But for the beknighted songwriter
whose own journey down that long
and winding road to reach his remote
Argyllshire retreat must have seemed
daunting enough, even with modern
transport, it was of naught compared
to the one made by Old Tom Morris
when he donned his hefty tweeds,
bade the auld grey toon of St Andrews
farewell, and set forth on the trek across
Scotland to the Kintyre peninsula to
lay out the old course at Machrihanish.
In the year of our lord 1879, Old
Tom’s journey was one of almost Marco
Polo proportions, requiring for its
successful accomplishment a careful
coordination of railroad, steamship,
the one-horsepower trap and, in the
final resort, shank’s pony.
One-time Beatle Sir Paul McCartney wrote fondly of The
Long and Winding Road in
the last of his great No. 1
hits. He did so as he gazed
out from his Scottish
farmstead across the fields
where roam the famous
black sheep of the Mull of
Kintyre, that glorious west
coast peninsula.
