About

We’re Thomas Johnston and Clive Scoular. Every year between April and September we travel around Ireland, in our camper, playing golf on as many courses as we can.

Using a combination of Oliver Hilliard’s Green Book of Golf (which has comprehensive details of all the open competitions going on in Ireland on any given day) and the GUI website we make our selection, pack up our camper and head off for the the first course on our list. Getting a group of open competitions, at courses we haven’t already played, within easy travelling distance is getting harder and harder these days so we joined Open Fairways this year and will begin picking off some more courses that way.

On our travels when we arrive at a course, usually in the evening, our story is the same. We ask if there is a club official of any kind in the clubhouse. Mostly there is, but failing that we continue our story with the bar staff. We say who we are, where we’re from and that we’ve signed up for the open competition, booked a tee time or are just chancing it for the following day. As each trip progresses our story gets better since we can win over the locals with tales of the courses we have just played as well as giving them the running tally of all the courses we have played. Then we explain that we have arrived from wherever in our camper and would it be at all possible to park overnight in their car park.

Now, for the most part, we’re kind of nervous about asking this because if the answer is no, finding a parking spot for the night somwhere else is a real pain. However, bar one golf course, we have never been refused. Some have been cagey, some have phoned the local police to tell them not to bother us when they come by, others have sought approval from higher up the management chain, but mostly they say OK. And that’s the glorious moment when we get to say ‘Two pints of Guinness please’. (We have been refused on two occasions!)

It helps that Clive has an encyclopedic knowledge of the courses we have visited and can stand his own with the locals in any clubhouse. Plus, he’s an Irish historian and very often ends up embroiled in a some debate or other about Ireland’s history. It’s best to leave him to it.

We try to play first thing in the morning as that leaves the rest of the day to explore the area of Ireland we happen to be in, which is always a joy.

We’ve been playing golf and seeing Ireland this way since around 1999 (we really should have blogged our story sooner).

We hope you enjoy it.