Beyond the bucket list: How James Wilson inspires golf travellers to visit destinations off the beaten track

James Wilson has garnered a large and loyal audience by documenting hidden gems and authentic travel experiences across the golf world.

Better known as short.side to more than 66,000 Instagram followers, Wilson has built a platform showcasing popular golf destinations, but also the lesser-seen corners of the sport, from remote Scottish links to obscure European spots.

Having been an elite amateur player and then turning his hand to a professional playing career, Wilson came to realise that his passion lay in the creative side of the sport, searching for new experiences without the stress of a scorecard in his hand.

He entered this side of the golf industry with Manors, a popular clothing brand, before beginning to forge his own path with content creation in the golf travel space earlier this year. 

“COVID ended, and I did turn pro, and I wanted to see [how I would do] as I did put a lot of time into it over the years,” Wilson said. “I played a season on the EuroPro Tour and realised that it wasn't what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

“Around that time, I met the guys at Manors and they offered me a job doing a bunch of different creative stuff, a bit of writing, a bit of design, and that led into video production. I was kind of going that way anyway.

“But their brand is around less focus on the importance of the score and more focus on golf being this vehicle for adventure, which I think was a very smart position to put the brand in, because it's interesting and allows you to tell an endless amount of stories, but also breaks down the barriers that would intimidate a lot of people about getting into golf.

“It was way less about what can you score and how far can you hit your driver and things like that, and more like – we're at Lofoten Links on the north coast of Norway, and who cares what you shoot? Look at where we are.

“I'd never been interested in content necessarily before joining Manors, more so the other creative stuff, but it felt like too good an opportunity – I was pretty good at golf and didn't care about the score anymore in all these amazing places.”

This carefree approach to the game provided the foundation and the ethos for the adventures Wilson has been on in his time as a golf explorer and traveller as short.side. He has produced video content in America, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as across Europe and particularly in Scotland, where he is from.

Wilson has visited the largest golfing markets in the world but also places such as Bosnia – a nation with just three courses to speak of.

In 2024, the golf tourism market accounted for approximately 12 million trips globally, with leisure tourism representing 63% of the total. Younger travellers are becoming increasingly influential, with 42% of new golf tourists aged between 25 and 40, while demand for packaged trips is also rising.

Born in 1996 himself, Wilson belongs to this emerging generation of golf travellers, and early success arrived after he visited Askernish on the Isle of South Uist – the very definition of ‘off the beaten track’ – in the Outer Hebrides. While he has produced content in international golfing hotspots, authenticity and scarcity have remained at the heart of Wilson’s work. He documents unique experiences that golf travellers might never previously have considered.

“The first video that did quite well was a summary of a trip that my dad and my brother and I took to a place called Askernish, which is out in the Outer Hebrides, and it's a pretty arduous journey to get there. You're not going to play that golf course unless you're quite committed, and so I think the fact that I was with my dad and my brother was quite appealing to people.

“It just had a wholesome element to it.

“We got the boat from Mallaig over to Skye, and then you drive to the top of Skye and get the boat from Uig over to South Uist, and the golf course itself at Askernish is absolutely unbelievable.

“It was an old Tom Morris design that got reclaimed by nature because they couldn't upkeep the course as it's so remote. And then a greenkeeper is walking in the dunes with his dog on holiday and thought 100% this was a golf course, and he knew that there was a bit of history there.

“There were records of a golf course having been there, and so he got in touch with golf course architect Martin Ebert and a few of the big dogs in golf course design, and they plotted their way through the dunes on the route that they figured old Tom Morris would have taken.

“What a ridiculous story, and to have that in such a ridiculous location was pretty special.”

Wilson's success illustrates a broader shift within golf travel marketing. Increasingly, travellers are inspired not necessarily by brochures or course rankings, but by creators documenting authentic experiences in destinations they might never otherwise discover.

With a substantial following and visually appealing content in remarkable golf destinations, content creators such as Wilson can have an immense influence on where people travel to on their next golf trip.

It is his goal to inspire the next generation of golf travellers and to build itineraries that form the basis of trips for the many golf travel enthusiasts who follow him.

“Especially around Scotland and England, people will often message and say, ‘I'm here for a few days. I'm there for a few days. Where should I go?’ I try to get back to all of them.

“At some point, I start to feel like a bit of a travel agent, but my goal really is to produce little itineraries for different corners of the UK, like Aberdeen, East Lothian, Northumberland, and have a definitive guide to all of these golf courses – public and all the way through to the top 100 courses, places to eat and things like that.

“Being from the UK, you almost forget that this is the Mecca of golf. This is it. We maybe take our knowledge of it for granted and forget – I guess the internet opens us up to the world, and so when you get those messages, you realise someone from Wisconsin who's coming over to play some links golf, they don't have a clue in many ways where to start.

“The top 100 courses are well-documented and they're probably going to start there. But there's so much more to be explored for a fraction of the cost. And in my opinion, many of those experiences are the ones that are far more special.”

Golf courses are at the heart of Wilson’s content, but he also explores the culture beyond the fairways that travellers can enjoy when they haven’t got a club in their hands.

Increasingly, people are prioritising off-course activities on golf trips. A survey by 18Players and IGTM showed that nearly 80% of golfers said they would be more likely to visit a destination offering a strong mix of golf and lifestyle experiences, rather than great golf courses alone.

Over 80% of respondents said great local food and fine dining would most improve a golf holiday, and more than half said non-golf elements such as wellness, scenery and culture are either "very" or "extremely" important when choosing a golf trip.

This is a world that Wilson taps into.

“Nowadays, the next generation of golf travellers are more discerning, I would say. They know that there's amazing food out there. They know that there's great cultural stuff to do. They're looking for more, essentially,” Wilson said.

“People in general are wanting to explore new horizons more than ever.

“People want adventure. People want to go further afield and find stuff that is not on the traditional tourist trail. That’s the special feeling that I got at Askernish, or that I've got at various other places.

“Because not many people are necessarily putting the effort in to get there, it feels like you're in on this little secret, and that's the feeling that I want in many ways.

“The stuff that makes a golf trip – great golf courses are the crux of it. But when you can add in a few amazing meals, like Terras da Comporta, the food is incredible. The landscape is amazing as well. It's very sort of untouched. There are little shops and things to mooch around in.

“You can certainly squeeze in a lot of golf, but there is only so much golf you can play. You're always going to have a morning, a lunchtime, or maybe an evening where you want to take a break from hacking around and see some of the culture. I think that is the thing that really adds colour to a golf trip.

“If you can go and have the best meal in the city that you’re going to or have an authentic whisky experience. In Japan, the shopping is incredible, so that's probably always the thing to do there.

“If you can provide all of it, you're really giving a rounded solution to the perfect golf trip to different places. We've all been on golf trips with groups and finding good spots to eat probably is the burden of the whole thing. I know that a lot of people come to Ayrshire and they're passing through Glasgow, where I'm from, and there is so much amazing food in Glasgow, for example, and you want to be able to direct people towards that.”

As golf travel evolves beyond ticking off famous courses and destinations, creators such as Wilson are helping redefine what makes a memorable trip.

Hidden links, local restaurants, cultural experiences and authentic storytelling are becoming just as influential, giving destinations new opportunities to reach travellers looking for something different.

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