THE CALL OF CALEDONIA

By Farhad Heydari

For tennis fans, it’s a trip to Wimbledon. For devotees of cricket, it’s a visit to Lord’s. And for golfers, nothing represents a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the game more than a visit to Scotland, the home of golf. But, unlike the celebrated homes of tennis and cricket, in Scotland visitors can actually play the very hallowed courses that have been inscribed in legend and lore, walking the same fairways and challenging the same greens (with some stipulations) that have vexed and befuddled the great and good for decades, if not centuries.

And while Caledonia’s golfing charms remain as etched into the countryside as the many trademark revetted pot bunkers and fescue-lined fairways that are omnipresent throughout the land, there are changes afoot in the landscape of the game. Thanks to an influx of investment, much of it foreign, the great game and its hospitality ancillaries have seen a bounty of tempered and wellconsidered development over the past 12 to 24 months, from the west to the east of the country where the saltire flies.