Awesome trip to Scotland!

[goodwillhacking]

I wanted to drop a link to the company I used to help book a trip for myself around Scotland for 4 days when extending a business trip. Here was my dream itinerary:

 

Day 1: St. Andrews Old Course, St. Andrews Jubilee Course (As playing as a single, I had to get to the Old Course starter at 3:45am to try to get an open spot. At that point, I was #2 in line! Damn. Was able to get out and they only let about 6 folks on that day for those who didn't get the ballet). Finished early enough to get another 18 on the Jubilee Course.

 

Day 2: St. Andrews New Course (A little tighter than the Old and it was raining, so was an overall difficult scoring day).

 

Day 3: Kingsbarns (Amazing, if you are ever going to St. Andrews, you have to play here. Arguably the best course there).

 

Day 4: Turnberry Ailsa (Weather held, played longer on the front 9 due to wind and the course playing softer than usual)

 

Thanks to William at www.golflinxtravel.com

 

If you ever need a great price, friendly help, he knows the ins and outs of golfing around Scotland (and will personally take you around if you don't want a rental car).

[Shemp]

Which did you prefer...Kingsbarns or Ailsa? I thought they were remotely similar, played both well on beautiful, but windy days, and came away liking Ailsa more.

[I3erto]

Sounds awesome.. Ive always wanted to make the trip to play some of those courses.. If you don't mind me asking how much coin did the trip set you back??

[ScottishGolfNut]

Hi Michael,

It was my pleasure to set this trip up for you and good to hear you had such a great time, despite some typical Scottish weather!

Please let me know if you ever plan another trip to Scotland or Ireland.

Thanks,

William
Golf Linx Travel
[email protected]
www.golflinxtravel.com

[parpar41]

Seems to me it would have been dead easy to reserve these tee times [u]yourself[/u] over the 'net, no?

[Especially since you still had to get up early to see the starter to get your name on the ballot for the Old].

that said, I am sure that William is a great guy and a good help.

[goodwillhacking]

[quote name='Shemp' timestamp='1350302708' post='5795299']
Which did you prefer...Kingsbarns or Ailsa? I thought they were remotely similar, played both well on beautiful, but windy days, and came away liking Ailsa more.
[/quote]

They played very similar. If I had to choose to go back and play one, I would probably pick Kingsbarns. The greens were amazing (undulations, etc), the layout was awesome and just the natural beauty of the course. Ailsa of course is definitely a bucket-list course and was gorgeous in its own right. It definitely is much more "natural" feeling, less groomed and forces you to hit similar shots. I had better conditions with Kingsbarns as the wind was blowing at Ailsa which caused it to play very long. Couldn't go wrong, but my favorite course out of them all was probably Kingsbarns.

My overall cost with hotel (Old Course Hotel which was amazing), car transfers, green fees, free breakfast in the mornings, etc was about 1800 pounds. This was great, considering the Old Course itself if you booked online was close to 300 pounds a night (for 4 nights), plus another night by the airport. It also saved the worry of renting a car and driving around yourself. I found that going through William saved at least a couple hundred pounds than adding up and booking everything myself (including a car).

Pics for those interested: https://picasaweb.google.com/109889682378955720735/Scotland02?authkey=Gv1sRgCObe28y5v8_msgE