The European Tour’s Scottish Open is playing host to a number of American golfers and others that want to use this week as a warm up for the true links golf they’ll be playing next week at St. Andrews.
Gullane Golf Club is getting great reviews from the players as being a fair but firm test of links golf. And it has been that way for a long time.
While Gullane, the golf club was established in 1882 (that’s pretty old) records show that golf has been played over this pure links land since 1650.
There are two courses at Gullane Golf Club and the No. 1 course is considered only slightly superior to No. 2.
Sixteen holes from No. 1 and two from No. 2 are being used for the Scottish Open and the combination gives the players a wonderful links course that integrates all things a links course should offer.
Bernard Darwin championed Gullane in his masterpiece The Golf Courses of the British Isles first published in 1910 but his description of Gullane still holds true today.
There is probably no other golfing centre that is quite so good as Gullane, in the East Lothian. (Editor’s note: Dozens of course in the area rank among the world’s best today.) If the golfer can only get up early enough in the morning, and has the strength to do it, he can play on seven courses on one long summer’s day. At his very door is a trinity of courses-Gullane, New Gullane and New Luffness- which, to the eye of the stranger, are indistinguishable the one from the other. From Gullane Hill to the Luffness Club–house is one huge stretch of turf, and such turf! The finest, smoothest, and most delicate that ever was seen.
Tom Doak, a notoriously tough course reviewer has given Gullane an above average rating in his The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses. Doak rates it a six out of ten which is pretty high for Doak who rates the Old Course as a ten.
With the creation of several new links courses in Scotland, Gullane No. 1 seems to have fallen off the radar as a mandatory stop, which is too bad since its sandy hillside setting provides more variety than many well-known links. There is no refuge on a windy day. As Gullane Hill faces west toward the prevailing wind from Edinburgh, but on a fine day the views from the top are worth the climb, and the golf is always worthwhile.
Take a look at some of the best links land anywhere.
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