Every self-respecting golf fan on the planet is sure to have a trip to the spiritual birthplace of the game, Scotland, somewhere close to the top of their bucket list. However, why stop at golf when you can combine any potential trip to the notorious links fairways with the country’s other most famous export, whisky? And specifically the single malt variety. Here is a list of some of the distillers of the finest single malts the planet has to offer, and the sumptuous golf courses that often lie a mere stone’s throw from their oak casks and luxurious tasting tours.
Glenmorangie Whisky Distillery and Brora Golf Club
William Matheson founded the Glenmorangie Distillery in 1843, and since then it has been producing arguably some of the best single malts ever created, using casks, pipes and butts sourced from as far afield as Portugal and France, just to get that perfect taste and glow. Your tasting done, a quick drive – a designated driver will have to draw the short straw – over the Dornoch Firth Bridge will take you north to a masterpiece of an old course, designed by James Braid, one of the world’s most prolific course designers. Here you will be able to challenge yourself against the mixture of bent grass and beach sand, burn water and beautiful yellow flowering gorse. If there weren’t enough hazards and traps already dotted around the course, you even have to watch out for trains on the tenth tee, which regularly chug their way into play.
The Macallan Distillers and Dufftown Golf Club
There’s an old story about poker and beverage aficionado John ‘Johnny World’ Hennigan who accepted a bet that he couldn’t up sticks and relocate for a month to a remote village with only a golf course and a bar. Old Johnny got so homesick he lost the bet, abandoning the village after just two days. One has to think things could have been so different had Johnny followed our advice and gone to Craigellachie, the perfect place for lovers of golf and an accompanying wee dram of whisky. A mere fifteen-minute drive separates the 196 year-old Macallan distillery and its neighbouring golf course. The latter is a welcoming, and well-priced, eighteen holes that don’t go in for the pompousness of other more illustrious courses, making it the perfect place to relax and take in the dramatic countryside backdrop.
Balblair Distillery and Royal Dornoch
Set against a pure white sand beach that, were it not for the harsh Scottish elements, would have you thinking you were in the Caribbean, lies the Royal Dornoch; a course so wild that only the most skilled of golfers have ever managed to tame it. If the championship course is proving too much, players can always test themselves on the more forgiving “Struie” course. When the cards have been marked and the day’s spoils dolled out, players can visit the Balbair Distillery, swathed as it often is in the shadow of its trusted overseer, Struie Hill. Like the Royal Dornoch, the Balbair is proud of its rugged aesthetic, and whisky tasters will be treated to a genuinely authentic selection of drinks, served by staff steeped in their establishment’s many ancient traditions.
Carnegie Courthouse and Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle
The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle is the sort of place where golfing dreams are both made and realized. So exclusive is the course that only between 4,000 to 5,000 rounds are cleared to tee-off annually, meaning that every fairway, bunker and trap feels like it has been prepared just for you and your lucky buddies. If you can’t believe what you’re reading, why not take a video tour of each and every one of the eighteen holes that stretch across 6,833 manicured yards. Of course, in Scotland, no day is complete without wetting your whistle, and the nearby Carnegie Courthouse will help you do just that, offering not only a whisky tasting tour, but one focusing on Scottish gin as well.
