Gullane #2 and North Berwick

I had a work trip scheduled since January to Edinburgh to attend the annual Association of Corporate Treasurers conference and came up with the brilliant idea of 'wouldn't it be great to go up a day early and play a round of golf in Scotland?' while on the course during My First Round of English Golf.
It took a few weeks more to convince my colleague that it was feasible - the tipping point for him was when I booked two tee times and sent him the links (pun intended) to the courses I had lined up:

Gullane #2 (/gul-in) was the morning round with a 8:31 tee time - a neat old course that starts right in the center of the town, climbs over a hill out through a nature preserve towards the coast.

Highlight: I could feel the game coming around and was hitting the ball solidly

Lowlight: four swings to extract the ball from a single bunker on a par three - leading to a lovely quadruple bogey 7. Photo evidence is provided on the photo page.

It was a fun course to play and an excellent prelude to the 'main event' which was:

North Berwick (/ber-ick) at 1:17.
The courses were about 5 miles apart, and when booking times the affable Sam at North Berwick assured me that it would not only allow us enough time to make the second tee time - but that we'd have time for a bite to eat in the clubhouse first.

He was right - we finished the first round at 11:40.

It was overcast in the morning, but as you can see on the photos that I took throughout the day
HERE that we ended up with one of those somewhat rare perfect days (perfect being subjective as some would argue that Scottish golf deserves high winds/driving rain - but I'll take blue, cloudless skies and a breeze just strong enough to make it interesting any day)

North Berwick is known as possibly the second oldest golf course (after Mussleburgh a bit further west down the coast) with the game being played on the same spot since the 1790's.

Like other great old golf courses it is a bit quirky in spots where one has to navigate a stone wall (photo on the right is my tee shot that is closer to the wall than it looks - it was tough not to flinch when hitting the next shot to the green) that runs through the course in several places, including right in front of the 14th green (see photos)- but that just adds to the charm. It is also the home of the most frequently copied golf hole in the world - the par 3 Redan where I chunked a 4 iron short, high, and left into the wind that was by far my worst swing of the day - resulting in a pretty good save for bogey.

Highlight: best ball striking round in years coupled with making every 6 footer and in faced - and capped by a birdie at 18 in front of the clubhouse.

Lowlight: the previously mentioned swing on the Redan hole - just ugly.

It was one of the best golf experiences I've ever had - and North Berwick gets a spot in my top 5 favorite golf courses played -- a list that might now look like:

• St. Andrews Old
• Pacific Dunes
  
• Sankaty Head
• North Berwick
  
• Olympic Club par 3 course (yes the Lake Course is a great track - but I still like Harding Park equally as well so the par three gets the nod based on the 'fun to challenge' ratio)
  

results:
Gullane: 80 (with the quad)
and
North Berwick: 72 (finally, a decent result!)