CADDIE'S ROLE:Last Wednesday before the Dunhill Links Challenge I took the idyllic trip from St Andrews to Carnoustie

IF A morning drive from St Andrews to Carnoustie along the north Fife coastal route does not whet your appetite for golf and travel then you are unlikely ever to be stirred by the idyllic trip I took to Carnoustie on Wednesday last week.

I was heading for the famed links in order to have a quick jaunt around the course before I met my new young boss Tom Lewis for a practice round as a final preparation for his first Dunhill Links Challenge. Leaving St Andrews towards the Strathkiness road, I caught a glimpse of the sun illuminating the road hole green before picking up speed away from the “old grey town”. Life was beginning to go about its business in the university town just before 8am without any sense of urgency. The students were thin on the ground, it being only the beginning of the college year and in the thick of Freshers week they were highly unlikely to clutter the streets much before noon.

I careered along towards Leuchars as some fighter jets taking off from the airforce base disturbed the still morning air overhead. The control tower at Leuchars, incidentally, is an important landmark for caddies and golfers. If there is no low lying cloud or Scottish haar clinging to the Fife coast, the radar is a perfect line for right centre of the fairway off the back sixth tee. It cannot be relied upon at this time of year in case a mist rolls in from the sea and spoils your target line; best to have a temporary television tower as a back up line.

I carried on by the amusing sounding Pickletillum village and past the national golf centre at Drumoig and headed towards the Firth of Tay where morning traffic was starting to build as commuters headed to their places of work in Dundee. The river Tay eased by gently as the calm and unseasonably warm air temperature began to rise in the city with the thermometer in the car already reading 16 degrees.

I continued on through the docklands of Dundee where a huge contraption, I could only assume to be an oil-rig was berthed, towering above the city. The town of Broughty Ferry, where a number of the St Andrews caddies hail from, was signposted on the east side of Dundee. As I entered Monifieth, school kids were casually strolling to their places of learning on a day that would have been more suited to the beach instead of a bench in the classroom.

I was not only heading to one of the most highly rated links courses that exists, I was also getting a little taste of life in a small town in north Fife with local bakeries still baking fresh bread in the morning and independent newsagents still hanging on to the tradition of selling the daily paper to local inhabitants. I ignored the temporary sign for Carnoustie put up for the Dunhill Links Challenge suggesting the main road and hugged the more intimate coastal route.

As I weaved through the elegant sandstone single story houses on the east side of Monifieth suddenly I found myself adjacent to the seventh tee at Monifieth golf links, which used to be a qualifying course when the British Open was held at Carnoustie. If you found yourself too engrossed in the scenery you could accidentally end up on top of the tee that is a few steps from the secondary road to Panmure. When they say that golf has its roots in Scotland and you witness just how entwined many of the links courses are with the local towns it is not hard to imagine the priority the course held in original town planning.

Panmure golf course, also a qualifying course for the British Open in the past, almost adjoins the edge of the Carnoustie links and its classic old clubhouse with a clock overlooking the 18th green is a landmark for the outskirts of Carnoustie town. Of course the town of Carnoustie is inextricably linked to the golf course.

A row of quaint sandstone dormer bungalows line the street overlooking the 18th fairway. The Caledonian Golf Club and the Carnoustie clubhouse are an extension of this row of residential homes. A feature that is unique to the links land in Scotland. With the proximity of the three courses at Carnoustie to the town centre there are rights of way by and through the golf courses. So it is perfectly normal to see locals out walking their dogs on sandy pathways by the links, with dogs, masters and golfers all living in perfect harmony with the other.

Even over a dozen years after the, relatively, tragic final hole 1999 British Open incident involving the charismatic Frenchman Jean Van De Velde, the relative disaster is still very much on golfing minds. The Barry Burn winding its way across the front of the final green conjures up the painful image of a confused Van de Velde looking at his ball bobbing tantalizingly in the burn at low tide wondering how he could win the Claret Jug from that soggy lie.

There is always something especially moving about returning to the Scottish links land and its unique blend of golf living in harmony with daily life by its side.