Brora Golf Club, Scotland
In 1995 Peter Thomson and his wife, Mary, made a four-and-a-half-hour drive from their home in St. Andrews to the Scottish Highlands. Intrigued by a glowing recommendation from a former caddie, the five-time British Open winner traveled to the seaside town of Brora to play the eponymous course. Without informing the club in advance […]
Wentworth Club, Surrey, England
South of London, the Wentworth Club boasts two world-class layouts. The East was laid out in 1924 by Harry Colt, the father of British course architecture. Colt ran the East through a forest of fir and silver birch that afforded a natural sense of isolation. Patches of purple heather lined the fairways and large […]
St. Enodoc Golf Club, Cornwall, England
Occupying the extreme westerly tip of the British Isles, with mood and scenery unlike that found in any other part of England, Cornwall is more Celtic than Anglo-Saxon and, as any Cornishman will quickly tell you, is the region of Britain with the likeliest claim to King Arthur and his Knights of the […]
Formby Golf Club, England
Scan the itinerary of any golfer on a pilgrimage to the British Isles and the chances are Formby Golf Club will be somewhere near the bottom, next to the reminder about buying presents for the family at the airport on the way home. There is one reason for this oversight and it has nothing […]
Royal St. David’s Golf Club, Wales
Beneath a 13th-century castle built to keep the Welsh in check, this rugged links has subjugated eager golfers for 110 years running. And now we plunge into a tract of truly wonderful duneland—tall and short sandhills, ridges and hillocks and hollows, rumpled fairways, hidden greens and long-legged rough, where skylarks breed and 12 varieties […]
A Great Heathland Course: Beau Desert Golf Club
Herbert Fowler is one of those architects whose name isn’t readily attached to the many great courses he laid out or substantially retooled. Cruden Bay? That’s a Fowler. Royal North Devon? Fowler’s renovation of this Old Tom Morris original (a.k.a. Westward Ho!) made it the superb course we know today. This lack of name recognition […]
Portstewart Golf Club, Northern Ireland
Portstewart, a small town in Northern Ireland, suffered from a large inferiority complex in the late 19th century. Separated by only three miles of rugged Ulster coastline from the neighboring resort town of Portrush, Portstewart had been losing ground to its more fashionable and popular rival since the early Victorian era. When it […]
Castlerock Golf Club, Northern Ireland
Castlerock Golf Club has long resided in the shadow of its illustrious neighbors along Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast— Portstewart and Royal Portrush—but it would be a mistake to overlook this gem, which embodies all the essential charms of links golf. Its fine points include a pure seaside routing, firm greens, ferocious rough and an unmistakable […]
Belvoir Park Golf Club, Northern Ireland
In the early ’90s, when Yanks began descending en masse on Ireland’s mightiest links, they first gathered at the magisterial courses of the southwest (think Ballybunion and Lahinch), then east coast wonders like Portmarnock and the European Club, and more recently, the raw and secluded northwest. But without direct flights to Belfast and scared […]
Tain Golf Club, Scottish Highlands
In a secluded corner of the Scottish Highlands, on nearly the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska, lays a golf course of compelling beauty, fascinating history and beguiling challenge. This is Tain, the oldest royal burgh in Scotland and where the steeply winding streets and medieval walls echo a colorful and ancient past. This is where […]
