Prestwick Golf Club, AyrshireLinks golf where the Open began in 1860, on the Ayrshire coast at Prestwick, with blind shots, sleepered bunkers and the railway beside the first.

Courses
in Ayrshire.

9° and clear at The links and the town just now.

Where in Scotland?

Did you know21 hours ago

Cruden Bay had a golf club long before the railway built its links: a ballot box marked 'Cruden Golf Club 1791' survives.

Those first golfers are thought to have played on Ward Hill, which can be seen from the third hole of today's golf course.

See Cruden Bay Golf Club · Aberdeenshire

True or false20 hours ago

True or false: a golfer from Jedburgh won an Olympic medal.

Did you know19 hours ago

The slow-motion beach run that opens Chariots of Fire was filmed on the West Sands, beside the golf links at St Andrews, on 24 April 1980.

Local athletes did the running. Sand got into the camera and scratched the film, so the crew came back a week later and shot it again in rougher water. A plaque by the beach marks the spot.

See Old Course at St Andrews · Fife

Course of the day19 hours ago

Balnagask Golf Course.

Golf has been played on the Balnagask headland since 1905, at the mouth of Aberdeen harbour, with the North Sea for a boundary and the ships coming and going below. It is a public course, run for the city, over rolling coastal ground of hidden fairways, high tees and ravines walled with gorse; one member said it was so hilly it kept him fit. Beside it stands the Girdle Ness lighthouse, built by Robert Stevenson and first lit in 1833, after a whaling ship was wrecked in the bay below and only two of the 44 on board were saved. The lighthouse is on the club's crest. At the course's edge is Torry Battery, the old harbour fort, said to be the best place in Scotland to watch bottlenose dolphins.

WhereTorry, AberdeenGolf since1905Course18 holes, clifftop, publicLaid out byArchie Simpson, James Braid

See the course

Did you know18 hours ago

Jamie Anderson of St Andrews won the Open three years running, from 1877 to 1879, each time on a different golf course.

The championship then moved between Musselburgh, Prestwick and St Andrews, and he won at all three.

See the course

True or false18 hours ago

True or false: Mary Queen of Scots is recorded playing golf a few days after her husband was murdered.

Did you know17 hours ago

Three Prime Ministers, Asquith, Balfour and Ramsay MacDonald, played holiday golf at Moray Golf Club in Lossiemouth before the First World War.

On at least one day, in August 1913, the three of them played together.

See Moray Golf Club · Morayshire

From the magazine17 hours ago

At Kingarrock, near Cupar in Fife, golfers play a nine-hole golf course with original hickory-shafted clubs from the early 20th century.

Golf with hickory-shafted clubs, known as hickory golf, is the traditional form of the game, a world away from today's titanium and graphite clubs. Its fans argue that it brings more 'feel' into the swing. The nine-hole golf course at Kingarrock is given over entirely to the older game, and every golfer is handed five original clubs from the early 20th century to play with. The golf balls are replicas of the balls of the same era.

See Kingarrock Hickory Golf · Fife

Quiz16 hours ago

In 1815 a golfer bet a gallon of whisky that he could hit a ball from Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh over Arthur's Seat. How many strokes did it take?

Did you know15 hours ago

The golfers of Dunbar set down their rules on 14 May 1794 and agreed to meet at the West Barns links on the second Wednesday of every month.

The links were soon taken over for military training and a rifle range during the wars with France, and golf there faded for decades.

See Dunbar Golf Course · Lothian

True or false15 hours ago

True or false: golfers at Musselburgh could once order a drink through a pub window without leaving the course.

From Issue 8 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 814 hours ago

Fife: Discovering the Nooks and Crannies

Our guide to Fife, from the East Neuk villages of Pittenweem, Anstruther and St Monans to St Andrews, Culross, Falkland Palace, the Wemyss Caves and places to eat and stay.

Read the story