Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club played on 1st September 2020

by Eza/Finn · Published September 6, 2020 · Updated September 6, 2020

As you see from the clip above, you will not find a golf course in this part of Scotland older than 100 years that are not using its age as a part of their marketing packet. And rightly so.

All the courses we have played so far are old links (except for one) and they sure are different from our home course and most inland or parkland or woodland or whatever label you put on the courses we play in Europe and around the world.

Below a cut from a Google Earth satellite picture of the northern part of Scotland. To tell you the truth, very so often I need to go to Google to be sure of where I am and where we are going next.

Next stop was Fortrose & Rosemarkie Golf Club. The next pictures shows the drive from our B&B to the Fortrose golf course.

**As you can see, the golf course is laid out at the tip of the peninsular**

9 holes out on the north side and 9 holes home at the south side. No chance what so ever to avoid or getting a bit shelter from the wind. And interestingly enough now having been to many small villages with a links golf course, it starts to be easy to find the courses. I mean; just head for the sea.

Though, driving left toward the sea, in this case we got a little surprise and also kind of a little shock when we saw the golfer on the picture below.

**Whether this man is an indication of a welcome**,
**or that we are on the right route to the golf course it doesn’t tell**

I mean, in this case you could easily get the impression that it is a golfer who have hanged himself in frustration of a bad round of golf. Anyway, next indication that we were on the right way is shown on the picture below.

**At the entrance we were meet with this poster**

And – like so many other clubs – Fortrose & Rosemarkie golf club is proud of their history.

**Photo taken at the inauguration of the Braid design in 1932**

Here is a bit of their history:

Originally from 1793, but with documented history back to 1702. The course we played today was a redesign by James Braid in 1932. It is pictures from that opening you can see. One of the things you notice from the pictures, are the many women.

This is what the club is writing about their club and course on the web site:

“Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Links

There is documentary evidence of golf being played over ‘Chanonry’ which is now called Fortrose dating back to 1702. It was contained in a letter from a Mr George MacKenzie of Balconie, a cousin of the Earl of Seaforth and provost of Fortrose at that time. Writing to his Edinburgh law agent, he thanks him for sending him a club and golf balls but admits that as a farmer he should not really be playing golf at harvest time. He then excuses himself at succumbing to such sporting pleasure by adding the words ‘Oportet Vivre’ (Life is for living) – a philosophy followed by many golfers to this day!”

As you can see; things hasn’t changed much since then.

The pursue of the perfect swing and the believe that next time (next stroke, next hole, next round) I will improve and experience this distinct feeling of self-realization when hitting the perfect shot.

And I can tell you this course represent a great walk of golf.

The nature, the design, the surprises with a few semi blind shots. Fantastic.

Hole 4 is great. You play it as a par 4 (from the yellow tees) down to the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula but from the tee you can’t see what is waiting for you. It is a difficult hole and also index 1. I wish we have played it twice.

**The first shot at the inauguration of the Braid redesign of the course**

**The 18 tee viewed from the green 211 yards away. Be straight. Too long or to the right you will be out of bounds**

**We were lucky. We played on a day with sunshine and very little wind.**
**A very rare thing in the north of Scotland**

**Difficult to find a thing to complain about**

**And of course, we are right in the middle of the highland whisky district, therefore cooperation between the courses and the distilleries are evident. And by this time I have already**
**bought 2 bottles of whisky. So no to this offer!**

Facts about the course

18 hole links course.

Par 71 from white, 5893y, SSS 69. Rating 119.

Par 70 from yellow, 5594y, SSS 68. Rating 118.

Par 71 from red, 5342y, SSS 72. Rating 123.

My Game

I think that what we learned playing Fortrose was that good courses deserve to be played at least twice. The challenge often is time and money – at least on our “golf around the globe” trip.

So I regret that we didn’t take the time to play this course twice. Green fee is low, the service is great and the course is great. Better play this twice for a total green fee lower that for one round on one of the more famous courses.

The playing conditions weather-wise was great. I used 42 out and 37 in.

Then you can ask: what is that in Stableford points.

Interesting. In continental Europe you will find a table converting your SSS-handicap into number of strokes on every course, but not so here.

So we have to dig into the internet to find out.

Here is the formula. My handicap when leaving Denmark was 5,6. Now we have to find the slope rating of that particular course. In this case from the yellow tee the slope is 118. Slope is an indication of the difficulty of the course. All courses in the world are evaluated in accordance to a set of standards. Like: how long it is, how wide the fairways are in landing areas, how bunkers are placed in relation to expected line of play, the size and contours of the greens, fairways with doglegs, how precise you have to be and how difficult it is to cross the dogleg etc. etc.

On this basis the average slope of all (measured) golf courses in the world is 113.

So now we have the formula: handicap 5.6 x 118 (the slope of the course I played) divided by 113 (the average slope of all courses in the world divided by) = 5.84.

So I am getting 6 strokes on this course. And in this case using 79 strokes I scored 34 points.

Evaluation of Portrose and Rosemarkie golf course