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ISLE OF ISLAY, SCOTLAND | Now that courses are opening on both sides of the Atlantic, I allow myself to fantasize again about golf in the British Isles. My mind also has wandered to one of my most recent trips, a trek last spring to this rugged, 240-square-mile isle in the Inner Hebrides off the southwest coast of Scotland. I walked windswept beaches and did a bit of birding around the rugged Mull of Oa, watching ducks, geese and sea birds soar and dive in the skies around me. I caught beefy brown trout in the freshwater lochs and tasted whiskies that possess lovely hints of peat thanks to that old-fashioned fuel still being used in fires to dry the damp barley from which the spirits are made. But what I enjoyed most was playing golf at the recently revamped Machrie links.
Routed in dunes off Laggan Bay, it is the only course on Islay, which is pronounced “eye-la” and boasts some 3,000 inhabitants. It also happens to be one of my favorites in all of Scotland, thanks to its seaside setting and pleasing mix of holes that compelled me to use every club in my bag and hit lots of bump-and-runs.
I also love its history, and the story of the man who originally built it.
Opened in the spring of 1891, the Machrie links was designed by Willie Campbell, a native of Musselburgh who was introduced to golf as a caddie and went on to become one of his country’s best competitive players. He nearly won the Open Championship in 1886, finishing second, and the following year made another run at the Claret Jug. But that ended in disaster after Campbell took several shots to escape a cavernous bunker on the 16th at Prestwick. He ended up recording a 9 on the hole, and at the end of the tournament stood in third place, three shots back of winner Willie Park Jr. Soon after, golfers started calling the hazard “Campbell’s Grave.”
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