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Tayside, Angus and Grampian

Carnoustie ()

When the Open Championship returned to Carnoustie in 1999, many wondered if it could still justify it's historical reputation as the toughest course in the British Isles. Those of you who watched the drama unfold over those four days in July know the answer - no doubt about it!

The Open returns to Carnoustie in 2007 and the alterations and improvements made for the Open will ensure that the course is once again in superb condition and it's reputation fully restored. My advice is to play it soon.

Gleneagles - Kings Course ()

There are 3 courses at Gleneagles, all of them superb but the King's course is the best of them all. It has the reputation of being the best inland course in Scotland and is kept in perfect condition throughout the year.

The 18 holes all offer very different tests of your game - drives from elevated tees to cambered fairways, approach shots to elevated greens, sweeping plateau doglegs,wickedly angled greens and much more. Add the majestic scenery and the ever present wildlife, it's an enthralling experience and if you are staying at the Gleneagles Hotel - a byword for service and excellence in Scotland - then this is an experience which will live long in your memory.

Panmure ()

Panmure was formed in 1845 and first played over the Monifeith Links before moving to the present site in 1889. The splendid clubhouse was deliberately built near the railway station resulting in the opening few holes being more parkland in feel. However it is not long before a path through the scots pines reveals what Golf Monthly has described as ' a teeming treasure chest, a succession of links holes winding through gentle duneland to give a combination of beauty and challenge that defies description. A meandering burn, stands of pine trees and swathes of gorse will catch the eye, and more'.

Ben Hogan practised here, in secret, before winning the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 1953, and described the 387 yard 6th as one of the finest holes he had seen. 'This is the links golf we have crossed an ocean to play, and we set out on it enthusiastically.' - James Finnegan.

Royal Montrose ()

There are records of golf played at Montrose as early as 1562, and at nearby Brechin in a trial of 1508 a golf club was recorded as being the murder weapon. The Medal course is 6,451 yards to a SSS 71, and like many other seaside links the holes are set out low between the town and the dunes. The present layout is largely the work of Tom Morris and Willie Park Junior and is described by Golf Monthly as ' a rugged, venerable links that undulates along the clifftop above the beach for nine holes, then flattens out and creeps into town before heading back seaward, ... Montrose has some quite spectacular holes and a few mild eccentricities, but if you've a soft spot for things historic,you must play it.'

Cruden Bay ()

A real gem of a course and one which deserves to be more widely known. The combination of spectacular sand dunes, wonderful turf and fine greens has made this a destination for golfing pilgrims since the turn of the century. Cruden Bay is an unrepeatable original - an amalgam of seascape and duneland, a links whose beauty is enhanced by its sheer quality and an eccentricity verging on the mischievous. "There is no gradual revelation of the glory of Cruden Bay. You climb out of the car, walk over to the clubhouse on the heights, and look down. Below you in all its turbulent splendour lies one of the most awe-inspiring stretches of links land in Scotland, indeed, in all of the British Isles." (Blasted Heaths and Blessed Greens)

Royal Aberdeen Golf Club ()

Founded in 1780, this is the sixth oldest club in the world, although it moved to the present links only in 1887. This links is extremely highly regarded in Scotland, with many feeling that given an extra 500 yards in length it would prove a worthy venue for an Open Championship. Set amongst hill, sand and sea, Balgownie (as the links are known locally) represents one of the most testing links courses in the country. It has become a place of pilgrimage for many of the greats of the game - Morris, Hagen, Cotton, Lema, Jacklin and Norman, to name a few. Bernard Darwin, the most prolific golf writer of all, wrote "it represented a huge gap in my golfing education not to have played Balgownie until now, much more than a good golf course, a noble links."

James Finnegan at his evocative best described it as "tees atop dunes, greens in hollows, greens on plateaux, forced carries over wild and forbidding country and ribbons of fairway tracing their lonely paths along dune-framed valleys. We play it in wonder and delight."

Murcar ()

This course was laid out by Archie Simpson of Balgownie, with later modifications by James Braid (of Carnoustie and Gleneagles fame). It is laid out on land adjacent to Balgownie Links and there is a story of a visiting American fourball who started out on the Balgownie links and ended up playing the finishing holes at Murcar. It is easily done, there are no barriers, natural or manmade, the landscape is similar and the qualities of the courses seem alike in almost every respect.
'The land at Murcar is very close to ideal : tumbling linksland, great sandhills, gorse, heather, even a couple of burns for good measure. An unusual feature of the terrain is the way the sandhills rise above one another in successive ridges from the beach, providing a terraced effect and revealing the sea from almost every hole.' James Finnegan

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