{"id":1139,"date":"2018-07-11T12:44:40","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T12:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2018-07-11T13:03:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T13:03:41","slug":"77-dufftown-21-june-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=1139","title":{"rendered":"77. Dufftown. 21 June 2018."},"content":{"rendered":"

Combine two of Scotland’s great pastimes – golf and hill walking – at this great value course<\/b>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Round \u00a320.\u00a0 \u00a0Par 68.\u00a0 Value (out of 5)\u00a0\u2013 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dufftown has a variety of claims among UK golf courses;\u00a0 highest hole (9th), biggest drop from tee to green (10th) and highest climb from clubhouse to top of course.\u00a0 You probably get the picture.\u00a0 If you are looking to play an occasional bit of holiday golf with young kids, treat them to a buggy to avoid the inevitable “I’m tired” conversations after 9 holes.\u00a0 Thankfully, buggies are available for hire at this course!<\/p>\n

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Moly at the 6th tee at Dufftown on a beautiful mid-summer evening.<\/p><\/div>\n

Dufftown is well worth a visit for a variety of\u00a0 reasons.\u00a0 It’s the “whisky capital of the world” and home to William Grant & Sons distillers, producer of the biggest global selling single malt whisky, The Glenfiddich.\u00a0 There are still traces of the early Picts and Christian communities dotted around Dufftown, so historians are also well served.\u00a0 \u00a0The pure local water made it a good location for illegal whisky and there are numerous villainous stories related to that.<\/p>\n

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Dufftown’s short 7th hole – “Fittie Burn”<\/p><\/div>\n

The golf course also has some villainous holes ready to capture and destroy your round.\u00a0 Although short at only 5343 yards (white), 4751 (yellow) and (4900) red, there is great variety here.\u00a0 There are many severely uphill or downhill holes and the stroke indexes don’t necessarily follow the normal “length = difficulty” rule.\u00a0 \u00a0There are several blind tee\u00a0 shots and the greens are often on plateaus with dangerous surrounds.\u00a0 All in all, its going to be difficult to avoid a calamitous hole over the round.<\/p>\n

The 10th, the signature hole, is a great example.\u00a0 Although the landing area is large, the view from the tee is intimidating, then the second shot needs to be played into a ever narrowing channel, to a long and thin green, with OOB all along the right of the left to right sloping fairway.\u00a0 Record a par 4 and be delighted, record a 5 and be happy to move on.\u00a0 I took a great triple bogie 7, having lost my drive (2 shot penalty), going through the back to a lateral hazards with my approach (1 penalty), then having a good chip and single putt!<\/p>\n

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The intimidating 10th at Dufftown – reputed the biggest drop in height on any course in the UK\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The course has one of the shortest holes in Scotland, the 7th (“Fittie Burn”), at around 100 yards, played over a deep gully.\u00a0 As it was a nice day and we were pretty much alone, I spent 5 minutes looking for balls in the ravine, and found about a dozen – my hay fever took a battering though!<\/p>\n

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11th tee at Dufftown<\/p><\/div>\n

The course was in wonderful condition and the greens true and even, albeit they had “lost” the 12th green, which was, according to the local green keeper, due to severe frost damage over the winter.\u00a0 I had a good day shooting 83 including a birdie 3 at the downhill 9th.<\/p>\n

What a wonderful treat to play this golf course on a beautiful mid-summer evening during the warmest June on record in Scotland.\u00a0 If heaven does exist, and you have to pay green fees up there from a limited budget, then there is a strong argument that says Dufftown is where you would play<\/p>\n

Facts:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Course<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Type<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0Heathland<\/b><\/p>\n

Par 66\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(12 par 4s, 2 par 3s)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Distance (yellow)<\/em>: 4751<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moly\u2019s Gross score<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a083<\/b><\/p>\n

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Moly’s Dufftown card – 83 for 36 points.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Combine two of Scotland’s great pastimes – golf and hill walking – at this great value course\u00a0 \u00a0 Round \u00a320.\u00a0 \u00a0Par 68.\u00a0 Value (out of 5)\u00a0\u2013 5 Dufftown has a variety of claims among UK golf courses;\u00a0 highest hole (9th), biggest drop from tee to green (10th) and highest climb from clubhouse to top of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,36,48,19,29,32,9,13,15,31,38,2,18,56,28,20,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-holes","category-1851-1900","category-4-star","category-5-star-overall-value","category-course-architech","category-course-owned-by","category-course-quality","category-course-type","category-heathland","category-holes","category-members","category-overall-value","category-price-range","category-region","category-the-highlands","category-unknown","category-when-course-established","category-20-39","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}