The ‘Par 3’, ‘Best Golf Break in Scotland & Ireland’ is laid out as a seven night duration that observes a point-to-point itinerary, staying at:

• Inverness – 1 night
• Belfast – 2 nights or Belfast & Glasgow 1 night each
• Edinburgh  – 2 nights (possibly 1 night at Turnberry)
• St Andrews – 2 nights

At about 675 miles, the ‘Par 3’, ‘Best Break Vacation in Scotland & Ireland’ is a medium mileage, high intensity transport burden.

In total, this should demand about 18 hrs 45 mins of road time, which is an average of slightly under 2 hrs 45 mins a day (which is a notably higher average than that which we usually see)

The mileage on this tour is already intense, the optimal way of reducing is to try and start in Inverness and take 4 hrs off the road we’d otherwise need to absorb driving north from Edinburgh. To do this, we’ll probably need to fly to Inverness via London Heathrow

The connecting flight between Inverness and Belfast is another linchpin to the architecture. Without this flight, we can’t reasonably include Royal Dornoch

We will need to decide whether to fly to Glasgow or Edinburgh from Belfast on the inward connecting leg, or sail between Belfast and Cairnryan instead using a car ferry. We’d probably recommend the flight because of the likely penalty that a vehicle hire company will impose on a Belfast pick up and Edinburgh return, but otherwise the car ferry would have merit

We wouldn’t advise the use blanket of a hired driver for the ‘Par 3’, ‘Best Golf Break in Scotland & Ireland’ , but can see that there might attraction to using one selectively. The Irish leg is an obvious candidate. It might be tempting to do so on the Glasgow Airport > Turnberry > Edinburgh day as well (certainly if the schedules dictate that we need to fly into Edinburgh this would need considering). We’d need to pick a hire vehicle up in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening though to continue

With a question mark over our tee-time at Muirfield, we might find there is an imperative to get to Edinburgh on Wednesday evening too. This might depend on whether we prefer a late arrival into Edinburgh or an early start from Turnberry/ Troon

The ‘Par 3’, ‘Best Golf Break in Scotland & Ireland’ can support Luxury, Premier and Affordable options

As ever, the scale of non-golf activity depends on whether we’re adding extra value for golfers, or building a stand alone proposal for non-golfers to run alongside a golf programme.

The ‘Par 3’, ‘Best Golf Break in Scotland & Ireland’ is already demanding without adding too much non-golf activity to the agenda. At an estimated average of 2 hrs 45 mins of road time a day, we would advise that you give serious consideration to omitting non-golf activity and only look to include that where we are staying at, that which is in very close proximity, or that which is pretty much on a line of travel

Candidates would include

• Edinburgh (with Muirfield)
• St Andrews
• The Giants Causeway (15 mins from Portrush)

If we have independent driving non-golfers in the party however, then they can begin to expand their horizons and make us of places like Edinburgh, Glamis Castle, Belfast, Culzean Castle and Carrick u Rede

The following courses operate the following handicap thresholds for gentlemen and ladies respectively

• Royal Portrush (18 & 24)
• Muirfield (24)
• Royal County Down (24 & 36)
• Carnoustie (28 & 36)
• St Andrews (36)

Unlike some courses who needn’t be rigid in enforcing their handicap thresholds, Muirfield and the St Andrews Links Trust will do. Failure to provide evidence will result in a refusal to allow us to play

The Old Course diary is available on-line to consult for availability and is dynamic in so much as it changes every season, although there are some known block outs that occur every year, notably the first week of May, the first week of June, and a run from early/ mid September to early/ mid October

There is no play on the Old Course on Sunday

Muirfield only permit visitor play on Tues and Thurs, and only then as fourballs, up to a maximum of twelve per application. If you apply as anything other than a fourball, you’ll be rejected

Muirfield release their tee-times for play the following season in February. They are the first course to move and we need to be about 18 months ahead of the curve to succeed there

Tee-times are allocated by a lottery, albeit your chances of success are better if you go through a golf tour operator (GTO). Be aware however, GTO’s are limited to 20 nominated golfers per season, so in reality you probably need to get someone to support your application around Nov/ Dec of the year before that. Duplicate entries will lead to you being disqualified

Portrush doesn’t permit visitor play on Weds, nor Sat or Sun mornings. Their week day play is a mixture of full and half days. Tues and Thurs are full days. Mon is afternoon only, and Friday is mornings only. In order to play the Dunluce links off a morning tee-time, Portrush now require that we play a second round on their Valley course over two days. It maybe necessary to replace Portstewart under this regulation if the booking has been left a little bit later and the less restricted afternoon times have all been taken

RCD doesn’t permit visitor play on Weds or Sat, or Sun morning. They also operate a mixture of half days and full days for weekdays. Mon, Tues, and Fri are full days

Carnoustie whilst usually being open 7 days of the week, visitors will have to play afternoon tee-times at the weekend

Turnberry will only allow hotel guests to play in the morning (unless a visitor is prepared to pay a frankly outrageous green fee to do so). We can play in the afternoon however

As you can see, there is a lot of ‘dancing to do’ here! Only Royal Dornoch is unencumbered

With all the usual disclaimers of a lottery being random, and there being no such thing as a certainty etc plus the variable factor of availability for the specific week chosen, our prospects of winning a ballot on this programme would otherwise be considered unfavourable, but not forlorn (if we sought to use every opportunity to do so).

This is a short duration break, with a limited exposure to St Andrews. In crude terms, our chances would be better than drawing a named suit from a deck of cards, but not as good as a coin toss

The suite of par 5, par 4 and par 3 tours were first conceived when St Andrews were operating the old ‘walk up rule’. As inconvenient and demanding as the walk up rule was, provided we were prepared to lay an early siege of the starters hut, it invariably worked. In 10 years, Faraway Fairways never had anyone fail who used it aggressively. This allowed us to adopt a two ballot and walk up strategy with a degree of comparative certainty. The introduction of the singles ballot however has reduced this strike rate

We can only really contest one open ballot (Sat), albeit that is the most favourable day of  the week (equivalent to 2 weekdays). We should also be detour through St Andrews on Friday enroute to Carnoustie and enter one ‘singles’ ballot (Fri for Sat). This means we could contest a total of two ballots.

The only way we can improve this is to extend the duration of our stay in the St Andrews area

Green fees need paying in advance and are always non-refundable against a certain timeline

Green fees need paying in advance and are always non-refundable against a certain timeline

A St Andrews Old Course ballot is drawn 48 hrs before play, and we can safely assume that this is outside any refund window! Any win in the ballot therefore will send us into a clash with which ever course we had booked that day, and we’ll a loss of the green fee unless we can get the tee-time rearranged. For this reason we don’t necessarily want to fill every day of the week up with a paid green fee and golf course. That would be designing a forfeit (we are after all setting up to win a ballot and play the Old Course)

Luckily the St Andrews New Course can’t be prebooked, and every other tee-time after 09.00 is offered present-pay-and-play-on-the-day. This is a great way of putting a placeholder into the itinerary without taking on the liability of a prepaid green fee

We try to schedule the New Course in any St Andrews swing to max out this position. If we win a ballot on the day we were going to try and play the New Course, we simply play the Old Course instead. If we win a ballot on another day, then we look to reschedule the affected course onto the day we had the New Course inked in and avoid a forfeit that way. We’ll usually try and put the New Course last in an itinerary then to give ourselves the maximum length of runway onto which we might land the rearranged round

Perversely perhaps, we’re actually hoping not to play the New Course. The reason we wouldn’t play it, is because we’ve won a ballot and are playing the Old Course instead

Whereas golf tour operators enjoy favourable arrangements with a lot of courses, one which represents a risk to any assembly in which they feature is RCD.

RCD open their diary for play the following season in February and will sell out in 36 hrs. If we’re late to the party, we’ll be most unlikely to play there. This means that we need to operate on a long-lead time.

This isn’t the only issue we face there however

RCD sell their tee-times on one hectic day by phone. This involves hitting ‘last number redial’ over and over again in the hope of landing on their limited by number call stacking system. Very often we have to spend hours and hours meeting the engaged tone.

Faraway Fairways have nearly always succeeded in getting tee-times at RCD (eventually) but we’ve had too many near misses to know that we’ll fail again in the future.

There is a known risk in this process, and whereas clients are always welcome to roll the dice themselves and see if they can get lucky alongside our efforts (can always be worth trying), but we’ve never had anyone succeed where ahead of Fairways Fairways yet