier than you come again. And that’s OK. After closing our spherical with 4 pars, a birdie and my double bogey, a sneezing match overcame me on the stroll to our rental automotive. Covid had formally arrived, however I wasn’t about to let it destroy the temper.