Photos by Omar Rawlings
Perhaps the most overlooked part of modern golf is the speed and efficiency with which it can be accessed. It's truly a miracle that you can be on the east coast of the United States one evening, and stand on the first tee of Ballybunion the following morning.
But speed comes at a cost. Once, golf was a slower pursuit, and its journeys were half the story. The rails carried players to the edge of the sea, depositing them amongst dunes and beside fences that still rattle from passing trains. Those lines shaped the game’s geography, binding together British golf long before airports and motorways took over.
Perhaps you've stood on the first tee at Prestwick, Railway, trying to negotiate the tricky tee shot, with a mere 20 yards between the edge of the fairway and the tracks; often times with a hissing train at the station behind you. Or perhaps you've played the 11th at Royal Troon, Railway, set on an elevated tee at the back of the property where the tracks threaten to swallow a right miss, about the point where a relatively benign front gives way to a brutally difficult inward journey. Each is defined by the same boundary fence that separates fairway from the Glasgow-Ayr line, enduring monuments to an age when mashies and locomotives whistled through the same Scottish winds.
Indeed, all over the UK, golf courses don't just happen to sit next to railways by happenstance; the rail industry itself was forged by it. The golf boom and rail travel coincided so closely, some of the most iconic places we play today were quite literally rail projects - Cruden Bay, for example, was built by the Great North of Scotland Railway at the turn of the century to capitalize on early success on their railway lines. One of the iconic works of golf writing was by Bernard Darwin, A Round of Golf on the London and North Eastern Railways, which celebrated and encouraged rail travel to the links.
Writing specifically about Ayrshire, Darwin notes that “as one approaches Prestwick, the train seems to be voyaging through one endless and continuous golf course - Gailes, Barassie, Bogside… Prestwick, St. Nicholas, St. Cuthbert, Troon, and several more beside.”
What could be better? So, it was with Darwin's words in mind that, finding myself in London one recent evening with a tee time at Turnberry the next morning, I decided to hop aboard the Caledonian Sleeper.
Euston Station is one of the busiest in all of the UK, but at 10 pm it is oddly quiet. The last few commuters scramble onto the final trains of the day, while a more energetic group eagerly awaits the track announcement for the Caledonian, luggage in hand. The 11:45 pm departure time is perfect, enabling a leisurely dinner in the city prior to boarding, with a few pints afterwards for good measure.
Once aboard, and with luggage stored, it's time to settle into the cabin - which is pretty easy, as it's roughly the size of a closet. Sleeper trains are having a moment, and this is not as luxurious as, say, Belmond's Royal Scotsman, but it is utilitarian. The bed and pillows are comfortable, and the cabin layout is well thought through, with space to store luggage and conveniently accessible outlets and switches. Form follows function, and in this case, it's a perfect little nook to spend an evening.
With dram in hand, the train jolts into motion, slowly winding its way into the London night. I lay in the bottom bunk watching the lights pass by, with the same sense of anticipation I imagine golfers had 100 years ago as they embarked on their own journeys inspired by Darwin's guide.
The train rumbles along through the night, the gentle swaying serving as a calming sleep aid. The first rays of twilight creep over the horizon as we make our way through the farms and fields of the Scottish Lowlands. The only disruption comes at dawn in Carstairs, where the train splits into two - the front half bound for Glasgow, the back half for Edinburgh. But soon the train gently starts moving again, with the promise of a final 90 minutes of sleep before we arrive in Glasgow.
When we pull into the station for the final stop, I'm surprisingly refreshed. Hurrying off the train with a spring in my step, I take a long pause to take in the scene at Glasgow Central: morning commuters are going through the daily rituals - ordering coffee, looking down at their phones. Glancing up at the departures board, trains are bound for all points in Scotland, including a few set to travel the Ayrshire coast. I longed to take one last train to Turnberry, a place once reached by rail, when the station stood proudly beside the old hotel and golfers stepped straight from the carriage to the first tee. The station closed in the 1940s, though, so it was time to hop in a car and return to a modern form of travel.
Still, there was something about the rhythm of that night's journey - the slow, steady hum of train travel, the pull toward the sea - that felt like a small taste of the old way. Golf, after all, has always been about the journey; and many of its finest ones still run along the rails, even if only in memory.
