Oban, Whisky, and More Golf

Our first full day in Scotland had a beautiful small harbor town, our entire travel group finally coming together, and a bonus 9 holes of golf (on top of the scheduled 18).

Oban from the hills above

Oban is about 20 minutes from our rural home at Bonawe House in Taynuilt. The drive goes along Loch Etive and eventually to the sounds and harbors of the west coast. The lochs here are tidal and remind us of the various bays around San Francisco.

18th tee at Glencruitten

Dave, Mike and I arrived at Glencruitten golf club at 8:30 for our recently revised 9am tee time. An email exchange with the club had allowed us to move our slot into the members-only zone on a Sunday morning. Only problem: club secretary hadn’t actually looked at the calendar to see that the final round of the club championship overlapped with our tee time. They were super friendly about it, found a way to slot us into the waves of threesomes going out, and just told us to keep up and let anyone waiting behind us play through.

The dramatic landscape at Glencruitten

The course was quirky and magnificent. Reminds me of a small version of Tobacco Road in NC: lots of elevation change, hidden greens. You are always either teeing off down into a valley or up into the hills. We loved it.

Oban distillery tour

We drove the two minutes into Oban center for fish and chips then joined up with part of the group for an Oban Distillery tour. It was a good tour with more than enough samples, along with “driver drams” to take away for those that don’t fancy whisky.

Some folks then left the town for more castle ruin visiting; Mike, Britt and I wandered town. We found her new book in the bookstore and they had her sign their copy!

Dinner at Cuan Mor had our entire group of 16 finally together, with the last five making it to Oban after the drive from EDI.

Mike and I decided we hadn’t had enough golf so played another 9 at Taynuilt, teeing off at 8:15 and finishing by 9:30. I love these small no-frills community golf clubs and wish this was a thing in more of the USA.