{"id":1316,"date":"2018-10-30T21:33:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T21:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=1316"},"modified":"2018-10-30T21:33:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T21:33:36","slug":"88-murrayshall-16-sep-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=1316","title":{"rendered":"88. Murrayshall. 16 Sep 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Murrayshall is a nice parkland course, but its hotel partner course (Lynedoch) is much better value.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Round\u00a0 \u00a350 ( variable on-line).\u00a0 \u00a0Par 70.\u00a0 Value (out of 5)\u00a0\u2013\u00a03<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Murrayshall estate, first built in 1664, was established as a commercially successful Country House hotel in the early 1970s, following the sale of the estate by the Norrie-Millar family, of whom Francis Norrie-Millar was one of the key instrumentalists in building the General Accident insurance company in nearby Perth, only 3 miles to the west of Murrayshall.<\/p>\n

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Fran plays at the par 5 9th at Murrayshall<\/p><\/div>\n

The esteemed golf architect Hamilton J Strutt (grandson of James Braid\u2019s foreman) designed this Championship course in the 70s, and returned to design the Lynedoch course which opened in 2000.\u00a0 \u00a0The Murrayshall course is indeed a fine example of Strutt crafting a course amidst mature parkland, leaving an impression that the course has been there for a hundred years.\u00a0 This is almost completely true except for the bland and exposed par 4 13th<\/sup> hole, which was oddly the SI1 hole (more of later).<\/p>\n

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The 6th tee view, typical of the Murrayshall course<\/p><\/div>\n

Whereas the sister Lynedoch course is partly woodland, Murrayshall is exclusively parkland.\u00a0 I had previously played the Lynedoch track and had been very impressed (read my blog\u00a0here<\/a>).\u00a0 I was therefore greatly looking forward to playing the hotel’s premium course, but must admit that I don’t think the higher price is worth it is versus its shorter neighbour.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s still a very nice course, with some outstanding countryside views, nice greens and good bunkering;\u00a0 but, other than being a longer course, it lacked the guile of its smaller sister course.<\/p>\n

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The short par 3, 4th hole, at Murrayshall<\/p><\/div>\n

The course was in good condition when I played and I had a nice round of 89, for 37 stableford points (off 17);\u00a0 including a birdie at the 13th, the stoke index 1 hole, which was one of the more bland holes played towards a local farmyard.\u00a0 My score also reflects the fairly open fairways and relatively accessible surrounds of the trees.\u00a0 Other notable holes were the stretch of 6th, 7th and 8th, a really nice set of challenges, with a reachable par 4, a difficult par 4, and a tricky par 3.\u00a0 Also noteworthy is the mix holes, with five par 5s and five par 3s, its an odd mix.<\/p>\n

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The two dogs (Isla and Joseph) whose grave guards the very difficult pay 4 7th, “Dogs Grave”<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, the round at Murrayshall was the slowest I’ve played for several years, at around 4.5 hours.\u00a0 Having caught up with the 4-ball in front, on hole 2, which actually turned out to be the last group of about 10 groups making up a society day, we then were delayed at about 5 minutes per hole for the remained of the round!\u00a0 I\u2019m writing this, to give context to my \u201cvalue\u201d assessment.\u00a0 How should an assessment be dictated by pace of play?\u00a0 Well, if I hadn\u2019t been doing a blog, we would have walked in after 12 holes.\u00a0 \u00a0It was anything but value for money.\u00a0 How many times have you heard \u201cwe would let you through, but it\u2019s the group ahead holding us up\u201d – I refer everyone to the Etiquette section of the rules of golf, which clearly recommends allowing a faster grouping through, regardless of circumstances.<\/p>\n

It is worth playing, but perhaps check whether a society is playing in front!<\/p>\n

Some Fact<\/strong>s<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Course<\/strong><\/em> Type<\/em>: Parkland<\/strong><\/p>\n

Par\u00a070<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(5 par 5s, 8\u00a0par 4s, 5\u00a0par 3s)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Distance (white)<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 5868 yards<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moly’s Gross Score<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a089<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Moly’s 89 at Murrayshall – a decent round given the chilly weather<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Murrayshall is a nice parkland course, but its hotel partner course (Lynedoch) is much better value. Round\u00a0 \u00a350 ( variable on-line).\u00a0 \u00a0Par 70.\u00a0 Value (out of 5)\u00a0\u2013\u00a03 The Murrayshall estate, first built in 1664, was established as a commercially successful Country House hotel in the early 1970s, following the sale of the estate by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,24,44,36,65,19,29,32,9,83,15,38,11,61,2,18,20,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-holes","category-1946-1980","category-3-star-overall-value","category-4-star","category-commercial","category-course-architech","category-course-owned-by","category-course-quality","category-course-type","category-hamilton-j-stutt","category-holes","category-overall-value","category-parkland","category-perthshire","category-price-range","category-region","category-when-course-established","category-40-59","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}