Brig o’ Doon

As a Scottish kid living in America, I was fascinated by Brigadoon. The film, starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, seemed to turn up on B&W television every other week. Its enchanted village appeared out of the Highland mist once every hundred years, stayed for a day, then vanished again.

Well, I have news for you. You can find a little of that magic in Ayrshire any day you like.

The village was invented, but the Brig o’ Doon is real. It’s the old stone bridge in Alloway where Robert Burns set the breathless finale of Tam o’ Shanter. Cross it at a more leisurely pace than Tam did, and you’ll see why this corner of Scotland has stayed in the imagination for so long.

The real village of Alloway fits beautifully into any Ayrshire golf trip. Prestwick, where The Open began, and Royal Troon lie up the coast; Turnberry lies to the south. Somewhere between rounds on those celebrated links, give yourself a few hours away, if you can. Walk over the Brig o’ Doon, explore the atmospheric Auld Kirk and Burns’s birthplace, and visit the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. It’s a short excursion that gives the golf a richer sense of place.

I hope my old friend Archie is still at the museum to greet you. He has a gift for making Burns feel less like a figure from a schoolbook and more like someone you might meet in an Ayrshire pub.

Ayrshire gives you some of the most storied golf in the world. Alloway reminds you that there’s plenty worth discovering between the fairways.

The Gregg Fiddle is housed at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway with its distinctive, hand-painted folk art design. Dating back to around 1750, it belonged to William Gregg, Robert Burns's dancing master, who played this exact instrument to teach a 17-year-old Burns his dance steps at the Bachelors’ Club in Tarbolton.