The Carnoustie Caddie

26/09/2026

The support I'm getting from the community is incredible.

I post a lot on X and on here. I didn't know what to expect when I started, but you have all been so supportive.

Across Facebook and X the accounts have had 15 million views in the last 3 months.

It's about the course, the town and the people.

Carnoustie is and always has been a golfing town. We have records here that go back 499 years. 25 years before it was ever mentioned in St Andrews.

And the Carnoustie 300 is an epic story of Carnoustie men who taught the world how to play, how to make clubs, how to teach, and how to design golf courses. A story we should all know and be proud of.

This little town of ours has a golfing heritage that few if any can compare with. Something for us all to be proud of.

So thank you all. I deeply appreciate it, and let's see where this takes us.

Dave

25/09/2026

Modern players owe so much to this man.

Arnold Palmer's father took over as golf professional in Pittsburgh from Fred Brand Sr, a member of The Carnoustie Golf Club. Brand was born in Carnoustie in 1885. He won the Western Pennsylvania Open four times and founded the Tri-State PGA.

In 1971 his son, Fred Brand Jr, came over to pick up his own honorary membership of Carnoustie Golf Club. Arnold came with him, and joined the club.

For the next 20 years a check for $100 arrived every January from Arnold Palmer, paying his dues.

At our 150th anniversary he was made an honorary life member. His name is on the board in the clubhouse and his gold medal is in our display.

Just goes to show the class of the man.

Remembering Arnold Palmer on his birthday ❤️

25/09/2026

The back 9 at Carnoustie is so strong that the front 9 gets forgotten about.

The 2nd hole is called Gulley.

It's a proper links golf hole. Dunes either side, and for the ams it's a dog leg right, playing 435 off the whites.

10 bunkers. And it's one of only 2 holes on the course where the miss is left.

Miss right on this hole and you're in the dunes. Uneven, and no real line of sight at the flag. At least you get a good view up there.

Now when you go back to the Hogan tees it changes. It's a long straight corridor. Narrow, and littered with bunkers.

The green is 56 yards deep.

And that's the thing at Carnoustie. The course is demanding from the first tee shot. It's relentless.

She doesn't necessarily bludgeon you to death. She can bleed you out with 1000 cuts.

📸 Ralph’s Golf Drone Pictures

24/09/2026

The Scotland Pilgrimage

Coming to Scotland to play golf is a pilgrimage. To see where the game was born, and to see how it has been played for hundreds of years.

The courses are the same for the most part. Tweaked, lengthened. But you can feel the history in the air.

One memory sticks in my head. Walking up the first at Carnoustie with an American man.

He was crying a little. He was there with his three sons. He told me he grew up dirt poor and this wasn't in his wildest dreams as a boy.

His sons never saw. They were walking on ahead. But they knew what it meant to him, and he'd hug them as they went round, revelling in the greatness of Carnoustie.

He said it was the best time of his life. Playing Carnoustie with his three grown sons. A bucket list trip.

That's when it hits home. Golf has been played on this land at Carnoustie for 499 years at least. It's engrained in our culture. Our courses have always been there.

I don't remember his name or what state he came from. Just the love he had for his family, and the gratitude that he could bring them to Scotland to play.

I love my job. I get to see what it means to people. I grew up here and a lot of us Scots take it for granted.

My colleagues and I are so lucky to be part of that on a daily basis.

Golf is much more than a stick and a ball. It's family, it's time away from the world, it's friends, and it's competition. There's no other sport that allows all of that to happen.

Scotland is magical. Every Scot will tell you. And these are the moments that prove it.

Don't wait too long to come. You'll have the time of your life.

Scotland is Disneyland for golfers.

📸 Ralph’s Golf Drone Pictures

24/09/2026

Today was a big day for The Carnoustie Caddie.

A couple of months ago I walked into Topping & Company in St Andrews and asked if they would stock my book.

I recently got an email to say they would. Today I dropped them off.

So if you're through in St Andrews, or in town for the Dunhill, you can pick up a copy of The Carnoustie Caddie, How The Course Really Plays.

Topping & Company Booksellers, 7 Greyfriars Garden, St Andrews. Open every day, 9am to 8.30pm.

And if you're local, you don't need to go anywhere. Billy has had it in the Harbour Gallery on Carnoustie High Street from the start.

A year ago, if you'd told me I'd write a book and it would be sitting in a bookshop in St Andrews, I'd have laughed in your face.

Funny old world.

23/09/2026

I'm working the Dunhill next week.

That means from the first of October I'm gone. Four days on a bag, and I'm nowhere near the kitchen table where I sign these.

So if you've been sitting on it, this is the week.

Every signed copy that leaves here I sign myself and post from Carnoustie. There's a box on the order page that says who it should be made out to. Put a name in it and I'll write it.

The first book is what I'd be telling you if I had your bag on my shoulder. Every hole, where to aim, what happens when you miss it.

The second one is what your caddie is thinking and doesn't say.

If you've got a trip booked for next year, read them before you come.

On the bag at Carnoustie since 1998.

23/09/2026

Robbie McIntosh was my dad's uncle, though they were all around the same age. My gran had a hand in raising him.

Not long after the band made it, he came home to Scotland and took my dad and his four brothers out on the town.

Robbie was wearing a long trench coat. He wouldn't let any of them buy a round all night. Every time it was his turn he pulled a fresh note out of his wallet.

He told them about the celebrities he was hanging about with, and the life he was living now.

At the end of the night he scooped all the change out of his trench coat pockets and put it on the table.

It was close to a month's wage for each of the brothers.

He was the drummer in the Average White Band, a group of Scottish lads playing funk better than most of the bands they were opening for in America.

In September 1974 they played the Troubadour in Los Angeles. At a party afterwards Robbie and Alan Gorrie were given something they had been told was co***ne. It wasn't. Gorrie was kept awake and walking by Cher until it passed through him. Robbie didn't make it. He was 24. The man who supplied it pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Five months later Pick Up the Pieces went to number one in America. Robbie never saw it.

He's buried in Barnhill Cemetery in Dundee. His stone says he was of the Average White Band, and that he died at Los Angeles. At the foot of it, from his mum:

Tenderest thoughts are oft unspoken, unexpressed lie feelings deep.

23/09/2026

The time Harrington pulled a Van de Velde.

2007, and he stood on the 18th tee with a one shot lead in the Open. He leaked his drive into the Barry Burn.

As he and his caddie walked up to the burn, Garcia was coming over the footbridge from the 17th, three shots to play and the Claret Jug still his to lose.

Garcia grinned at him and said hello.

Harrington never said a word back. He just stared through him.

He went on to put his second in the burn as well, and made a double bogey 6 on the last hole of the Open. Eight years after Van de Velde, same hole, same water.

The door was opened for Garcia. A par and he would be Champion Golfer of the Year.

He pulled his approach into the bunker, splashed out to 10 feet, and missed a very makeable putt.

A play off. Aggregate of 1, 16, 17 and 18.

Harrington hit a 7 iron to 10 feet on the 1st for birdie. Garcia made bogey out of a bunker. Two shots in one hole and it was effectively done.

On 16 Garcia's tee shot actually hit the flagstick and ran 20 feet away.

Harrington played the four holes in level par and became the first Irishman to win the Open since 1947.

Carnoustie has a habit of throwing up drama and theatre, you can lead for 71 holes and the 18th will remind you who's boss.

22/09/2026

Nine months ago, in the depths of the damp, dark and bleak Scottish winter, I decided I was going to try something.

I decided I would start a social media profile about Carnoustie. I thought the best way to do it was to write down everything I knew and could remember about the course and use it as a post bank. When I was done, it occurred to me I'd probably written enough to make a book. So that's exactly what I did.

I had very little expectation for it. I'm not a writer, I thought to myself. But I pushed on and did it anyway.

I shared it with some friends and I was worried. I was expecting to be told it was no good, or maybe even get a bit of ridicule. Instead I got a great reaction, and that gave me the encouragement to keep going.

It's now September and things have already far exceeded my expectations. I'm now paid by X for my posts. Millions and millions of views on the things I write about Carnoustie, Scotland and the game we all love.

I'll be honest, it feels a bit like a redemption arc in my life. As I've said before, four years ago my three kids and I were living in temporary homeless accommodation. I didn't know which way was up. And the same winter I started all this, my car broke down and I was struggling to see a way through.

Now here we are with regular book sales. It's not going to make me rich, but it sure does make life a bit easier. More importantly, I hope it shows my kids that no matter how hard things get, you have to keep pushing forward and know that better times will come.

This platform and you guys have largely made it possible, so thank you. I appreciate the likes, the shares and the follows. I love the interaction.

And something I'm starting to get more and more is people on the course talking about The Carnoustie Caddie before they know it's me. It's a thrill that people are coming here and talking about Carnoustie because of what I'm writing.

More and more exciting things are happening for me, and honestly I have to pinch myself. When I published the first book I'd prepared myself for some of our visitors to know about it and recognise me. The thing I never thought about was locally, and that's the bit that's harder to adjust to.

It's not a lot, but I do get people coming to say hello and congratulations on the book. Some of them are people I've known my whole life. And people actually pay extra to get my books with my signature in them.

That blows my mind.

I'm just Dave the caddie. Same as I was last year and the years before that. Same as I'll be next year.

19/09/2026

I'm a Carnoustie man through and through. I support all the local businesses.

This is Maxi's bar, a great bar in the heart of Carnoustie.

Every Saturday my beautiful girlfriend Nika and myself do a bit of a pub crawl, as we call it in Scotland. The Rookery, the Carnoustie Hotel, the golf clubs, the Stags Head, Maxi's. Maxi's is one of my favourites.

The staff are excellent. They know our names (I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not 😅). If you do come, make sure you say hello to our good friend Temi. He's actually one of my neighbours.

If you come to play Carnoustie, please visit the town. The bars, the restaurants. We love to have visitors here.