Bill Ames takes golfing trip of a lifetime to Scotland

Spokane native Bill Ames attended University High and played tight end at the University of Washington. He works as regional sales director for Genentech and as an analyst on SWX prep and college football broadcasts.

I am not much of a bucket list guy, but the one thing I have always wanted to do was play golf in Scotland.

Thanks to my wife Kara and three buddies, I was able to spend my 50th birthday last month doing just that. Kara got the wheels in motion a year ago and Chris Altig mapped out the entire trip.

It was truly a trip of a lifetime. We played 14 out of the 16 days we were there on 11 courses around the country.

Here are some of the highlights:

June 15: Land in Glasgow and head straight to Dundonald Links, home of this year’s Scottish Open. It was my first experience with the dreaded gorse bush. We thought we lost Randy (Casto) in one of them while he was looking for a ball. Not a great idea.

June 16: North Berwich – We all rated this at the end of the trip as one of our favorites and the most pleasant surprise. Every hole was on the ocean in a true links style. The round went by so fast even though we waited several times for people to walk across the fairway while they were taking their dog for a walk. Not uncommon at most of the courses in Scotland.

June 19: St. Andrews Old Course – Arrived at 3 a.m. to get in line as a single and was the 10th one there. Waited until 6 a.m. when I found out I would be guaranteed a spot that day for a 2 p.m. time. The weather went from 75 degrees and sunny at the start to low 50s and blowing hard by the time we finished. Playing the course was amazing and thinking about all of the history that has occurred there was overwhelming, but what I remember most was my caddie Bruce and how much fun he made it for me.

June 20: Royal Troon – Site of last year’s British Open won by Henrik Stenson. All we could think about while we were looking for our ball in waist-high wet fescue was how Phil Mickelson shot 65 on Sunday and still lost (Stenson shot 63). We were all exhausted when this one was over. My buddy Joe (Kramer) said it was his favorite. He needs help.

June 21: Prestwick – Home of the British Open, where the first 11 were played (24 total, the last one in 1925).

June 22-25: Askernish – Hard to put into words what this experience was like. Truly golf in its purest form in which you had to work around the huge rabbit holes in the fairways and the small flowers on the greens. We were there for Life Members weekend (Altig is an original member). From the natural way they maintain the course to all of the wonderful people I met, it was awesome. Kramer decided to be a Life Member while we were there. Oh yeah, and I turned 50 during this part of the trip, highlighted by a bartender at the Polochar Inn giving me a shot of Talisker (Scotch whiskey). Casto was right, it did taste like boat gas.

We played a few more times before we headed home and spent our last day in Edinburgh touring the castle and doing a pub crawl (Casto got his wish). It was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more. Imagine Bandon Dunes everywhere you look. That’s what you will get in Scotland.

Enjoy the British Open.