Links From The Road

It was in a small Italian restaurant in Central London when Frank Pont asked me if I wanted to be a golf course architect.

I didn’t know the answer, and told him as much. I wasn’t a golf course architect, but then I wasn’t a property developer anymore either. I was a guy with an enormous passion for architecture who, at that time, lived in a van.

Perhaps I'd better explain…

Pre Golf:
Since my university days, I had worked in the world of residential real estate. I set up a consultancy business during my second year and helped investors navigate the intricacies of Liverpool’s property market. I had no real experience in that industry, but the naivety of youth encouraged me and, to my surprise, it went quite well.

I spent almost a decade growing that business. From buying rental units for my clients, I progressed to sourcing and then overseeing some substantial developments. I started to do them for myself, building my own portfolio instead of theirs.

When Covid arrived in Britain, I was overseeing the rebuild of a complex project. Harriet, my wife and business partner, and I were burned out and in desperate need of a break.

Covid turned into a natural stepping off point. We were lucky through the lockdowns. We could carry on working, the property sector classing us as key workers. But we agreed that until we knew what the world would look like, we’d take some time out to re-evaluate.

Spring 2020
In 2019, Harriet and I spent two weeks travelling round the ‘North Coast 500’. For those unfamiliar, it is a 500-mile circular driving route through the Scottish Highlands. The scale of the landscape is breath-taking. As we were locked down, we thought of the freedom and space of the Scottish Highlands and thought how good it would be to return.

Our travel plans grew. One evening, we stumbled across a YouTube channel where a young couple had converted a Sprinter van into a beautiful camper and documented the process. Those famous last words. ‘We could do that…!’.

It grew from a throwaway comment to a plan, and the rest of the 2020 lockdown involved researching vans to convert and places we’d like to explore.

A golf trip for the ages
I’d grown up on the golf course. I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of Royal Liverpool Golf Club for as long as I can remember. My father introduced me to the game and, to me,

Hoylake was just our local course. It was only as I grew and travelled more that I realised it was one of golf’s special places. If Harriet and I were going on an adventure, it had to involve golf.

Back in 2006, we had been let out of school for our summer holidays a few weeks early. The Open Championship was returning to my club after a 39 year hiatus. The weather was glorious - we couldn’t believe our luck. Tiger Woods, the idol of any young golfer at the time, captured the Claret Jug and an obsession was born.

That year, Tiger plotted his way around the sunburnt links of Hoylake like a grandmaster around a chessboard. He relied on his 2 iron, allowing his ball to skip across the parched turf into the very best positions to approach the pins from.

It was a performance that stuck with me, the genesis for my passion for golf course architecture. Firm links surfaces that engage the brain as well as the brawn.

From then on, I read every book I could find on the subject. Golf had taken a back seat during the years

building my property firm, but now I had an opportunity to indulge it. I didn’t want to waste a moment.

I pulled out my copy of ‘True Links’, a comprehensive, if not complete, record of all the links courses. Those that we could drive to (a ferry or two max) went onto my spreadsheet. Next, I scoured the internet for any links missed out. I added a few more.

Hours spent scouring Google Maps yielded more still. Suggestions from social media rounded off the research process. I had 225 courses written down. Some trip.

The van:
It seemed like we weren’t the only ones itching to go travelling. Over the spring and summer of 2020, the demand for camper vans exploded. Clearly, others were equally desperate to stretch their legs.

After a few false starts, Harriet found a listing for a half converted van down in Bristol. The owner had run out of steam and was looking to offload his project. We drove down that afternoon and made him an offer.

If it had been a house, the estate agent would have described our new VW Crafter van as ‘in need of modernisation’, ‘cosy’, or ‘has potential’. In reality, it was an old van with a hideous orange interior. But time was marching on. We were now in June and, if we wanted to get cracking before the end of the year, we had to commit to something. It was reasonably priced – and we thought we could spruce up the décor.

There’s not too much to go wrong on a Crafter's engine, so we hoped it would prove reliable. We got it home and made our improvements. A proper king size mattress (how could I play all these courses if I compromised my already precarious back?), a new shower and toilet. And some serious redecoration.

By September, we were ready to go. Our plan was to drive up to Kintyre and ‘see how it went’. Neither of us were campers but we were excited for a real adventure.

Kintyre:
The first few weeks were bliss. The weather was glorious, and the courses were even better. Machrihanish, Dunaverty, Shiskine. This was my kind of golf. Endlessly enjoyable with some of the most spectacular backdrops you can find.

We carried on and slowly adjusted to our new nomadic lifestyle. The stresses that had weighed so heavily were lessening and the restrictions of Covid a memory.

We travelled clockwise round Scotland’s dramatic coastline at our own pace. I’d play a course when we came to one and Harriet would explore these wild and isolated beaches with our travel companions – our cocker spaniels, Watson and Winnie.

Golf in the Highlands is as good as anywhere. Past the extraordinary 9 holes of Durness and round to the likes of Brora and Dornoch. I played my way along that coastline crammed with links courses to the far side of Aberdeen.

Covid restrictions in Angus and Fife prevented us carrying on, but restrictions were expected to ease in East Lothian at any time. We hung on and, a few days later, golf on this famous coast opened back up.

The next day I was at Muirfield, then North Berwick, Gullane and beyond. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

This first leg of the tour lasted a little over 3 months and 75 courses. I knew it had changed things, but I hadn't realised by how much.

2021:
After a winter back home in Hoylake, we set off for the second leg of the tour in June 2021. From the underrated Northumbrian coast to Kent for the Open Championship. From there, I spent a solo week playing my way along the south coast while Harriet caught up with family back home.

Next was to pick her up en route to Oban, the Gateway to the Islands. Covid restrictions prevented this leg in 2020. The myriad of ferries required to navigate the various archipelagos off Scotland’s needed military planning. Harriet was in charge of navigating the notorious CalMac timetable.

Mull, Iona, South Uist, Harris. There are some extraordinary places golf can take you to. From here, it was back to the mainland and through the Highlands to our next ferry terminal.

Orkney is a 3 hour ferry from the terminal near John O’Groats, but that’s only a short hop compared to the onward journey to Shetland. This leg takes a further 10 hours – overnight through the choppy North Sea.

Island golf is some of my favourite. The landscapes are dramatic and the courses aren't designed by, or for, committees. Isle of Harris, Askernish and Whalsay highlight this as well as anywhere.

A new direction:
It was not long after returning from the Shetland leg when I met up with Edward and Frank in the aforementioned London restaurant. We had been talking for some time. I’d produced some drone surveys for CDP and we got on well. We shared views on architecture and a passion for strategic golf. We had the same enormous respect for the courses and architects of the Golden Age. CDP was a young firm in Britain at that point but the partners were of global repute.

It came as a surprise to be invited into the fold. “Do you want to be an architect Sam?”. “I don’t really know, let me think about it...”.

Fortunately, Harriet didn't need to. She listened incredulously when I told her. “You idiot! Of course you want to be an architect. It’s all you’ve ever wanted to do”.

She was right, of course. The truth was golf was turning into a career for me anyway. I was writing for golf magazines both home and abroad. I had been commissioned by various clubs to produce photo and video content for them. I'd even done a raft of filming for The Golf Channel.

I was also helping Joe McDonnell (page 65) grow our golf artwork business. From Royal St George's to Durness, we had produced maps the length of Britain.

I asked Frank if I could revise my answer to the affirmative. I soon started to learn the ropes, the technical things that go on behind the scenes. But the thing they encouraged me to do as part of my education, for which I remain extremely grateful, was complete the tour.

By the end of 2021, I’d played 175 of my 225 courses. I wanted to finish. Especially if this was going to be my architectural postgrad.

The last push:
In the early part of the tour, time felt broken. Covid had stopped the clock and taking months away to travel felt acceptable. After all, the entire country had been ordered to spend months on end in our homes.

But by 2022, I was getting busy. My work with CDP was growing weekly. Finishing the tour had to be carefully planned and broken down into shorter trips.

The Channel Islands were reached by plane rather than ferry. Harriet and I enjoyed our summer holidays there - another place we would have been unlikely to visit if not for the tour.

We did have a bit more ferry hopping to do though. The trickiest section was navigating the remaining Western Isles. A ferry to Campbeltown and then another to Islay to play The Machrie. From there on to Colonsay – an island with a population of just 124.

The end of the tour was bittersweet. We wanted it to be somewhere with significance. My mother’s family came from Fife and we have a tenuous connection to both the Auchterlonie and Braid families.

Finishing the tour at Elie, home of that great golfing relative James Braid, seemed appropriate.

My parents joined us there on a bright but windy day in November 2022. Watson and Winnie had walked almost 100 of the courses with us. Harriet and my mum watched on while I played the 225th course with my dad.

A newspaper photographer snapped a few photos of us and we retired for a drink in the 19th Hole pub.

Post tour blues:
I wondered if I'd suffer from post tour blues. For two and a half years, the tour had grown into an all-consuming beast.

Luckily, the golf didn't end at Elie - it simply took a different path.

A book is slowly coming together and from the modest platform I’ve built, I’m lucky enough to have a voice in the industry.

Alongside James Bledge, Course Manager at Hoylake, I host a podcast on the golf industry. ‘Golf Badgers’. He chairs the turf and greenkeeping side of the discussion and I get to discuss architecture.

More so than ever, it remains my great passion. I count myself so fortunate to have had the best possible learning experience 'in the field'. Now, I get to work with a team at CDP whose collective experience and knowledge is vast.

The tour opened a new world for me. From a throwaway suggestion in lockdown to an offer from Frank Pont, I'm the most fortunate golf obsessive I know.