Strathlene Buckie Golf Club, played 5 and 6 September, 2020

Dear fellows,

Welcome to the Strathlene Buckie Golf Club with a course also know as a Cliff Tops Links course.

From Tain and Fortrose Golf club we went to this coastal area of The Speyside whisky.

It was a 2 step trip. First stop Nairn (see next picture, the yellow line). Next stop Buckie (the red line). We learned that in this area we would find the highest number of whisky distilleries and more or less the same number of links golf courses

I will, as soon as I get the time off from playing these courses and tasting these different whiskeys, (you see – we are very busy) to make a report on our Inspirational section of the blog about the whisky.  But to give you a little quick insight. Read this:

“A Speyside whisky is also classed as a subdivision of the Highland region, so the true regional taste is open for debate; it can be defined simply as a whisky that’s made in the Strathspey area; “strath” meaning “near”. For a whisky to be classed as a Speyside, it needs to be created near the river Spey.”

Okay, then, where do we find river Spey. See next picture – yellow arow:

The yellow arrow at the top of the picture point to the mouth of the river into Morey Firth and Spey Bay. The river starts about 175 km in the south, in the middle of the Scottish highland.

I tell you; if we followed the river on our way to Glasgow and had to stop at every distillery on the way, we would need a couple of months more for the trip – and it wouldn’t leave much time for golf.

So, the plan is – so far – to follow the river some 55 miles south and make a stop playing Boat of Garten golf course and taste one or two of the local whiskys.

Below is an example of a whisky from where we are now:

Now back to golf.

When staying in Nairn (see map) we played Nairn Dunbar golf course. I will report on that next.

The following is all about our visit to the Strathlene Buckie Golf Club. In the same area it was our plan to play Nairn golf course and maybe also Castel Stuart golf course. Two reasons we didn’t: first, these courses are very expensive to play. Second, many locals recommended among others courses like Nairn Dunbar and Strathlene.

Before we made the final decision on playing the Nairn course, we visited the club, had a talk with the assistant pro, got a drink in the clubs bar and had a look on the course.

Nairn have two 18 holes courses. The so called Old course made by Old Tom Morris and one, made years later, by Henry Cotton, named the New course. Both names should be a guarantee for excellent golf course design. There was very few tee times open, and only on the New course, and we decided to book for a round on the afternoon the next day.

The next morning we went to visit the other Nairn course, called Nairn Dunbar. It looked great so we decided to play that too.

So we started with Nairn Dunbar and continued the next day to play Strathlene.

And now back to that experience.

For the first time on our trip to the Scottish highland we have been on a driving range.

I tell you driving ranges are rare things in this area. If you need to warm up, your only option is to swing into a net. So seeing the range at Strathlene was a wonderful surprice.

Before the round we enjoyed hitting a few buckets of balls. My game really needed it. The driver was totally out of synch. Not at good thing on a very windy and relatively cold day.

The course is very hilly – as you will see from the pictures.

Not many small hills ups and downs with many blind shots. No, some few long hilly stretches up and down with fairly flat fairways. For example one par 3, about 185 meter from the yellow, with a green, I guess elevated with at least 35 meter. Not easy, especially in a storm like wind.

We had a tee time around 10.30. It was Saturday and a member competition was going on, and only one person in the club house to take care of the business.

He was busy collecting match fee and distributing scorecards, but I tell you we got a great welcome and service. We learned a bit later that he was the Captain of the club.

Eza had booked an electrical trolley and a push trolley, knowing from the course description about the long stretch of uphill fairways. I, of course, had refused to use an el trolley. You know: I still just have turned the age of 42 – not long ago.

But the push trolley I was offered was one of these 65€ trolleys you can buy at Decathlon. Not really solid and the captain offered me to have an el-trolley instead, while at the same time referring to the windy conditions. Ok, and many thanks.

In straight headwind even the el-trolley had trouble to keep the speed. I had to help pushing it. I’m sure that the little push trolley, hit by the sidewind – with the bag on – would have been blown over.

In spite or maybe because of the weather conditions we had a very interesting round.

We have all tried to play in strong winds on our home course but on links courses you are not only playing in strong wind, you are also playing on hard fairways and hard and fast greens. That makes a huge difference

Now the subtitle Cliff top links make sense. It was like the long stretch of up and down hills and the wind coming in from the sea over the cliffs kind of centrifugated the wind and made it stronger.

We had a great time after the rounds.

After the first round we had a good chat with the Captain and the barman. During which we learned a lot about the clubs history and present situation.

For example: The club only have 185 members: 120 adult men, 15 adult women and 50 juniors. As far as I understood they have only one full time green keeper.

Two things makes the difference between this club and most other clubs in the world. First of all: the nature takes care of the golf course. No fertilizer are used and no watering the fairways. I did see sprinklers around some of the greens though.

Secondly, with a helping hand from the members the green keeper can keep the course in good condition.

That is the conditions that makes the fairways and greens fast and firm. And what makes links golf a roller coaster.

One day you are on the top of your game and the next, the weather teaches you not to be too overconfident. That is: keep your feet on the ground and don’t think you are anything special.

After our round, in the clubhouse, we – as usual – asked the locals about other good clubs and courses for a good golfing experience.

Funny; nobody did mention the 6 times more expensive Nairn with its two 18 hole courses.

When asked why, the answer was like this:

It is two 18 hole courses packed on a – to us – good, but ordinary links land. And in some areas too packed, with green and fairways too close to each other.

Then we could add: comparing the Strathlene green fee at £35 for 2 senior persons inclusive the trolleys (based on a 50% discount from the “Golfhæftet”) with the £150 each, green fee at Nairn (no golfhæfte-discount) we decided to give Strathlene another chance – or maybe more correct Strathlene and the gods in control of the weather, to give us another chance!

And as you can read in the next section, both the course and whoever up there in control of the weather, gave us a new chance.

After the second round we met and had a chat with the guys in the four ball playing in front of us.

One of them showed us his assortment of hip flasks.

In this case – as a matter of fact – 3 in 1.

One with whisky, one with gin and one with tonic water.

He served us the whisky, while he hiding the brand, he told us it was an Jameson (that is Irish whisky). Most probably a good idea in the main land of Scotts whisky. Need I say that he is English, not Scottish.

Facts about the course

Build in 1877

 Course record

What is rather unusual with regard to the course record. The club keeps a scorecard for each year with that year’s best score. I found no record made by a professional player. Below is the lowest that I found.

My Game

Now dear folks, now it gets interesting and a learning experience.

First round was played in really strong winds. On most of the front nine we had the wind diagonal from the sea giving us a good tailwind. But for god’s sake, don’t slice the ball. For a little more than half of the holes we had the wind straight into our faces or diagonal from the right.

Give you a couple of examples.

Hole 14, par 5, 505 Yards (about 450 meter). To me not really long also considered the fairway is slight downhill all the way to the green. On the windy day I hit a driver, 3w, 3w and 7 iron and was still a few meter short of the green.

My 7 iron shot was for about 125 meter. Normally it should made 140 meter. Thanks to a good pitch, I made a bogey.

The next day was sunny and with only a slight breeze. I hit a driver and a 3w and putted my third from the edge of the green. And – for the only time on that round – made 3 puts for a par. Awful end of 2 well hit shots.

What makes the course difficult (for me), with as well as without the wind is the 4 holes with greens placed like on top of a mountain.

Give you an example. Hole 5 is a relatively short par 4 with a dogleg right. On both rounds I placed my drive ideally in the leg. From there I had an uphill shot (guess the green is elevated with about 30 meter), the length to the green about 125 meter, both rounds.

Even if I on the first windy round had only a 9 iron to the green, I hit the front of the green but from there it just kept on rolling out of the green. The same happened on the second round. I couldn’t get it high enough to stop it on the green.

The alternative would have been to hit the uphill front of the green and pray that it would bounce, land and stay on the green. You could now even think of becoming a believer………

Anyway, it was 2 very, very different rounds of golf. And that is weather wise as well as scoring wise, as you can see from the table below.

And I can honestly tell you, that I have never ever been hitting my driver so well in my whole golfing life, on both rounds.

The 2 hours on the driving range paid off. And both rounds were a great learning experience and a lots of fun.

Evaluation of Strathlene golf course