A Family Trip Around Scotland’s Coastline

Written by Josh Poysden

We reached the 10^th green at Southerness, the first appetizer of an 18-course family trip to Scotland, before it dawned on my wife, Caitlin, and I that we may have made a horrible mistake. 

Our three-month-old son Freddie was not conforming with accepted golf etiquette. He was demanding his food in a way only babies can. He was within his rights, screaming his head off, with our miniature sausage dog Chippy in tow, as we tried to quickly finish the hole so we could let the group behind through. 

Common sense eventually prevailed as we gave him what he wanted, then played a few more holes (luckily including the picturesque 12^th) before my wife took him off the course so we could regroup. 

We had started planning for this trip six months before, when we were still awaiting Freddie’s arrival. As I love links golf and enjoy exploring some of the great courses that we are fortunate to have in the British Isles, with a particular love of the seaside golf that Scotland has an offer, we decided a two-week road trip with our newborn and dog Chippy would be a great idea. 

Thankfully, what become known as the Shambles at Southerness was a huge learning experience for us and we worked out how to manage Freddie best on the course, meaning we could fully enjoy a golfing extravaganza that featured 249 holes across 20 rounds and some memories made for life. 

The process to look after Freddie on the course that was finetuned throughout was as follows: 

• Play roughly six holes 
• Find a good bench to feed and change him 
• Get him back to sleep in his pram 
• Repeat until end of the round 

The itinerary was at the very least ambitious. The basic plan was to drive up Scotland’s west coast including ferries to first Arran and then Kintyre, then make our way to the top of the country (Durness) finishing off down the east coast. All in all, we ended up travelling nearly 2,000 miles. 

The scenery was beautiful, with highlights including driving up the Mull of Kintyre, across Glencoe and the journey up to Durness, part of which is on the North Coast 500. 

We were lucky to experience a mixture of courses. There were some of my favourites that I was keen for another spin on – including Machrihanish, Shiskine, Royal Dornoch (above), Castle Stuart and Cruden Bay. It was clearly special to revisit some of these, but also fun to visit some courses off the beaten path. 

Scotland possesses so much depth in its golf. We really enjoyed some of the quirky 9-holers, such as Carradale, Traigh and Durness. Durness is a special place, and it reminded me of Lofoten Links and Cape Wickham for its quality of golf combined with an amazing setting in a remote location. 

These 9-holers are a reminder that golf does not need to be 18 holes to be fun. Often courses with fewer holes that utilise the land they have are more fun than a forced 18 holes (making no comment on some of the ‘new’ holes on the back nine of the Eden Course at St Andrews). 

Finding suitable accommodation that would be practical for myself, Caitlin, Freddie and Chippy wasn’t always straightforward. These included various small cabins including one at Machrihanish Holiday Park, a gypsy pod at Cruden Bay (interesting to say the least), some Airbnbs, including a brilliant house in St Andrews only a pitch from the 18^th fairway, and some hotels including the Kinloch in Arran (where the staff unfortunately had to come and get us from the restaurant one night when Chippy was making a bit of a racket in the room).  

The people of Scotland were as welcoming as ever throughout. In particular, we received friendly welcomes in the form of the greenkeeper at Carradale (Robert), from Mark and Lucy in the clubhouse at Durness – and I must give a special shout-out to the team at Panmure for their kummel voucher! 

As you would expect on some of the wilder courses in Scotland, we saw lots of wildlife including deer and the inevitable Highland cows at Brora. One surprise was seeing a loose horse running around us on the 2^nd fairway at Elie. Thankfully the horse was caught and returned to its owner. 

The one (and arguably only) sensible decision we made was that we would need help at some point. We called in the reinforcements – firstly in the shape of my sister Zoe. She met us in Brora after travelling up from her home in Edinburgh.

Further assistance was provided for the St Andrews leg of the trip with my parents joining the party, and a big shout-out to my Mum who happily played role of babysitter while the rest of us played baby-less golf. 

Freddie is an absolute blessing, and we are so thankful to have a happy and healthy baby who we love to pieces, but there is often a fear that you will have to stop doing some things you love with the arrival of children.  

Change is inevitable, and at times this trip was crazy (we regularly referred to it as calculated madness), but it was so special to travel and play some of the world’s best courses with our family in tow. Would recommend!

Now have your say

Have you played any of the courses in Scotland that Josh and Caitlin took on during their family trip to Scotland? If so, how did you find them? Let us know your thoughts with a post on X, formerly Twitter!