Very seldom do I stray from my beloved St. Andrews nest to other parts of
Scotland, but when I do, I invariably discover something interesting—or
odd.Case in point, a recent lost weekend in the Highlands wherein I took a
counterclockwise route that included stops at the Trump property near Aberdeen
(a truly spectacular site, and my bet is the Donald will make it happen); Castle
Stuart, emerging on the Moray Firth via Kingsbarns co-designer Mark Parsinen
(and it may just top Kingsbarns); and Spey Valley, a challenging new charmer
from Dave Thomas, just north of Aviemore.
It was after my game at Spey
Valley, while wending southward through the quaint villages of Speyside, that I
experienced my moment of revelation, in the town of Kingussie (pronounced
king-yoo-say). Nestled at the foot of the majestic Cairngorms, Kingussie is a
village of roughly 1,500 inhabitants yet, like so many tiny Scottish towns, it
has its own golf course, designed in 1908 by none other than Harry Vardon. I had
heard good things about it, so when I saw the modest “Golf Course” sign at a
corner in the center of town, I took the right turn.
The course was just a
couple of blocks away, but those blocks were steeply uphill, some three or four
hundred feet. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but nothing could have prepared me
for the sight I beheld as I approached the club. There was no gate, no circular
driveway, no porte cochere, no entrance of any kind. What greeted me instead was
a trailer park—nearly one hundred campers, caravans, and mobile homes of every
size and budget assembled smack on the clubhouse steps.
“The relic of
a rather difficult period in our history,” said club secretary Ian Chadburn, a
touch of wistfulness in his brogue. “Following World War II, the club was
financially strapped and in order to make ends meet, the board voted to make the
land available to the holidaymakers.”
But Winnebago-world, arresting as it
was, was not the most striking aspect about Kingussie Golf Club; it was the
members. While nursing a pint of Belhaven Best on the club’s very pleasant
veranda, I watched the busy 1st tee as several groups teed off—27 players in
all.
Of those 27 players, no fewer than 13 struck the ball
left-handed!
Now, my understanding always has been that less than 10 percent
of the world’s golfers were southpaws—and here I had seen a parade with a near
50–50 ratio. Moreover, two more blokes were on the putting green, slapping
happily from the wrong side of the ball. What was going on here?
“Ah, you’re
in the left-handed golf capital of the world,” said Chadburn.
“And why is
that?” I asked.
“One word,” he said. “Shinty.”
Suddenly a distant bell
rang. Yes indeed, I had heard somewhere about this phenomenon, this perverse
pocket of port-sidedness.
It seems that just over 100 years ago, the
Kingussie locals brought organized form to a game that had been played in an
unregulated way for several centuries, a game that has often been touted—along
with the likes of kolf, kolven, pall mall, chole, paganica, chuigan and assorted
others from nations near and far, as the true and only precursor to golf.
“Yes,” said Chadburn, “this is the birthplace of shinty—it’s only played
here in the Highlands and in a few towns to the west and south. But Kingussie is
by far the best team.”
