Billy & Kenna's excellent adventure

Jeremy Ellwood plays with Billy Low and Kenna Campbell at Glenbervie Golf Club near Glasgow to find out more about their quest to play every Scottish golf course...

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If, like me, you still use X or Twitter, you'll see the same faces popping up on your timeline time and time again.

For me, one such account is 'Billy & Kenna, Golf', where the bio paragraph reads: “Trying to play every golf course in Scotland. If you'd like a round with us at your club, we can reciprocate at Bearsden GC and Askernish GC.”

At first, I didn’t take too much notice of their two beaming faces near the 1st tee of some Scottish golf course somewhere, but eventually I was intrigued to see who they were and how far they'd got. Then, despite me not being a member of a Scottish club and unable to reciprocate, I got in touch to see if I could meet them on my next Scottish trip to find out more about their quest.

Before long, plans were being hatched to find somewhere new to all three of us so they could play their 240th Scottish course and I, by coincidence, my 200th, following a quick tot-up of my ‘courses played’ spreadsheet. They live in Glasgow and one of their suggestions was Glenbervie, northeast of the city and close to the M9, which was ideal for me as I was heading on up to the Moray Firth afterwards.

I don’t know a huge number of Scottish golf club managers, but by chance, it transpired that I did know Glenbervie’s Alan Reid from a previous club he’d been at, and he kindly agreed to host our meetup.

One thing you can’t rely on in Scotland (nor anywhere really) is the weather, and as we chatted about their quest before heading out, the elements could at best be described as changeable. When a Scottish pro says “it’s looking a bit dreich”, it’s best not to get your hopes up too much. Sadly, we were treated to fairly persistent and, at times, quite heavy rain, until it finally eased with a few holes to go. But that dampened neither spirits nor banter on a course with very good and surprisingly quick greens (given the moisture) that starts with a fairly accommodating opener.