A stolid Old World feel at the club that just hosted one of the most vibrant Opens ever TROON, AYRSHIRE, Scotland — Trump Turnberry is more spectacular and beautiful. Prestwick Golf Club is older, more rugged, aggressively links golf. If you come to Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland, you must play those courses….
Setting aside Donald Trump’s politics (if you can), his redesign of the famous Ailsa course at Turnberry is simply fantastic TURNBERRY, AYRSHIRE, Scotland — You can hate his politics, and ego. You can snicker at the self-aggrandizing ostentatiousness and opulence that characterizes much of what Donald Trump touches. But if you are a golfer, if…
Dating to 1851, site of the first Open Championship, Prestwick is more than a relic PRESTWICK, AYRSHIRE, Scotland — Old Tom Morris laid out the first 12 holes of Prestwick Golf Club in 1851, though golf had been played there even earlier. In 1860, the very first Open Championship, known in the United States as…
Whereupon the writer shoots a front-nine 39, but … MACHRIHANISH, ARGYLL, Scotland —On Sunday, the sun came out, and the wind disappeared, and you could see, very clearly now, the islands of Islay, Jura and Gigha beyond Machrihanish Bay in the North Atlantic Ocean and, to the south, much farther in the distance, Ireland. But…
A relatively new course conjures the golf of 130 years ago MACHRIHANISH, ARGYLL, Scotland — If I have ever before used the phrase “wild and woolly” to describe a links golf course, please forgive that exaggeration. I wrote too soon; that is, before playing Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club, a place where the phrase is apt….
A long journey is rewarded by an inspired, and inspiring, golf course MACHRIHANISH, ARGYLL, Scotland — We had already been on the road for 24-some hours, flying from Seattle on Wednesday morning to Dallas to London to Edinburgh, Scotland, and now it was late Thursday in a new time zone and we were three hours…
Seeking the enduring spirit of golf in Scotland, from Old Tom Morris to David McLay Kidd (and Donald Trump) Golfers don’t simply take a trip to Scotland to play courses there. They make a pilgrimage. That word conveys the historic nature of the game there, the bucket-list allure. Wrote the late James W. Finegan in…
Squaxin Island Tribe, owners of Little Creek Casino Resort, invest with ‘seven generations’ in mind. SHELTON, Wash. — On the 14th hole at Salish Cliffs Golf Club, a 383-yard par-4 from the white tees, the golfer faces an intriguing second-shot decision from 170 yards or so. To reach the flag the shot must carry, to…
Under Three Rivers Casino Resort ownership, bigger changes still envisioned. FLORENCE — Four years after the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, owners of Three Rivers Casino Resort, purchased Ocean Dunes Golf Links, the deal has produced measurable short-term gains for the golf course, with grander improvements envisioned. With the investment by…
If you’ve ventured to this coastal resort north of Seaside over the years and played Gearhart Golf Links, just two blocks from the Pacific Ocean, and if you’ve even stayed in an old hotel overlooking the course, because there’s been a hotel on site going back decades …
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