Not far from the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland is a fabulous, authentic, old-world links course in the town of Crail called Balcomie Links. Balcomie Links is one of two courses on the property. The other course is Craighead Links which opened in 1998. Craighead Links was designed by Gil Hanse, one of today’s most popular golf architects, and the architect of the 2016 Rio Olympics golf course.
Old Tom Morris is the architect of Balcomie Links. Old Tom finished up Balcomie the same year he finished up the “New Course” in St Andrews, 1895. The course plays to a par of 69, and a total yardage of 5,861. If you are a yardage snob you’ll have to adjust a wee bit. Once you do, you’ll truly appreciate the splendor of this course and the overall par and length will matter not.
Fantastic Balcomie Golf Links in Crail, Scotland
Perfectly Understated
The personality of Balcomie Links is fantastically understated. The pro shop has to be the coolest shops I’ve ever seen. I imagine golfers sitting on this bench as children, learning to golf from mom and dad. They grow up sitting on this bench. They grow old sitting on this bench, and life is good for them. I’m envious.
Coolest Pro Shop in the World!
Location
Located a 20-30 minute drive from St Andrews, Balcomie Links is located on an unbelievable stretch of land which borders the North Sea. I can’t think of more than one or two holes which don’t have a view of the North Sea, and most of the holes are right on the water. If this course was in California it would give Pebble Beach a run for its money.
Pebble who?
In fact, the whole time we played the course my group of pals kept playfully looking around and saying “Pebble who?”
Tee
Tee shots at Balcomie Links are so enjoyable and fun. Tom Morris was quite creative with the layout, and there are tee boxes in some very interesting places. Some tee boxes are by old buildings (below), while others cross holes. Some are by mortar and rock OB walls that must be hundreds of years old.
Par-5 2nd Tee – “Ower The Knowe”
Fairway
The fairways at Balcomie links welcome golf shots and don’t provide too much penalty if they’re not perfect. The wide fairways provide an enjoyable walk, but on rare occasions present challenging angles and blind shots if the ball finds the wrong resting place.
Fairway approach to the double green on the 11th
Some fairways, in old Scottish links golf style, cross each other. Keep a keen eye open for other players and rest assured the locals who know the course will do the same for you.
Green
Due to typical high winds, the greens at Balcomie Links only run between a seven to a nine on the stimpmeter. In other words fairly slow. American golfers may be used to faster greens, so it takes a few strokes to get used to whacking putts that hard.
Forced carry to an elevated green with the North Sea in the background. Fabulous!
The greens are not severe, but are tastefully protected via bunkering and other hazards, like the North Sea! A few holes feature some strong elevation change approaching the green.
Crail Golfing Society
The town of Crail is the home of Crail Golfing Society, the 7th oldest golf club in the world. The clubhouse overlooks the links, with the beautiful blue water in the background. Crail Golfing Society was kind enough to allow us to enjoy their fine food and a wee pint following our round. One of the best meals I had on my last Scotland trip was accompanied by one of the best views, as seen below.
Room With A View – Crail Golfing Society – click for more
Final Thoughts
When trying to come up with words to describe the experience at Balcomie Links the first two which came to mind were “authentic” and “true.” Golf here is authentic, as are the people. There’s nothing gaudy or commercial here. Balcomie Links is about TRUE and traditional Scottish links golf and is uninfluenced by the outside world.
Boy is it a world I’d love to live in.
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See the whole gallery of Balcomie Golf Links images!
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GolfZon Swingtalk Device
This interesting golf gadget just arrived at HOG World Headquarters for a pending golf product review. It is made by GolfZon and is called SwingTalk. The unit attaches to a golf club and through a bluetooth connection with the player’s smartphone or tablet, gives the player all sorts of information, even speaking said information.
Main Functions
- Voice swing feedback
- Trajectory of club and shaft measured and displayed
- Path of club head tracked
- Key swing points analyzed
- Data stored for later analysis and comparison in the “cloud”
I dig the packaging:
GolfZon SwingTalk – click for more images
Provided that the current snow which is falling melts, I’ll be trying out this interesting system soon and posting a full review.
Stay tuned.
Click to buy book…
Just what the doctor ordered, a short game book. Somehow I managed to finish the 2014 season with a 1.5 handicap and a save percentage of somewhere between 25-30%. Saves meaning I missed hitting the green in regulation and managed to get up-and-down for par or better. In other words, if I had a short game I could be a hell of an amateur golfer.
My next read (after Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex
haha) will be Your Short Game Solution: Mastering the Finesse Game from 120 Yards and In
by James Sieckmann.
I’ve thumbed through and picked a few random pages to check out quickly and I can already tell the depth and detail of this book is great. In randomly picking a couple of pages I’ve already learned some valuable short game tips and information.
I’m excited to dive into this one. Full review soon. Let’s see what happens in 2015.
Kid Rock gives Tiger personal hygiene advice…
Wow the copycat golf sites are blowing up with this incredible news that Kid Rock gave Tiger Woods advice. I love how they all type the same story. Giving Tiger advice seems to be the hippest thing anyone can do now. I’m sure the advice Kid Rock gave to Tiger was all regarding personal hygiene…
Since about 100 golf sites have written this same story I decided to dig deeper for the REAL Tiger Woods advice story. There are actually quite a few musicians who are offering up their advice and expertise for Tiger. See this short list below.
- Keith Richards is giving Tiger Woods advice on how to stay attractive as he grows older.
- Lady Gaga is giving Tiger advice on how to wear a meat suit.
- Pete Townshend is giving Tiger advice on what it is like to be a woman trapped in a man’s body.
- Kenny G is giving Tiger Woods advice on how to play the kazoo.
- Madonna is giving Tiger advice on falling down, and a bonus bit on how to have sex with Dennis Rodman.
- Coldplay is giving advice to Tiger on how to create sappy, mind-numbing gutless music that induces suicidal reactions from listeners.
- Hootie and the Blowfish are giving advice to Tiger on how to be completely vanilla.
- Pearl Jam is giving Tiger advice on how to make whiny mumbling nasal “Seattle” rock.
- Black Eyed Peas are giving Tiger Woods advice on how to fake EVERY single thing they do in a performance.
- Miley Cyrus is giving Tiger advice on how to twerk.
- Yoko Ono is giving Tiger Woods advice on how to ruin the best band the world has ever seen.
- Dave Mathews band is giving Woods advice on how to croon like a drunk Kermit the frog. (Thanks to Jeff Weis).
- Phish gives Tiger Woods advice on making his fans believe he’s good.
- Justin Bieber gives Tiger advice on how to be irritating.
- Creed gives Tiger advice on producing one product and repackaging it into the same product, year after year.
- Michael Jackson gives Woods advice on prescription medication and entertaining young boys.
- David Bowie gives Tiger apparel advice. Now working with Nike Golf on Tiger’s apparels scripts.
- Lynard Skynard gives Tiger advice on redneck culture.
- Grateful Dead… no matter how bad they are, just like Tiger, fans continue to show up and watch them.
- Prince gives Tiger advice on being tall.
- Bruce Springsteen gives Tiger advice on how to sing entire albums without even mistakenly hitting a right note.
- U2 gives Tiger advice on arrogance.
- Amy Winehouse gives Tiger advice on wasting immense talent.
- John Mayer gives Tiger Woods advice on being insufferable.
I’m sure there are more… comment in your own! It’s fun!
“The club I regrip the most is my ball retriever. Is that bad? ” ~Tony Korologos
I don’t change putter grips often but they do wear out once in a while, usually due to putting in and taking out of the golf bag. Sometimes the grips just seem to die a slimy death, when the materials give way to the elements.
I’m going to be testing a new putter grip from Portugal, made of cork leather from Cork Tree. It’s a bit fatter than my old grip, but that’s fine by me. It will help prevent the wrists from breaking and hopefully promote an even better (I am proud of my putting) stroke.
I’ll be getting the grip put on today and as soon as weather permits start putting this baby into action. Stay tuned for my full review of the Cork Tree putting grip soon. More info is below in the press release.
Cork Tree Press Release
FROM CORK TREE – THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN PUTTER GRIP TECHNOLOGY NOW AVAILABLE
SAO BRAS DE ALPORTEL, PORTUGAL – There’s a brand-new golf grip material quickly gaining popularity. The Cork Tree has debuted four new putter grips made of cork leather.
Why cork? It’s proven to be the perfect complement to leather in a grip. Cork leather putter grips provide an overall user experience that cannot be achieved with any other putter grip material known to man.Cork is 100% natural, feels soft in the hands, and improves its playability well beyond other materials when a golfer’s hands are hot or sweaty — as well as in humid playing conditions.
“That means the grip won’t slip in your hands — regardless of how moist your hands are,” says company co-founder Marc Boggia, a British PGA member. “That lets you confidently putt away without any tension in your hands and arms, promoting a more fluid stroke. Once you try it, I know you’ll agree that it feels amazing. Plus, it cleans very easily — dirt wipes away with a wet cloth.”
Cork Tree putter grips are designed and used by Championship winning Tour professionals who make their living from playing golf. There are currently more than twenty PGA Tour players using Cork Treecork leather putter grips including the winner of the recent Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa. A multiple major winner on the PGA Tour is also using the Cork Tree putter grip.
Cork’s honeycomb cell structure is key. Each cell is a 14-sided polyhedron filled with air, making it an extremely strong and flexible membrane that’s waterproof and airtight. Cork bark is about 89% air, giving it a low density. But when it’s compressed, air isn’t squeezed out, because the cell membranes won’t release it. So it returns to its original shape when the compression is removed.
The four initial putter grips include the Midsize ($39.95), Feather Light ($39.95), Parallel ($39.95) and Tour ($39.95) models. They’re all extremely durable, absorb any impact vibration and are impermeable to water.
About Cork Tree
The Cork Tree — the world’s first company to produce golf products in cork leather — was co-founded by Nuno Nascimento and Marc Boggia. From an early age, Nascimento went with his grandfather to the Portuguese familycork oak forest learning all the tricks that nature presents. He studied and tested treesto find the best cork bark, and then transformed it into cork products suitable for commercialization.
The Cork Tree mission is to maximize performance, increase confidence and ultimately improve putting statistics for every golfer using the Cork Tree putter grip. Cork Tree also strives to be a contributor to a more eco-friendly world and cork leather offers this while adding functionality, durability and quality.
Today, the Nascimento family continues to sell cork bark to the cork stopper industry from its own 500 hectares cork plantation. Conscious of its hereditary property, The Cork Tree family continues to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing, protecting and maintenance of the properties. Beyond cleaning and fertilizing the cork oak forest, the plantation continues to grow with some 40,000 new corktrees being planted in the past eight years.
Boggia, an Englishman, has been a member of the British PGA since 1981. He’s a golf course owner, partner and creator of Asia’s largest indoor golf teaching facilities, managing director of a made-for-TV golf tournament, distributor of golf product and head instructor of the John Jacobs’ Golf Schools. As a youngster, he practiced, played and competed near the very cork forest that’s now become the source of raw material that fuels his business venture.
The Cork Tree’s golf bag was awarded the first place award at the Golf Europe 2013 show in the golf bag category and lead to the launch of the cork putter grips.
See all products from The Cork Tree at www.corkputtergrips.com
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