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You can Join a Golf Club in Scotland

by Rick Hendershot, The Weekend Golfer

Visitors to Scotland (especially from North America) will find a few things different. Here are some tips I've gleaned from a couple of golfing trips to Scotland.

First, Scottish golf clubs are almost always semi-private, which means they have staunch membership rosters, but also do their best to make visitors welcome on non member days. In many clubs, only members are allowed to play on the weekends, and it is almost always more expensive on Saturday and Sunday.

To ease the member / non-member gap, some courses have affiliate memberships that provide non-residents a limited range of privileges. These arrangements are often not advertised, so you have to go looking for them. Some clubs seem to make these arrangements up on the fly, but it's more likely the policy was set a few years ago, and more or less forgotten about.

St. Andrews is obviously the prime destination for most North American golfers. Playing the Old Course is considered a privilege, and tee times are often booked many months in advance, or by lottery. To get a leg up you might try joining the Heritage Golfing Society. This is an actual St. Andrews golf club for non-residents. Membership lets you develop and maintain an international handicap, use certain clubhouse facilities right at St. Andrews, gives you access to affiliated clubs around the world, as well as advice and assistance in booking tee times at St. Andrews, and the ability to "network" with other St. Andrews members. The "home" course for the Heritage Society is the Jubilee course. The 2003 cost was a pretty reasonable $65US.

If you want to get away from the crowds and try some of the hidden gems in the Scottish Highlands, check out the website of the Highland Golf Club (www.golfhighland.com). Joining the club will cost you 250GBP (pounds), but this allows you to play any of about 20 courses at no charge (only one member per twosome). Club membership also gives you access to extensive information on the 46 or so courses in the Highlands — yes, there are only 46 courses in the Highlands — the ability to obtain an international handicap, and the opportunity to meet and correspond with some fellow golfers in Scotland. Other discount packages are also available.

The International Golfers Club is based in England and offers similar membership benefits: information on member and "friendly" courses, discount offers, handicap monitoring, advice on where to play and where to stay, etc. Membership in 2003 was 75GBP.

A number of courses offer Country Memberships, especially for out-of-country visitors. For instance, the Tain Golf Club offers a country membership for 150GBP. This allows you to play as often as you want for an entire year, and lets you bring a limited number of guests at a reduced rate. At Nairn Dunbar a country membership costs 275GBP to join plus 160GBP per year. At Inverness such a membership costs 294GBP. At Cruden Bay it is 180GBP (men), and 170 (women).

In future articles in this series I'll cover some of the lesser known courses. Scotland golf is more than St. Andrews.

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Rick Hendershot is an avid golfer and student of the game, as well as a writer and internet publisher who lives in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada. He publishes several golf related websites and blogs, including Golf Articles and Reviews, Very Special Golf Travel, and The Weekend Golfer's Blog. He also manages an advertising and link placement service called The LinkNet Network.