BOOK EXCERPT
Choosing the Edge of the World
Durness Golf Club super Alistair Morrison could’ve worked anywhere BY JOEL BEALL
editor’s note: How can a no-frills golf trip to the ancient Highlands help one better understand the modern prob- lems in which professional golf finds itself mired? Golf Digest Senior Writer Joel Beall discovers many provoking answers in his book, Playing Dirty: Rediscovering Golf’s Soul in Scotland in an Age of Sportswashing and Civil War. The following is excerpted with the permission of Back Nine Press. Shop the hardcover edition, 256 pages, at back9press.com/beall.
through a tapestry of windswept mar- ram grass and an- cient, polished rock, a landscape conducive to only golf and the occasional grazing sheep, though wire
WORKING HARD Alistair Morrison is one of two
employees running a
remote nine- hole course.
fences thoughtfully protect the greens and tees from wandering flocks. Just 100 players call it home, including the handful of Highlands members who make their trips once or twice a year through the countryside. In keeping with its modest scale, the club operates with two employees, one of whom is Alistair Morrison. He is a prodigy. At 32 he has already been the head greenskeeper for a de- cade strong. He apprenticed at Brora, the Highlands gem roughly two hours southeast, the type of post that bestows the next opportunity of his choosing. Morrison, who grew up in Durness, de- cided to go home. “It was always in the back of my mind,” Morrison says. “When I saw it come available, I jumped at it. That I was young and naïve helped.” It’s his dream position, working at the course that introduced him to the game, but it is hard work. Morrison’s days be- gin before dawn, when the dew clings to the fescue and the only sound is the distant crash of North Atlantic waves. From early March through late Octo- ber, he is tethered to these nine holes – mowing greens, hand-cutting cups as the sun climbs higher, repairing divots and bunkers battered by coastal winds and hackers, and trimming the native grasses that frame each hole. Between maintenance runs, he an- swers emails, updates social media and
Durness Golf Club is out of the way, and that’s the point. It’s as far northwest as the
mainland will go, and we know this thanks to a sign that greets us in the car park that says as much. In this country that’s speckled with golf courses seem- ingly around every corner, the nearest golf course to Durness is a long 96 kilo- metres away down a frighteningly nar- row road. The area has been inhabited since pre-historic times, and a variety of Viking artifacts were discovered in a cave not long ago, yet the current popu- lation of the village hovers around 350, and the natural beauty nods that the land has not been spoiled or tamed by man. There are a few inns, a pub that’s open in the summer, and a youth hostel near a cave. It’s the type of town you go to when you don’t want to be found. The Durness links is young by Scot- tish standards, having opened in the 1980s under the vision of three local enthusiasts, yet it possesses the time- less veneer and charm typically found in James Braid’s storied designs. The North Atlantic commands attention on almost every hole, its steel-blue waters providing ambience as the links weaves
coordinates with visiting groups. During peak season, 14-hour days are the norm. While others might call it a thankless position, Morrison sees the effort as an extension of himself – though there are moments when even he questions the wisdom of being a one-man army at the edge of the world. “There’s definitely attachment to it, but it requires all or nothing,” Morri- son says. “There aren’t many people in this part of the country, yet we’re the only thing in roughly two hours in any
26 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026
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