Michael Atkinson: Director of Oltomo and Co-author of Golfland Scotland
BACKGROUNDER:
Michael Atkinson is the co-founder of Oltomo, a golf publishing firm, which produces ‘Golfland Scotland’, the primary complete information to all of Scotland’s golf programs to be produced in over twenty years and that includes images from the world-renowned David Cannon.
He’s a daily contributing author to {golfing} titles, celebrating the ‘early influencers’ of the sport – those that helped to popularize the sport world wide or had a big affect on a selected component of golf.
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What makes golf in Scotland so magical?
While the origins of the game of golf are a lot debated – the idea of stick and ball video games has existed for a lot of centuries throughout many countries world wide – the essence and blueprint of the sport as we all know and play it at this time are derived from Scotland. It’s in Scotland that every thing from the very guidelines which have shaped the sport to the diameter of a golf gap to the standardization of eighteen-hole golf programs has occurred.
Scotland has produced most of the most influential characters of the sport, people whose affect lives on a few years later – from the famed Grandfather of Golf, Outdated Tom Morris to James Braid to Dorothy Campbell to Agnes Grainger to Willie Park Junior to Dr Alister MacKenzie. It was these people who, as golf developed, impressed the sport world wide and paved the best way for its improvement into a worldwide sporting big.
It’s for these causes, that golf in Scotland is additional particular and so magical. Whenever you play in Scotland, you’re surrounded by the historical past and heritage of the sport.
{Photograph} by: David Cannon
You’ve been to each nook of the nation – is there a particular locale you like over others?
East Lothian, an space which incorporates my house course, Gullane, could be a well-liked locale. East Lothian claims Scotland’s ‘Golf Coast Highway’, a thirty mile stretch from Musselburgh to Dunbar that showcases a few of Scotland’s best golf programs.
{The golfing} freeway tees off at Musselburgh Hyperlinks, a former host venue of The Open Championship on no fewer than six events between 1874 and 1889. As you head into Aberlady, on the left is Craigielaw, a course opened in 2001. Regardless of its youth, it has gained a robust status, internet hosting quite a few nationwide occasions. Aberlady itself is house to the characterful Kilspindie Golf Membership. Maintain heading in the direction of Gullane and also you cross the clubhouse of Luffness
New on the correct. Gullane has three lovely programs, merely named Gullane No.1, Gullane No. 2 and Gullane No. 3. Gullane No. 1 is magnificent, however every of the three is a check. The membership has beforehand hosted the Scottish Open. On the sting of the village is Muirfield, house of the Honorable Firm of Edinburgh Golfers and host to sixteen Open Championships.
Proceed on and there may be Archerfield Hyperlinks Golf Membership, the Renaissance Membership after which the deal with of North Berwick continues to be to return. Extra programs seem all the best way to Dunbar Golf Membership. Only a magnificent {golfing} a part of Scotland.
What’s the largest mistake golf guests make when coming to Scotland?
The error is barely to play the well-known programs. While the globally famend programs will at all times be a delight to play, Scotland is awash with ‘hidden gems’ that present equally as spectacular a {golfing} expertise as these programs which get pleasure from higher prominence. One I at all times spotlight for instance – Boat of Garten golf course within the Scottish highlands.
It received’t usually make the itinerary of a {golfing} customer to Scotland, however it ought to. Set with the backdrop of the wonderful Cairngorm mountains, it a difficult 18-hole course which shows all the good course traits of its designer, the five-time Open champion, James Braid. Birch bushes, heather and broom body fairways.
Canine legs, blind photographs, pot bunkers, two tiered greens. This course has all of it. There are lots of different, ‘little identified’ programs the place a spherical will reside lengthy within the reminiscence.
Michael Atkinson & Co-author Craig Morrison at The Renaissance Membership
Describe the primary time you performed the Outdated Course at St Andrews and what you will have realized from having performed it numerous occasions afterwards.
For lovers of the sport, the chance to play the Outdated Course is the spherical of a lifetime. It’s the most nervous of tee photographs, driving off in entrance of essentially the most well-known clubhouse on this planet, irons struck from historic turf, putts missed and made on iconic double greens.
It’s a privilege to play on the hallowed floor of the Outdated Course, one of the crucial historic and revered programs on this planet. To comprehend how particular it’s, you solely must witness how it’s seen by {golfing} professionals.
To win an Open championship could be the spotlight of their profession, however to win on the Outdated Course is additional particular.
Do you ever see The Open Championship returning to the Ailsa Course as long as Donald Trump owns the Turnberry property?
Turnberry first staged the Open in 1977 and it grew to become the backdrop to one of the crucial memorable Opens ever staged, the ‘Duel within the Solar’ between the legendary gamers of Jack Nicklaus and eventual winner, Tom Watson.
It’s a rightly celebrated and admired course with a surprising location. When it comes to its future relationship with The Open, I imagine the R&A has commented that the Open is not going to return to Turnberry till they’re assured that the main target will likely be on the championship, the gamers and the course itself. I feel they’ve subsequently dominated it out for the foreseeable future.
What makes an Open Championship in Scotland extra particular than when held elsewhere?
The Open Championship is golf’s oldest main. It’s an occasion based in Scotland again in 1860 and performed completely on hyperlinks programs. The primary 12 Opens have been staged at Prestwick, the primary St Andrews Open in 1873. Musselburgh Hyperlinks hosted the championship in 1874. Muirfield subsequently joined as a bunch for the Open.
It wasn’t till 1894 that the Open was first staged exterior of Scotland, at Royal St George’s. I feel it’s this deep-rooted heritage of golf in Scotland and Scotland because the birthplace of the Open Championship, that makes it extra particular in Scotland than when held elsewhere.
A lot of the main target for a lot of guests is checking off a bucket record of programs which have a better profile. Title 5 sleeper programs you imagine are not often talked about however present a Scottish golf connection worthy of visiting?
Gullane No 3 – a Willie Park Jr designed hyperlinks magnificence. Quirky and interesting, immaculate with quick greens and having fun with spectacular views throughout the Forth again to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.
Boat of Garten – an awesome James Braid designed course within the Scottish highlands with the Cairngorm mountains as a backdrop.
Auchterarder – usually missed because of the celebrity and glamour of the programs at neighbouring Gleneagles, however an enthralling heathland course in its personal proper.
Fortrose & Rosemarkie – Royal Dornoch, Nairn and Fortress Stuart draw a lot of the eye on this space. They’re magnificent. However Fortrose & Rosemarkie is a pleasant hyperlinks on the Chanonry Peninsula and equally deserving of a go to.
Balcomie Hyperlinks at Crail – most deal with the extra well-known programs in St Andrews simply over ten miles away. However the Balcomie Hyperlinks at Crail present an exquisite different, a course which has developed from the unique format of Outdated Tom Morris himself.
Given your understanding of the sport and Scotland’s prime roots in golf – how do you suppose Outdated Tom Morris would view the game if he have been alive at this time?
I feel Outdated Tom could be amazed by three areas.
First, the worldwide unfold of the sport. In Outdated Tom’s period, the variety of golf programs was nonetheless comparatively restricted, just a few hundred. Now that determine is staggering, with greater than 30,000 golf programs in all corners of the world.
Second, I feel he could be intrigued by the evolution and technological development of golf golf equipment and golf balls compared to the hickories that he used to play the sport.
Lastly, I feel he could be impressed by the situation of the programs. Programs have been saved in way more primitive situation within the occasions of Outdated Tom Morris. The stainless fairways and pristine greens of at this time, as a Keeper of the Inexperienced, could be of intrigue to Outdated Tom.
{Photograph} by: David Cannon
Does strolling when enjoying present the truest connection to golf?
I actually love strolling the fairways of a golf course, however I’ve additionally loved many a spherical with a golf cart. The necessary factor is to benefit from the course, the corporate, the spherical. The wonderful thing about golf is how it may be loved at any age and throughout generations.
Golf carts have an awesome position in enabling golf to be performed and loved for longer, encouraging those that possibly can’t nonetheless stroll a full 18 holes to get a full spherical with the advantage of a cart.
You possibly can change one factor in golf unilaterally – what wouldn’t it be and why?
Entry to golf, particularly for the youthful technology. The sport survives by encouraging the subsequent technology to become involved within the sport. To try this, golf equipment, specifically, must embrace junior golf and I feel some have been and proceed to be gradual to take action.
We have to welcome junior members into golf equipment. Gullane could be instance of a membership which has efficiently developed a really thriving junior part, which is nice.
You’ve acquired one spherical to play in Scotland – the place do you play and what three folks, whether or not alive or lifeless, make up your foursome?
I might play at my house course – Gullane No 1.
My fellow four-ball company could be:
Tom Watson – ever since he almost received The Open at Turnberry in 2009 at 59 years of age, I’ve massively admired him and develop into fascinated by his extraordinary achievements. A victory at that Open in 2009 would have created one of the crucial iconic sporting moments of all time.
Not solely was it inspiring to see him compete in opposition to a major subject half his age, I massively admired the grace and dignity in how Watson accepted defeat to Stewart Cink, who finally received in playoff.
Walter Hagen – not solely one of many biggest golfers of all time – amassing in a rare profession, two U.S. Open’s, 4 Open Championships and 5 PGA Championship victories – but in addition an awesome character and showman, I can solely think about what nice enjoyable each on the course and reflecting on the spherical within the clubhouse afterwards over a drink.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias – Babe was the primary American to win the British Girls’s Novice, which she did at Gullane in 1947. She was additionally one of many biggest feminine athletes of all time, her {golfing} profession coming after she had already set world data and received gold medals in observe & subject on the Olympics. Her recreation was a lot admired and to see her play could be inspiring.
The Scottish golfer you most admire and why?
One Scottish golfer I vastly admire is Donald Ross. The skilled at Royal Dornoch, he would finally transfer to America in 1899 and develop into the skilled at Pinehurst.
He began to transform and design programs and would finally develop into one of the crucial prolific golf course designers of all time, leaving an enduring legacy on {the golfing} world with creations throughout the globe. He stays one in every of Scotland’s biggest exports!
Pinehurst No 2 has develop into essentially the most celebrated course designed by Donald Ross and has gone on to host numerous main occasions in international golf, together with the U.S. Opens in 1999, 2005 and 2014, and set for 2024, in addition to the Ryder Cup in 1951 and the U.S. Girls’s Open Championship in 2014.
