Gullane Golf Club
#1 Course

East Lothian, Scotland-on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth east of Edinburgh-is home to several fine links courses. One of the youngest, Muirfield, is the better known even though it celebrated only its 100th Anniversary when it again hosted the Open Championship in 1992. North Berwick has been a golfing venue for more than 250 years. But Gullane is the senior member with golfing records that go back more than three centuries. Blowing sand off Aberlady Bay formed Gullane Hill and encouraged the fescues and bent grasses that made it a near perfect site for the Scottish national game. It also created far more change in elevation than is usual for a links course.

Willie Park, Sr., winner of the very first Open Championship laid out the present eighteen of Gullane #1 soon after the Gullane Golf Club was formed in 1882. So popular was the site and the club that fully three eighteens were created by 1910. Park's course begins with a shortish par 4, but is followed immediately by Gullane's most challenging and perhaps its most famous hole. Number two is a 379 yard par 4 straight up Gullane Hill through a narrow valley requiring two long and precise shots into the prevailing wind to reach an equally narrow green. The par five third hole is recognised as one of the top 500 holes in the world. After the opening three, the golfer continues to ascend the Hill until reaching the seventh tee which Bernard Darwin called the best view in golf. Looking backward from the ninth tee affords a splendid view of neighbouring Muirfield and a curious view of tank traps constructed during World War II to thwart invasion. Number eighteen brings one back to the village with its excellent pro shop and golf museum.

Nearly every year the Open comes to Muirfield, #1 is the site of the qualifying competitions. The Club organized the British Ladies Championship in 1897 and served as host when Babe Zaharias won in 1947. It regularly hosts national and minor championships as well. Whether a championship competitor or a weekend duffer, anyone who plays Gullane would be well advised to eschew length for accuracy. The deep fescue rough is as savage here as it is at Muirfield, albeit perhaps a bit farther from the centre of the fairway.

Independent travellers: Gullane Golf Club sets astride the A198 on the western edge of the village of Gullane. Report to the visitors' clubhouse on the south side of the road. Changing rooms and food service are available in the clubhouse.