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Cruden Bay Golf Club
In a remote and beautiful area of rolling sand hills twenty miles to the north east of Aberdeen is the unique links of the Cruden Bay Golf Club, a part of the very fabric of golfing folklore in Scotland, and a brooding seaside links like no other. The original Cruden Bay Golf Club was founded in 1791 at Port Errol where it stayed for more than a century until moving to the present site in 1899. Up to the Second World War, Cruden Bay was a favoured holiday destination of the wealthy from the south, journeying up by train to a luxury hotel near the course which has since been demolished. What remains from those golden days is a remarkable course offering glorious views out to sea as it winds its way alongside the sand of Cruden Bay, once described as being “as smooth and firm as the floor of a cathedral”. There is, however, nothing smooth about the Cruden Bay golf course. Massive sand dunes separate the winding holes creating a sense of total seclusion for almost every hole is isolated. Tom Simpson laid out the original course in the days when the only way to move ground was with pick, shovel, toil and sweat. Simpson fitted the holes in where he could and an interesting job he made of it to say the least. Here the player encounters just about every no no in the modern golf course architect’s text book. There is a host of blind tee shots and hidden greens - three in succession from the 13th - and the 15th is a blind par 3 where often the best advice is to lay up. But what wonderful, natural and compelling golf it is. It is golf the way it was played a hundred years ago and some would argue the way it should always be played. There is no chance of it changing either, for the Cruden Bay club members appreciate what they have, eccentricities and all, and jealously guard their heritage. The scenery is breathtaking and it has been said by one eminent chronicler that “you may never publicly have more fun in broad daylight” than at Cruden Bay. First time visitors to the course have been known to become so enraptured with the place that they cannot take themselves away. It matters not that they may have emptied most of the contents of the ball pockets of their golf bags into the wild rough, or been frustrated by the uncertainty of it all, or been snarled up by bottlenecks of players, the sheer joy of the place brings them ever back for more. Cruden Bay stands as one of the game’s originals, the ultimate perhaps in natural golf save the Old Course at St Andrews itself and a place where the memories last among the best in anyone’s golfing life.
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