You are on top of a hill and there is nothing between you and the weather. No shelter, no framing, no corridor of trees or dunes to hit down. The ground falls away in every direction, the wind has nothing to break it, and every shot is played against a horizon rather than into a gap. It reminded me immediately of the Costa Navarino courses, and specifically of that — the exposure of being up high with the world laid out underneath you. Very few Irish courses feel like it.

Royal Aberdeen sits just north of Aberdeen across the River Don, on a stretch of coast called Balgownie. You drive out of the city centre through some slightly grim industrial outskirts, past a sewage works if I remember right, and then suddenly you're at a proper old Scottish golf club with gorse and dunes and a clubhouse from another century. The transition is jarring in a good way.

Founded 1887. James Braid did most of the bunkering and greens around 1909. Mackenzie & Ebert did a renovation between 2018 and 2020. Walker Cup hosted here in 1999, won by GB&I against an American team that had Matt Kuchar on it. Curtis Cup in 2012. Amateur Championship has been here twice. Fine. The pedigree is real and you can keep reading about it on their website if you care. What matters is what it's like to play.