Travel to the UK

Briton · April 2, 2020

Growing up I was never one to love traveling especially if it wasn’t with my family. I loved being around and with my family at all times, when someone was missing I felt like they were missing out on fun and I sometimes got FOMO for them. When I went to college I branched out, I was in PGM( professional golf management) at Ohio State and got many awesome opportunities throughout my college life.

This experience I was on the fence about because of me not loving to take trips without my family. Most golfers would call me insane for not saying yes instantly but I’m a home body at heart. The time came for me to decide and I said I’m going for it. I am going to go on the trip to the UK to play golf and see history of the sport I have fallen in love with. I am sure glad I did, I still to this day say it was the best trip I have ever been on. Our directors at OSU have many connections in golf and we ended up playing many great courses and got to play a Ryder cup style match against a PGM school from England. We started in England and played Royal Lytham and St.annes and also a Marriott resort course and then made the drive up to Scotland, one of the most amazing golf places I’ve ever been to. We got the opportunity to play the Old course at St. Andrews where you hit over the side of a hotel(one of my buddies was inches from hitting a room window), Kingsbarns (my favorite of the entire trip), and 1 other course that I cannot remember what it was called.

The style of courses and the challenge that each one brought along with the jet lag was incredible and like nothing I have ever played before. The other awesome thing about the trip was we planned it during The Open!(the British open) which was at Muirfield that year which butts up against another legendary course called the Renaissance club, which once again we somehow had a connection into and we were able to go into the club house, rumored we might get to play it also but didn’t have time in the end... but we did see some pros eating breakfast before their round. So after a short tour of the club house we walked over to Muirfield and watched the Open.

This was such a memorable trip that I took with some guys I didn’t know all to well but got to know by the end. The point of this is that if anyone ever gets an opportunity to go on a trip to a different country, a different culture of golf.... TAKE IT.....it will hopefully become your most memorable trip you will ever take.

My Top picks of courses i played and recommend:

1. Kingsbarns, this was definitely the best course we played, Kingsbarns has fantastic views and was probably in the best shape.

2. Royal Lytham & St Annes, This place has hosted The open before and it shows why. It was a very challenging course with blind tee shots and a very interesting layout.

3. The Old course at St. Andrews, This is not the easiest course to get on to, it is through a lottery system but definitely worth trying. This was the easiest course of the 3 I have listed playability wise though. It is fun to play because of the history it plays in golf and the last 2 holes are great finishing holes.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Briton