When someone approaches Haversham & Baker about planning a golf trip to Scotland,
they typically arrive with a lot of questions. The who, what, when, where, and how of putting this
type of trip together can be a little daunting. Our suggestion is to just start at the beginning.
"When should I begin planning my golf trip? Well the short answer to that is:
I kind of depends. The specific courses you wish to play, or the regions in
Scotland that you hope to visit, are going to largely determine your timeline. Generally speaking,
the great courses of Scotland are concentrated in six regions: Edinburgh and East Lothian, St Andrews,
Aberdeen, The Highlands, the West Coast, and Kintyre. But let's start with St. Andrews. If you're headed
to The Home of Golf and want to guarantee your spot on the tee sheet at The Old Course you're
going to want to start planning early. Really early.
Haversham & Baker typically receives our allotment of guaranteed Old Course tee times
in April of the year preceding your trip. But by January,
even before that, our waiting list of past travelers and folks who have said "put me down for
an Old Course tee time" is already starting to form. So you're going to want to reach out to us right
about the time the ball is dropping in New York City.
Besides The Old Course, the hottest ticket for golf in Scotland is Muirfield.
So if you plan to visit The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers
you'll want to make sure you have your ducks in a row typically about January of the year prior to your trip.
That's because the tee sheet at Muirfield opens in March and the tee times don't last long.
Elsewhere around Scotland, the timeline timeline is not quite as stringent. Usually 9 months to
a year is enough time to get the courses that you want, but there's one thing to keep in mind:
Once you've locked in your first choice, whether it's The Old Course or Muirfield or Royal Troon,
your amount of flexibility goes down, and the window of days that you have available for those
other courses goes down with it. So once the tee sheets become available at those other courses,
you're going to want to make sure you get those other tee times in place quickly.
As you can probably tell, planning a golf trip to Scotland is sort of like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Getting from the box of pieces in your mind to the finished picture that is your itinerary
takes a large investment of both time and patience. Of course, our expedition planning managers, they
put the entire puzzle together for you to ensure an unforgettable experience. All you have to do
is tell us where you want to play, sit back, and we'll take it from there.