This week is the 10 year anniversary of a life-changing trip to a golf course far away and lost in time: Askernish. To reflect upon it as well as occupy my time during this pandemic crisis, I am rolling out a multi-part series that explores my thoughts, emotions, and lessons learned from a legendary week on the links. I will dive into the learning activities we took part in, including doing a 9 hole routing over virgin linksland and shoring up a natural bunker blowout—both in the style and limitations of Old Tom Morris’s time. I will also get into what a place like this really means for golf and the lessons that we can learn from it. This is Part 1 though—the journey of getting there, both that from that first day and the year preceding it.
Prelude
At some point during one of my autumn class lectures at Fife’s Elmwood College, one of the instructors brought up a trip to Askernish for the following spring. It was to be sponsored by the R&A and offered to their many scholar students, complete with a variety of teaching seminars and last a full week. I missed some of those initial details, hung up on and mentally salivating over the word “Askernish.” That was all I had needed to hear.
About 6 months earlier, in the heat of my post-college purgatory living in my parents house (this was 2009, after all), I came across a New Yorker article about a “Ghost Course” out on the far western isles of Scotland. Old Tom Morris was said to have originally been there and designed it, but the version of the golf course at that time seemed to be far from anything resembling an Old Tom layout. For one, there were 9 holes when the original had been 18. Secondly, it played almost entirely along a flatter section of the Machair (the vast, shared grazing grounds utilized by the island’s few inhabitants) that also doubled for landing airplanes, avoiding some obvious dramatic dunes right nearby. No way Old Tom would have stayed out of those.
There was a lingering curiosity though about the legend of the old course. Eventually the curiosity turned to action as a team of devoted locals, links turf specialist Gordon Irvine, and golf architect Martin Ebert set out to find the “original” course. The results of those efforts are the spectacular, rumbling, tumbling golf adventure that still exists today. Furthermore, no ground was altered to create the course, and maintenance was completely minimal and heavily reliant on grazing, meaning the turf was also like that of Old Tom’s time. This story completely captivated me, and I immediately starting dreaming about visiting Askernish, wondering when and how I would ever get there.
Rewinding back another 8 months, I get an email while working on a drawing in the upstairs office of architect Mike DeVries’s house. It was not a good one. The director of the Golf Course Architecture masters program at Edinburgh College of Art was reaching out to inform me that funding had been cut by the school and that the program was to be discontinued immediately. Just like that, my dream of getting to Scotland that fall was crushed. I was supposed to be leaving in 8 weeks.
Back to April and the Askernish article. I had stuck with the pursuit of getting to Scotland, my most recent gambit trying to get a caddie license at St Andrews. After a few months of being told it should be no problem by the caddie master, the Links Trust changed course and decided they no longer wanted to allow internationals a license and instead keep them for locals (again, this was 2009—economic struggles, etc., etc.). Strike 3—a failed Dreer proposal, canceled grad program, and rejected caddie license—seemed to indicate I was done. Askernish, and the rest of the links, would have to remain but a dream, and my career in the golf design business would continue on long-term hold, if it ever took.
Then I came across a small school and turf program near St Andrews—Elmwood College. The program was completely hands-on and practical, even having a focus and coursework on golf architecture (because these are the things the Scots find important—there is little separation between proper design and proper turf). It may not have had the prestige or pedigree of Edinburgh College of Art nor the cultural experience of living in the capital, but in many ways it was a better fit for what I wanted to do. Perhaps most importantly though, they were happy to have me, and they weren’t going anywhere. I was on my way, and as I would find out a few weeks into the school year, Askernish was no longer but a dream.
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Day 1
Early Sunday morning arrived as did the van that was to take us on our journey from Central Fife to what would seem like the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Inside were the other students from Elmwood as well as the lads from the English equivalent, Myerscough College. Captaining the ship was Dr. Paul Miller—professor, agronomist, historian, Scotsman, and avid links-lover. Paul is one of those people with a passion for many things in life, someone I always will try to block out a chunk of time for to wax on anything golf, sports, soil, history or whatever-related. It was going to be an asset to have him leading us along the way.
It was also going to be fun having the other guys on the trip. There were two very different Englishmen (a Londoner and a Northerner from Yorkshire), a South African, a Scotsman, and two Americans—myself and a Mainer who had defected to Scotland a couple years prior. We had all met up at the Elmwood Golf Course the night before to start the week early, and it was easy to tell in those introductory moments that there was going to be a lot of fun with plenty of good back-and-forth.
The sun shone brightly that day as we wound our way northwest. The early spring greenery of the Central Lowlands was rich and verdant, the brown-maroon of the heather-covered hills of the Highlands golden, the water of the many lochs a very rich and reflective blue. I feel I remember The Beatles being the main, most agreeable choice of music in the van, and it was enough to take me away at times from the Neko Case refrains serenading me on my own headphones, her long howling voice the perfect anthem for the vast, solitary places we were going.
Our first stop would be at the edge of the mainland in Oban to board the car ferry, stretch our legs, and get some lunch. The boat ride that awaited us would be a long one—almost 7 hours in total. As such, we loaded up on some provisions for it. It being a warm, calm, sunny day that would likely be enjoyable out on the ship’s top deck, I went for some crackers, salami, aged Scottish cheddar, and a budgetary bottle of red wine. We gathered out there for much of the ride, especially the first section through the Sound of Mull, one of those long, almost fjord-like waterways that are oh-so-common to Western Scotland. The pace of the boat seemed slow as it churned through the unusually calm, almost glassy water. On a day like this, with the air crystal clear and sky deeply blue, a slow pace was perfectly fine.
The Sound snakes its way out to the Sea of the Hebrides, its surrounding landscapes both near and far being highly varied. In the far distance toward the main land, snow still dotted the peaks of the Highlands and Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak. Arable slopes directly along the water eventually gave way to forests of Scots pine which eventually gave way to more rugged, rocky, and barren lands even further out.
Leaving the mainland behind
As you exit the Sound and head into the Sea, you realize just how far you are going and how crazy this all seems. The rocky hills of heather and gorse stand to your sides as you look ahead and see nothing but water, that nothingness being exactly where the boat was heading. Had it been a rough weather day, this moment in time would seem daunting. As it was, onward we sail.
Eventually the distant isles of the Outer Hebrides came into view, jagged mountains sticking straight out of the ocean water. It was an unbelievable scene made more unbelievable as we slowly, surely approached them, those mountains growing at an exceeding rate. The sun was starting to lower as we approached the Isle of Barra, a stop along the way to our final destination of South Uist. Across the sky were streaks of smoke from heather and peat fires on the island, and at one point the sun hid perfectly behind them, glowing the deepest of reds imaginable.
Approaching the island and the village of Castlebay was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. With the lighting cool blue yet glowing, the boat slowly entered the nearly still harbor, the reflective water doubling the Gaelic scene. The smell of peat filled the air as the smoke rose gently from the hills like a mist. There was an incredible quiet as the village slid into view, the hum of the boat and light splashing of water at its sides providing the only sounds. Cottage houses organically-spaced up the sides of the grassy, rocky slopes dotted the barren land. An old stone church stood upon high, looking down ominously over your sins. A castle—an honest-to-God old stone castle—sat right in the middle of the water in the harbor.
I have never been “in” a movie, as in actually living the fictitious scene of a movie. None of us have. It’s impossible. But this felt exactly like that—being transported to both a world away and a time of the distant past. It was powerfully haunting and wonderful.
The movie-set of Castlebay: approaching Barra was like entering not just a different place but a different time.
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After departing Barra, it would be another hour or so up to Lochboisdale, the port of South Uist and a short drive from Askernish. We were treated to a vivid sunset behind the silhouette of Barra. The long northern twilight period eventually gave way to total darkness as we docked at Lochboisdale and packed back into the van for the short drive to Askernish, the first time the wheels had turned in hours but certainly not the first time they moved.
The dark (and I mean dark) drive to the course clubhouse was mixed with both travel-fatigue and excitement. After all, it was close to 11 PM on a Sunday and hour who-knows-what of travel. So, why would we go to the clubhouse then at 11 PM on a Sunday and not just call it a night to rest up for the week? That’s because final round of The Masters was on live, and no one wanted to miss that. The darkness and peace quickly became brightness and cheery banter as we walked into the front door, meeting a number of club members, including Ralph Thompson, the larger than life caretaker of the course and reason we were really here. It was Ralph, after all, who spearheaded the whole campaign to restore the Old Tom course and whose energy was driving its newly re-found legend.
We were poured pints from the “bar” and positioned ourselves accordingly in the all-purpose room to just catch the leaders rounding Amen Corner. As the holes played on, two men started to distance themselves—Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson. The room slowly and naturally started to divide, us two Americans sloughing off into the corner as we cheered for our countryman against the home (UK) favorite Westwood. This was properly noticed and called out, and a good laugh was had by all. A good time was had by all as well, even with Mickelson prevailing.
We headed back over to our lodgings—a house about a par 5’s distance down the trail from the clubhouse. As us young kids had a lot of that dumb youthful energy and were still abuzz from the Masters finish, we decided to hang a little more at the house and have a night cap. At one point, we stood outside in the darkness to chat, only a faint tungsten light somewhere in the distance and the stars providing the light. Or so it seemed. As my eyes started to adjust, I noticed a broad glow out toward the northwest sky. It wasn’t just that other light. This glow seemed to have greens, reds, and maybe even a little blue. It turned out that our youthful idiocy and future exhaustion were rewarded with Aurora Borealis, the “Northern Lights.” I got my camera, set it up on the sturdiest thing I could find, and took a few long exposures to make sure I wasn’t crazy. A couple somehow turned out ok.
The rewards of future sleep deprivation
I’m not sure how much more could have possibly happened in day one, but I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for the rest of the week. This was already incredible, and we had yet to even see the golf course.
It was time to finally get some rest. We would need it for a week that would contain very little of it.
Look for Part 2 in the coming days, which will get into the first two days on the links and we imagining all sorts of golf holes that are literally just sitting there waiting to be mowed and played. In the meantime, click on the gallery images below to better see the magical places described above
