College Golf Teams, Clubs, Societies or Large Groups – Scottish Golf Trip
St Andrews, Muirfield or Gullane No.2, North Berwick, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, Dumbarnie and the St Andrews Torrance Course
Size can matter
This Scottish golf trip is primarily designed for College Golf Teams, Clubs, Societies or other Large Groups that might conceivably include businesses or corporations (although you’ll usually require a shorter duration than a week)
Large groups would normally be defined as anything exceeding 20 that requires moving by coach
It’s usually the case that large groups will seek a single point of stay and travel out each day, but Faraway Fairways would be of the view that the best combination that Scotland can offer would probably involve a short stay in North Berwick at the start of the week, followed by a transfer to St Andrews for the second leg
Courses played include North Berwick, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, Dumbarnie and the St Andrews Torrance Course, whilst Muirfield would be restricted by numbers so would have to be slotted opposite Gullane No2. The proximity of Edinburgh will also allow us a cultural day on arrival as we get orientated.
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The Itinerary
Sunday – Edinburgh, half day
Monday – North Berwick (Edinburgh)
Tuesday – Muirfield or Gullane No.2 (Edinburgh)
Wednesday – Kingsbarns (St Andrews town)
Thursday – Carnoustie (Glamis Castle with Scone Palace)
Friday – Dumbarnie (Falkland Palace with the East Neuk of Fife)
Saturday – St Andrews Torrance Course (Stirling)
Important note – We could contest St Andrews Old Course ballots for Thurs, Fri, & Sat, and possibly Weds under a breakout arrangement for anyone who wins
You can read these days as XYZ / St Andrews Old Course
We won’t be able to contest any singles ballots until Weds for subsequent play on Thurs onwards
Carnoustie is the most difficult course to rearrange. Were it to go into a clash with a successful ballot we’d have potential forfeit.
Sunday - Edinburgh
Few trips to Scotland could really be considered complete without Edinburgh. The Scottish capital is frequently regarded as one of the UK’s most charismatic cities.
Most visitors will prioritise the castle that overlooks the city below. Greyfriars Bobby, Holyrood Palace, and the various galleries are all legitimate attractions.
Younger folk with an interest in Harry Potter, since this is the part of town where the books were written and the surrounding streets (and graveyard) helped inspire JK Rowling (Tom Riddell is buried in Greyfriars Kirk)
Princes Street is the main shopping thoroughfare with its adjacent gardens providing respite, whereas the more eclectic Victoria Street certainly has many supporters who will tell you that it is better than the ‘chain store’ dominated New Town. Victoria Street also claims to be the inspiration behind Diagon Alley
Monday - North Berwick
The links of North Berwick are a traditional out and back nine. Undulating fairways, blind shots, tricky burns and even stone walls make their presence felt in the landscape. The course really is a throw back to the experiences of the game’s pioneers who had to interpret the landscape and weave the hazards nature handed them into their own personal tapestries. North Berwick has an endearing old-fashioned feel.
North Berwick also possesses the original ‘Redan’ hole, (15). Found the world over, ‘Redans’ are the most copied hole in golf.
The Redan completes a trio of holes from 13 which is rarely surpassed in Scottish golf, perhaps only Turnberry’s 9 to 11, and Carnoustie’s 16-18 has better claims for being the best consecutive 3 in a row.
North Berwick is one of those rare courses you never hear a bad word said about, and we’re always struck by the fact that it seems to be the most knowledgeable and the best judges who enthuse most about it.
It would be wrong to think that it’s a curiosity relic though. It’s a beguiling world top-50 ranked course on merit.
Tuesday - Muirfield
Frequently ranked inside the world’s top 10, Muirfield is the ‘blue-blooded’ aristocrat of Scottish golf and always immaculately presented. It doesn’t really have any weak holes. So impressed was Jack, he went back to Ohio and built Muirfield Village in homage to the original.
Muirfield instigated a then revolutionary design of two loops of nine. This was to prevent players dialling into the wind of the traditional out and back nine and adjusting. This design ensures that the wind is constantly changing direction so as to test all aspects of your game and reading of a ball in flight. All three paradigms of golf design penal, heroic and strategic.
The prestigious roll call of Muirfield Open championship winners is perhaps its best testimonial. Player, Nicklaus, Trevino, Watson, Faldo, Els & most recently of course, Mickelson. It offers golfers choices and then requires you to execute. It is a golfers, golf course.
Muirfield is notoriously exclusive however, access is limited. Booking early isn’t just advised, it’s pretty well essential.
Tuesday (alternative) - Gullane No.2
Muirfield would undoubtedly be a ‘result’ but we’re limited to a maximum of 12 players per application, per day, and 20 named golfers for a season (before we have to start using the public application procedure). In a large group, there is often a hierarchy that exists, and we should perhaps adopt the strategy of trying to do what we can at Muirfield, but those who miss out will require an alternative
Gullane has two courses, but perhaps their No.2 course is the best value.
Laid out by the two time Open championship winner Willie Park Jr in 1898, Gullane No. 2 runs alongside No. 1 for the first seven holes before sweeping down to a nature reserve next to Aberlady Bay. The course turns towards home from the 13th tee with the prevailing wind, down Gullane Hill back to the Clubhouse.
At 6,396 yards, No. 2 is shorter than its older sibling but provides an equally stern test as it proved during final qualifying for the Open Championship in 1980. National Club Golfer magazine rated Gullane No. 2 as the 39th best course in Scotland in 2019.
Wednesday - Kingsbarns
There are records of golf being played at Kingsbarns from 1793, but the modern course opened in 2000, and is set on three-tiered levels, sloping towards the coast. Nearly every hole has stunning views of the North Sea.
Kingsbarns quickly racked up rave reviews and earned a world ranking of about #50, a position which it’s held more or less since.
The par 5, twelfth hole that plays along the arching shoreline to an exposed green, and the par 3, fifteenth, which involves playing a tee-shot across the waves, are often considered to the courses signature assignments. It was the fourth and fifth that caught Tom Doak’s eye when he described as Kingsbarns
“as piece of construction work, Kingsbarns is one of the best projects I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it for myself”
Perhaps of greatest significance is the number of times it beats more illustrious neighbours in surveys amongst visiting Americans since its always immaculately presented.
Kingsbarns completes the trio of East Coast giants that host the European Tour’s Dunhill links challenge each year alongside Carnoustie and the Old Course.
Thursday - Carnoustie
Dubbed ‘Car-Nasty’, Carnoustie is considered by many to be the most difficult links in the Open Championship rotation
In recent years it has seen some dramatic finishes, none more so than in 1999 when Jean van de Velde took an eight at the 72nd hole to throw away the claret jug. Iconic images of him paddling in the notorious ‘Barry Burn’ have entered golfing legend. The final four holes are the hardest finish on the rotation. After the carnage of 1999 (6 over won) Sport Illustrated described it as
“a nasty antique that was brought down from the attic after 24 years …the rough was deeper; and the R&A made the fairways as narrow as an eel’s appendix scar”.
Whereas the eighteenth is the hole that has often generated the most drama. The par 3 sixteenth has the highest average scoring par 3 on the Open Championship rotation as indeed the closing four are the hardest. The Par 5, sixth ‘Hogan’s Alley’, is another famous hole with a punitive out of bounds fence running down it’s left
1999 Carnoustie reduced Sergio Garcia to tears after successive scores of 89 and 83
Friday - Dumbarnie
Dumbarnie opened in 2020, and looks to have replicated the Kingsbarns design with 14 of the 18 holes having unencumbered views of the sea due to it playing on a natural escarpment with 80ft of elevation on the site. A number of high tees are used to provide the drama of hitting drives out to the ocean. Unusually for a links, water has also been introduced, albeit mainly confined to burns rather than lakes. The fairways are wide and forgiving with driveable risk and reward par 4’s a particular feature of the lay-out. The fifteenth looks remarkably similar to the 7th at Valhalla.
The philosophy behind it is aimed challenging the thinking golfer rather than humiliating them through penalty; as course designer Clive Clark remarked
“I have yet to hear a golfer come in from his round and declare: I really enjoyed a great round of golf today – I only lost 6 balls and 3-putted five greens!”
In 2021 Dumbarnie was named the world’s best new golf course at the international world golf awards which you have to imagine will go some way towards securing its top-100 position as it begins to bed down and evolve.
St Andrews Torrance or Kittocks Course
Cost is always a factor in budgeting any large group and nowhere does this get more magnified than St Andrews accommodation.
One of the best value ways of mitigating this is to use the 5-star Fairmont hotel, but large parties will be required to play one of their championship courses
The pair are spectacular cliff-top design with expansive views of the North Sea and beguiling vistas into the town St Andrews below you. They’re very similar to the St Andrews Castle course being built on the same stretch of land to Championship standard. Naturally, they can’t be considered links courses, but there is an unmistakable links feel about them. Visually, these cliff-top courses are the most impressive in the St Andrews portfolio.
The Torrance and Kittocks have enjoyed something of an unusual history already, given that they’ve periodically pinched holes off each other. Today it is usually felt that the Torrance is the superior of the two and hosted the Scottish Masters, a European Tour event, in 2020 and 2022
Non Golf Options
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Featured Group
What's Involved?
This will be a twin centred itinerary featuring North Berwick and St Andrews
We’d look to move the entire party using one or two coaches as appropriate to groups size and luggage carry, but would also lay-on at least one nine seater MPV for ‘running around’ and picking up loose ends. This is likely to errands, call outs, and most obviously perhaps, plugging any gaps that the St Andrews Old Course ballot might create.
There are at least two days (Fri & Sat) where any non-golfers might require their own dedicated transport. There are two other days (Mon & Tues) where using a train from North Berwick to Edinburgh is the more sensible solution
This would be a seven night duration
There is only one hotel in North Berwick that would be able to handle a group of this size (the Marine).
St Andrews has more options, but if we were looking to balance comfort with cost, we’d probably choose the Fairmont
We’d stay three nights at the Marine (Sun to Tues)
and
Four nights at the Fairmont (Weds to Sat)
North Berwick and the St Andrews Torrance course would be ‘walk out to play’ from the hotels.
The golfers will clock up about 300 miles, which we estimate will involve a total 9 hrs 15 mins road time in a coach (adding 20 mins to the hour)
Non golfers will have a bigger travel burden, but can easily find that they’ve transferred the first two days to a commuter train
Any non golfers will likely generate about 475 miles on the road, + any mileage on the train(s). If we adjust this using 20 mins in the hour (an MPV would be faster than a coach) we estimate that they’d run up about 15 hrs 30 mins, and average that would be a little under 2 hrs a day
Officially the two hotels are 4-star and 5-star respectively, but the Marine operates at 5-star standard (it’s only absence of a swimming pool that prevents it gaining the extra star). If it were assessed otherwise on its rooms, restaurants, and general ambience then its comfortable meeting 5-star standards.
We’d use the appropriate combination of twin, double, and double rooms under single occupancy, booking to a likely attrition rate of 10% protection on the initial reservation
Our day of arrival will afford the whole party a half day in Edinburgh, and whereas this might suit the golfers, it probably leaves the non-golfers a bit short
North Berwick is a pleasant enough seaside town, and worth any non-golfers having a look around at some point, but it isn’t going to hold their interest for two days. The cleanest (and most flexible) thing to do is use the train to Edinburgh (35 mins). If they wished to push further along the line and visit Glasgow, that would also be feasible
We should perhaps note that at 35 mins, this could become an evening option too for everyone
St Andrews is a legitimate visitor destination in its own right for Wednesday and can be delivered in conjunction with Kingsbarns as part of the travel plan
Thursday would see us combine Glamis Castle and Scone Palace with Carnoustie
Friday’s combination of Falkland Palace and the East Neuk of Fife with Dumbarnie needn’t work smoothly for any non-golfers, and we should perhaps consider using a smaller vehicle with guide dedicated to the task
Saturday would be a dedicated day for Stirling, which we wouldn’t be able to combine and would require a dedicated arrangement
The following courses operate the following handicap thresholds for gentlemen and ladies respectively
- Muirfield (24)
- North Berwick (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
North Berwick don’t permit visitor play on Fri, Sat or Sun morning.
Carnoustie whilst usually being open 7 days of the week, visitors will have to play afternoon tee-times at the weekend
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 neutral with a slight lean towards being favourable if we sought to use every opportunity to do so
The decision as to whether or not to contest ballots at all needn’t always be clear on a large party, and we won’t be able to ‘swap’ players. Only those whose names are drawn will be able to play. Multiple ballot wins will begin to cause disruption eventually as we break golfers out, and seek to rearrange cancelled rounds post-hoc. We might eventually overload as the week progresses
We won’t contest a ballot on Tuesday against the shadow of Muirfield (we’d never get Muirfield rearranged) and in many respects Muirfield is an equally sought after and prestigious round than St Andrews anyway. We’d be unlikely to contest Monday’s ballot against North Berwick too due to geographic restrictions
It would just about be feasible to contest Wednesday’s ballot against Kingsbarns, but anyone who wins will probably need ‘breaking out’ of the group travel arrangement and transporting separately
A win on the shadow of Carnoustie would present a genuine forfeit risk as this would be a difficult rearrangement to secure. It might be prudent to apply as two balls yet since this is easier to salvage
We should be able to contest a total of four open ballots (Weds to Sat) and three ‘singles’ ballot (Thurs to Sat), for a total of seven.
About Activities
Edinburgh
Few trips to Scotland could really be considered complete without the Scottish capital. Edinburgh is frequently regarded as one of the UK’s most charismatic cities. Most visitors prioritise the castle, Greyfriars Bobby, Holyrood Palace, the various galleries, and increasingly its Harry Potter connection
St Andrews
St Andrews is a legitimate visitor draw regardless of golf. The town is home to the third oldest university in the western world, ensuring it has a lot more life than you might expect. The ruined old castle and cathedral lend it historical relevance. Above all though, it’s a charismatic town with a sense of aura and place
East Neuk of Fife
The picturesque fishing villages of the East Neuk are atmospheric, with local histories, rather than being of national significance. These villages are an integral part of the fabric of Fife and easily overlooked, but fishing has played an historically important role.
Testimonial
From BB Canada
“I told Alun the courses I was interested in playing and he prepared a stay and play package with 14 days of outstanding golf, but also tremendous site seeing opportunities for my wife.”
From JC Illinois
“His attention to detail is amazing--I think our travel plan booklet ran to forty-eight pages, with gorgeous descriptions of cities and sights, plus maps showing where to go to catch trains, or walk from trains to hotels, sights and golf courses, etc.”
From DF Alabama
“I will cherish the memories for a long time- especially the wonderful times spent on and off the golf course with two of my brothers and brother-in-law. None of the memories and golf would have been possible or enjoyed without your tremendous planning and logistical support.”
AS from Colorado
“Alun and Faraway Fairways created possibly the most memorable golf trip we have ever experienced. EPIC is the only word that comes to mind.”
AC, From Florida/ New York, 2025
“We were hopeful to secure a 4 ball at St. Andrews while avoiding the massive expense other operators had quoted. He was very clear about the plan for achieving a tee time at the Old Course through the ballot, including detailed instruction on how it could be done, and what our odds were. He suggested mid- to late April as the best chance of success and advised that this is also the least rainy part of the year. We took his advice and trusted the process. Well, he was right on all counts!”
From SB, Minnesota
“We wholeheartedly recommend Alun and Faraway Fairways if you’re looking for a golf trip that is effortless, enjoyable, and truly unforgettable—even for a non-golfer in the mix! My husband and I will be daydreaming about this trip for years to come. 5.5 stars!”
From JB, California
“The best part was that the service was surprisingly affordable. They were thousands of dollars below other quotes that I received, in fact the prices were very similar to what I would have paid if I would have booked everything on my own.”
From JCA, Maryland
“I would and will highly recommend your company to anyone looking to plan an unforgettable golf trip. Thank You for putting together a fantastic trip for J.C. and me”
From WF Connecticut
“I think all eight of us would agree that Alun at Faraway Fairways did an absolutely wonderful job of putting this “golf vacation of a lifetime” together for us. His focus on the details was extraordinary from the choice of courses and the timing of the tee times, the amazingly beautiful accommodations along with some excellent meal selections, and the transportation options he provided to get us from place to place.”
From DR South Carolina
“You are about to tee it up in your Major. Seek wisdom, integrity and professionalism. Alun Davies and Faraway Fairways will not disappoint you. They cannot assure a calm sunny day with temperatures in the 70’s on the Old Course.”
From MM, California
“One fantastic trip you organized, and more importantly took ownership of in terms of daily communication and stewardship during our 2+ weeks in Scotland and Ireland. The logistics were spotless…100% of the transports were on time and excellent, the lodging choices spectacular and the golf was off the charts in terms of quality and arrangements made”
DH from California
“You cannot go wrong with the support Faraway Fairways offered. I did this trip solo and all last minute but I have already begun to plan the next trip which will include my best golfing buddies.”
Enquiry
We don't need to make this an ordeal by 101 filtering questions! In reality there are probably little more than half a dozen things we need to know to build out a proposal. The guidance below might help you frame answers
Duration - usually best expressed as a range up to a maximum
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