The 19th Hole

  Welcome to the grand finale of the blog series. Scotland has many famous links courses but Brora Golf club is less well known and this course needs to be discovered further. Brora golf club was founded in 1891 the members played on a Nine hole course until the secretary of Royal Dornoch, extended it to 18 holes. James Braid then redesigned Brora in 1923 and little has changed since. Given 194 acres of Scottish links land to work on, what in 1923 was entitled "Braid's Plan" is hardly altered. Here the visitor will enjoy the mixture of bent grass and beach sand, burn water and gorse in glorious yellow May bloom. There is even a railway which comes into play from the tenth tee.  James Braid was paid £25 for his work, and there are many Braid traits, with the par-3s all facing different directions for wind condition variety, and a minimal use of bunkering because the natural beauty of the land is maximised. Look out for the little burns which weave in and out (the 13th is

“The finest parcel of land in the world I have ever been given to work with” – Jack Nicklaus Welcome back, You might be asking yourself has the blog went big time after Royal Troon last week?  absolutely and this week I have had the pleasure to play the Gleneagles PGA Centenary. Few places in Britain can boast three courses let alone three nationally top 100 courses but then again there's only one Gleneagles. I played the Jack Nicklaus designed, American style inspired PGA Centenary Course.  Today I was joined by Daniel Paul, Andrew Conlan and Nick Branney. These young men kindly refrained from drinking on the course today which set up for a great matchplay game. Nick Branney approaching the 1st The opening tee shot is not overly daunting and anything not leaked too far right will leave an uphill approach to an angled green. The first sign of any drama comes at the 2nd, Wester Greenwells which is named after the ruined croft just above the green, where water lurks beside a narrow g