By Cameron Reid
Vice President, Sales & Operations

The Machrie on the Island of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, had always been a favorite of mine having visited it many times since the 1990’s. Islay is famous as the source of world class malt whisky due to its heavily peat soil which creates a very distinctive flavor of whisky. The golf course was as traditional a Scottish links as you could find with as many as 8 blind tee shots and 8 blind approaches, a throwback to a different era. You had to play it on several occasions to learn the correct lines and how to play in the different conditions that face you. It wasn’t a long course but it didn’t need to be, however you had to find the fairway and that is where the difficulty lay. It was a special place to play golf, the feeling of isolation, just you versus the course and the elements. It was however not for everyone, you could say the course was too hard even for the average player, the blind shots combined with rough so thick you rarely found a ball that missed the fairway.