The Beasts of Brora!
“I noticed on a recent visit to St Andrews that they’ve introduced a flock of sheep, mimicking The Irish Course at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin or Machrihanish Dunes on Scotland’s west coast. Seems like a gimmick to me!”
“Pssst….What’s he looking at?”
Brora's always been the real deal! Crofters have had ‘Common Grazing’ rights on these links for centuries, allowing their fleecy flocks to gamble between golfers and greens. And here at Brora, it all works rather well!
Brora’s golfers have always shared the links with sheep - and cows.
Electric fences keep the animals, both sheep and cows, away from those wonderfully natural, delicate putting surfaces. Otherwise, they're free to roam wherever they wish between the outer perimeter fence by the main road, cottages and beach.
The Royal Marine Hotel in Brora attracts all sorts of old codgers… like me!
ROYAL MARINE HOTEL
I’ve enjoyed a special relationship with the golf club and town, thanks in part to Robert & Dawn Powell who ran the Royal Marine Hotel at the time and regularly made me welcome. I managed to get a few features and plenty of photographs into various golf magazines around the globe - so it was a symbiotic relationship of sorts.
THE BANDIT OF BRORA
“There was one visit, however, when things turned distinctly sour! ”
I was travelling with three other journalists at the time, two good friends from the USA, Jeff Wallach and Tom Mackin along with Malcolm Campbell from Golf Monthly magazine here in the UK, all distinguished writers of the golf travel genre!
We stepped into the pro shop ahead of our round and I was amazed to find various products for sale, all sporting my photographs of Brora’s golf course…and all completely unbeknownst to me.
I can’t remember the full details now but I believe there were coffee mugs, placemats, postcards and posters emblazoned with my images of the golf course.
The pro at the time, a somewhat dodgy character by the looks of things, sheepishly made his excuses, saying he didn’t realise he wasn’t allowed to use someone else’s imagery for blatant profit!
My learned colleagues from the publishing industry said I should sue his ass… but as usual, being such a nice guy, I sheepishly let it go!
COW WITH A BANJO
That’s the problem with sheep! And then there’re the cows!
Standing on the tee, the phrase ‘You couldn’t hit the arse end of a cow with a banjo’ somehow springs to mind. I recall my first round here probably back in the early 90s, the cows mingled ahead of the 1st tee as if to exert their grazing rights.
I've played Brora umpteen times but never hit anything except the middle of the fairway!
I wish!
There’s plenty of room out there and scant rough to talk of. The animals keep the course well-manicured!
The main experience at Brora is nipping the ball off that pure links loam. This is iron play as it was intended by the Creator! Brora is simply one of the best examples of the purest of linksland on the planet. The sensational seaside turf is as natural as you will find anywhere in the world and, as Old Tom said on umpteen occasions (referring to umpteen different golf courses) ‘Specially designed by the Almighty for playing golf.’
BRAID’S ‘BRAWEST’
It was the late, great James Braid who etched this magnificently rustic track and, as per the purest of links, he didn’t have much work to do. He came by train (apparently he wasn’t a good traveller) and spent an afternoon surveying the existing 9-hole course, selecting a few new tee and green positions before hopping back on the next train south. It was January 1923 and he charged the club £25 plus expenses. Not a bad day’s work but bear in mind his travel sickness.
Don’t get the impression Braid was a flash-in-the-pan golf course architect. The 5-times Open Championship winner is responsible for over 250 courses throughout the UK, at least 100 in his native Scotland. Here in the Highlands, he carved out Boat of Garten, Inverness, Muir of Ord, Fortrose & Rosemarkie, Golspie, Brora and Reay.
I was glancingly associated with the ‘James Braid Golfing Society’ at its inception back in the 90s. My golf travel-writing colleague, Malcolm Campbell led the way and invited me to join but I was on the move too much to be a meaningful member. Brora and the Royal Marine Hotel became the Society’s headquarters with a room dedicated room to the 5 times Open Championship winner. It’s still here now called the ‘Braid Lounge’.
Clynelish Distillery in Brora is one of the pillars of the Johnnie Walker whisky operation.
Picturesque Brora Harbour was built in 1813-14 to import raw materials and export emigrants forced to leave for Canada and New Zealand.
