The sun is shining again this morning as I type this from my favourite North Berwick coffee shop, Steampunk.

For those new here, I spent 8 years working as a social media lead on the European Tour (DP World Tour) and as a result, intimately familiar with the week to week grind of the touring professional. Another airport, another hotel, another uninspiring golf course and as is inherent with touring competitive golf, another week of dissatisfaction. As crazy as it sounds for the rest of us, I can understand how the game these pro golfers fell in love with feels more work than pleasure.

That is until, they rekindle it at North Berwick every year. No other Tour stop has players playing golf in their spare time. The intangible energy of links golf and the town has organically evolved into a huge part of the week. What started with Justin Thomas & Jordan Spieth fooling around late on a Monday evening in a battle to fight jet lag, has now become a right of passage for many of the PGA TOUR.

Those are the words of Californian Joshua Ralston, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and a proud member at North Berwick Golf Club.
“Things that I cared about: Scottie having a great evening with his family. The joy that Scottie brought members and visitors alike by being kind to them and pausing to take photos and sign hats. Scottie cheering on the group behind us on Redan.

Things that I didn't care about: his clothes.”

Thank you for your service, Josh.

It isn’t just PGA TOUR players getting in on the fun at North Berwick. My good friend and former boss (he made the dumb mistake of hiring me at the Tour) Jamie Kennedy might have completed golf on Monday evening. A former college golfer and room mate of Russell Knox, now digital lead at Golf Digest did something few would even dream of….

Not only was this at 10pm as darkness fell at the end of the most magnificent sunset but it was in front of dozens of friends and former colleagues who were gathered in the clubhouse for which I was one.

As is hole-in-one tradition here, Jamie purchased a bottle of Scotch whisky and left it on the North Berwick Golf Club bar for us all to enjoy.

Cheers JK, to the unimaginable!

The North Berwick West Sands Coastal Erosion Charity has been launched this week and aims to support efforts to preserve the North Berwick West Links which has suffered in recent years from rising sea levels and more frequent and severe storm events.

Stuart Bayne, General Manager of North Berwick Golf Club, said:
“West Sands is a truly special place—valued by the local community, members, and visitors from around the world. It’s an area of the town that generates and provides so much -economically, socially and environmentally. The challenges we face are significant, but by working together, we can take meaningful steps to protect this landscape and ensure it can be enjoyed for generations to come.”

Find out more about the charity here.

Some of the pre-event quotes from the world’s best.

Jon Rahm

“It's just the purity of it. I think a lot of times the game worldwide has become a hit it long, hit it high, try to make as many birdies as possible. I think the sentence, play golf, actually playing this great game becomes more alive here where you can't just do that. You have to actually play certain shots and understand how the ball reacts and understand how it reacts on the fairway and on the bounces on the green. I think the game comes alive over here. It's different and I don't think you can replicate it anywhere else. It's something special.”

Scottie Scheffler

“This is a tournament that I really enjoy coming over to play. Love the people and the fans, you can tell golf was invented here. If you and I were to go out and play, you hit the ball, I'm sure a little bit lower than me and probably not as far -- no offence. That style of golf works really well here, and you can hit a lot of clubs off the green. It's not the same club every time, and it gives you an option. You can get some funny bounces sometimes. This is a style of golf I wish we could play more often.”

Rory McIlroy

“The one thing that I love about golf in this part of the world, U.K. and Ireland; that it's so accessible. It's much more accessible in this part of the world than it is in other places. And that's a great thing in that obviously if the entry price is low, which it is for the most part in the U.K, it means that more kids will get into the game and play.

I guess growing up, I didn't know any different but you start to travel around the world and you start to appreciate how accessible the game is in this part of the world, which is wonderful.”

Ryan Gerard might have said it best…

Our first long form video series is dropping soon, stay tuned.

I’ll be at Royal Birkdale for The Open next week and will endeavour to share more links golf enthusiasm from the world’s best with you then.

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Cheers, Ru Macdonald