Scotland’s famous golf courses will require you to be imaginative, but simple around it’s many large greens. The links will be hard and its grass short so the putter should be used at almost every opportunity around the green. Often you will find yourself 50 yards away with a bare lie and relatively flat fairway and green to negotiate. In this scenario keep it simple, grab the putter. Getting to grips with the 100 foot ‘lag putt’ will have you on your way to playing good golf on the next Scotland golf trip.
Seamus Golf Head Covers
As every golfer will admit, the personal identity to your golf bag develops over time. Whether that be collecting bag tags of your travels, your club towel or embroidered name stitch. Grab some Seamus Golf handmade, Harris Tweed tartan head-covers before shipping your clubs to your Scotland golf vacation. The quality of their products are outstanding and look visually striking and authentic. Whatever the desired personal accessories on your bag, just remember it will follow you on your voyage of golfing discovery so be sure to make it count.
Utility Wedge
The short game in Scotland has no real place for a lofted wedge for around the green as the putter covers that. What is needed however is a wedge that can be all things, a club that can be adapted and manufactured to the desired result. The famous ‘bump and run’ can be created using the wedge off of your back foot. The wedge can be opened up and used with some more loft. For these shots the pitching wedge soul plate is often wider allowing for the club to bounce off the hard terrain, ultimately providing added forgiveness from the tight lies. Even when you find some trouble off the tee the wedge must be the first point of call from the often brutal long grass on Scotland’s links golf courses. Again, no heroics. Grip down the wedge and pop the ball back in play.
Lots of Layers
The perception of Scotland’s weather being a constant torrent of wind and rain is a complete misconception. Scotland’s summer has some sunshine and showers and a resident onshore breeze. What you will find is that the temperature will fluctuate throughout your rounds due to the wind so ensure you have layers. Thin, layered clothing will help keep you warm while also allowing you to stay flexible while golfing. Within these layers you will need to include the rain gear, but unless you are very unfortunate you will play on more dry days than wet days on your Scotland golf vacation.
Healthy Hybrid
The advice here is find the fairway and sacrifice length in doing so. Finding the fairway in Scotland is very important as you can gain some significant distance on the hard and dry links fairways. With this however, the failure in not finding the fairway will result in the loss of distance and a more destructive sideways second shot. Play Hybrid more times than not from the tee and with a favorable wind you might not even notice much of a reduction in driving distance. The Hybrid is also really easy to play and will come in useful for the longer par 4 second shots which you will likely encounter when the wind is less than cooperative.
Guest blog post by: Ruairidh Macdonald
Golf Tourism Scotland Young Person of the Year 2013