Britain’s Most Northerly Course
“This is as far north as you can go in the UK! Four hundred miles further and you’re in amongst Polar Bears and Walruses.”
We’d been invited to play a charity match at Whalsay Golf Club in the Shetland Isles, Britain's most northerly 18 holes. On the night before sailing, the club manager called to say due to a particularly wet & windy weather forecast, they were cancelling! We decided to go anyway!
Looking at the world through a whisky glass. A ‘wee dram’ on the overnight Northlink ferry to Shetland.
Weather’s a perennial problem in Shetland! On the BBC weather forecast, I’d cast a vaguely interested eye northward to see Shetland as the polar opposite of the rest of the UK. Maybe that’s part of the appeal! It begs to differ!
NorthLink Ferries sails from Aberdeen to Shetland & Orkney. On our initial visits in the 1970s, it was the St Claire that got us there… which was always a trip!
Coming into Lerwick, it appears a grey ‘wee’ town but let me assure you, it’s full of colour & character.
As you sail into Lerwick Harbour, the landscape appears stark, bleak and brown. Trees don’t do well here! It’s perhaps not to everyone’s taste but to me, there’s an aetherial energy about the place that pulls you in!
“Ewan, my son and I were bound to see as many of these wonderful islands as we could…”
This time, Ewan, my son and I were bound to see as many of these wonderful islands as we could…and get in several rounds of golf.
Landing in Lerwick, we immediately steered the minivan north to connect with another short ferry crossing to the island of Whalsay. The last time I did this, the boat was full of golfers. This time it was just us!
The little ferry that crosses to the Island of Whalsay 17 times a day takes about 30 minutes.
ISLAND OF PLENTY
“The Island of Whalsay off Shetland’s ‘mainland’ has the densest population of millionaires in the UK! ”
It’s a well-contained fact that Whalsay has the densest population of millionaires in the UK! The island’s main town of Symbester consists of simple, Scandanavian-style houses scattered on a hillside with not one Lamborghini, Ferrari or even Mercedes in sight. But the harbour hosts several sleek Pelagic (deep-sea) trawlers each worth several hundred Lamborghinis. They berth alongside a substantial fleet of white fish, lobster and crab boats. The sea is the primary source of Whalsay’s wealth.
Every fisherman’s wet dream, to net a real, live mermaid! This is a cottage outside Lybster.
THE MOST NORTHERLY GOLF CLUB
The 16th is one of Whalsay’s most outstanding holes. Local fishermen decided to build their own golf course back in the mid-70s.
At the island’s northernmost tip is the most unlikely golf course, a peaty, heathery headland with, on my initial visit, barely a blade of grass to play off. Enthusiastic locals established the track back in the mid-1970s on a stark, brown peat bog and with care and copious amounts of lime to encourage grass growth, Whalsay has become a fully-fledged, proper golf experience!
And as the UK’s most northerly golf course, Whalsay is definitely one for the course-baggers!
Whalsay Golf Club has come on so well over the years. When I first played there were no fairways, just brown, peaty dirt in between heather boundaries.
The 10th to the 16th is the course’s outstanding stretch, the 10th, a long par 5 ending at a tricky little lochan. The 16th is not too shabby either, a magnificent downhill par 4 next to the cliffs with even more stunning views.
KILLER GOLF
John Lowrie Irvine is a deep sea fisherman from Whalsay whose hobby is wildlife photography. This bull Orka was so keen to catch up with the fishing boat that he almost took flight.
“Florida’s famous for alligators on the golf courses. Whalsay goes several better! ”
Orca or Killer Whales are sometimes spotted from Whalsay’s course cruising by the rocky inlets looking to grab an unsuspecting seal. “One year there were six of them coming right in,’ Graeme Sandison, one of the club’s founding fishermen members told me, “sweeping the beach in about 2 meters of water. A lot of folks saw it.”
Orkas are just one of many wildlife species in these parts. Otters, bottlenose dolphins, porpoises and seals are regularly seen swimming in the coastal waters and vast colonies of seabirds such as gannets, guillemots, fulmars and kittiwakes can also be seen especially in spring and summer.
More parochially, there are the famous Shetland ponies who often stand alongside the sheep, all very cute and highly photogenic!
MIDNIGHT GOLF
“We heard you were wanting to play golf at midnight. We don’t - so we’re going to get you drunk instead.”
Wind, would you beleive, is a constant factor on Whalsay, Britain’s most northerly golf course.
I recall the clubhouse shenanigans on my first visit to Whalsay, the Fishermen’s Mission Invitational sometime in the 90s when the after-golf-party went on well into the wee small hours. The ‘Simmer Dimmer’ or summer twilight here in Shetland is when the sun barely dips below the horizon before promptly popping up again.
“I had a hankering to play a few holes at midnight, just to say I’d done it! ”
I had a hankering to play a few holes at midnight, just to say I’d done it! As I sat in the packed, chaotic, good-humoured clubhouse, post-round, I found several generously filled glasses of whisky neatly accumulating in front of me. I had to ask, ‘What’s going on here?’
One of my golfing compadres piped up, “We heard you’re wanting to play golf at midnight! We don’t - so we’re going to get you drunk instead!”
Oh well! If needs must! Bottom’s up!
Our lonely little wagon parked next to the clubhouse with not another soul in sight. On my first visit, 160 golfers crammed into that little building to party and dine on the freshest fish & chips on the planet.
WHALE OF A TIME
We went on to have one of the most memorable nights… except, I can’t remember much about it! There was a guitar and accordion and a clubhouse full of drunk fishermen having a whale of a time!
Then, the girls arrived! While the men had been golfing, there had been a ladies’ day for the women up in Lerwick. At around 2 AM, I was taken by surprise and swung off my feet by a woman with her arm in a sling who, at some stage in the proceedings had fallen off the bus. What a night it was - except again I only have a vague recollection.
One thing I do recall is trying to find my way back to my Symbister B&B around 5 AM, the road into town peppered with sozzled, solo golfers winding their weary way home, golf bags akimbo spilling a trail of clubs and balls. Somebody would pick them up in the morning for their owner to collect when they felt a bit better!
Douglas, my tea-total minder from the mainland drove me into town and went into a house, not sure if it was a B&B. He came back a minute later and said, “There’s an empty bed in the first room! Just get into it…”
And so I did!
