Angus – Castles, Carnoustie and Culture
The slice of Scotland where Ben Hogan won his Open, Angus offers a rich landscape delivering the best produce, even better golf and where castle-owning locals know exactly how to deliver world-class hospitality.
According to a local saying, Dundee is famous for three things: jute, jam and journalism. We might add cake to that list and, if we’re being pedantic, it’s marmalade rather than jam but then that’s not so pleasingly alliterative. However, you define Dundee though, “golf” and “tourism” are noticeably absent from that list – but it’s difficult to see that being the case for very much longer. There’s a palpable energy to the city. Dundee, and the surrounding area known as Angus, is changing – and changing fast.
As it happens, change is something of a theme for the Angus itinerary. Just north of Forfar, and around 30 minutes from Carnoustie, is Turin Castle, a quite remarkable accommodation option for a very particular, demanding audience – and one of three quite distinct options for this itinerary. One of many interesting quirks to the property is that, when built in 1659, it stood some five miles from its current location. “In the 1900s,” explains Turin Castle’s manager Alex Corbett, “the lady who owned it lost her husband and decided she wanted a better view. So she had the building moved here brick by brick…”
It’s one of many unique stories in a property that both Alex and his mother, Turin Castle owner Yvonne, still find hard to define. It’s a full let property – “We’ve had couples taking the whole house, all the way up to the maximum of 20 people” explains Alex – but in terms of flexibility, and the services that can be offered, it’s more private hotel. “But then we’re not a hotel!” exclaims Yvonne. “We’re the antithesis of hotel, we’re the antithesis of a B&B.”
In short, it’s a spectacular property that oozes Scottish luxury and history and can be personalised in myriad ways. “We can host all sorts of different experiences,” explains Alex as he shows us the dining rooms, the guest and the professional kitchens, the cellar – split into “grape” and “grain” rooms – the conservatory, the bar, the library, the golf cage, the six-hole pitch-and-putt course, the fire pit, the helicopter landing area… That five mile shift in location was, in retrospect, a very good idea.
For a more conventional take on rebuilding, one only needs to wander around the waterfront of Dundee, which is not a sentence former visitors or residents might have heard before.
“Without being rude,” agrees David Brodie, general manager of Panmure Golf Club, “go back 20 years, or less, and the waterfront is not somewhere you’d visit. But the infrastructure, the hotel options, the investment in Dundee… Now there’s the V&A, the RSS Discovery, the Eden Project is coming in 2024. And the area’s pretty good for golf too.”
That latter statement is very hard to disagree with: judging by the signposts, you’re rarely more than a few miles from the nearest course, or some of the country’s finest. “We’re not far from St Andrews, we’re not far from Aberdeen. After the last couple of years, I think a lot of visiting golfers are going to want to play 36 holes a day, and we’re very well placed to explore the East Coast, or Scotland as a whole. Plus we have this,” says David, smiling and pointing across Panmure’s impressive links course. “And we have Carnoustie on our doorstep. Plus, we might not have held an Open but we do have the Ben Hogan connection, and that’s a huge thing for us.”
Ben Hogan won The Open – his only Open win – at Carnoustie in 1953. “Hogan had never played a links course,” explains David, “and he wasn’t used to the different sized British ball, so an arrangement was made for him to practice here for two weeks in advance, and then he went on to win the Open. Which is all down to Panmure. Obviously.”
Hogan’s influence is evident in the clubhouse – the main room is known as The Hogan Lounge – and on the course – “while playing here he suggested that the sixth hole needed a pot bunker,” says David. “And when Hogan tells you that, you add a bunker.” It’s also evident at TayPark, the house where Ben Hogan stayed that’s now a hotel on the Golf Traveller itinerary. Glenn Roach, chef director of TayPark, explains. “Hogan had been in a car accident a few years before and needed an ice bath daily.
He couldn’t get into the bath where he was due to stay, so he stayed here instead. The staff here at the time also combined their rations to buy Hogan a steak the night before his final round.” Happily, these days it’s much easier to get a steak at TayPark, with Glenn – like so many other chefs – putting local and seasonal produce front and centre on his menu.
Glenn laughs about even putting a putting green in the Hogan bathroom. “We need to show people what TayPark is,” says Glenn, “because Dundee is becoming the city it should be. The possibilities for Dundee are endless and it could, and should, be the perfect hub for golf tourism.”