Cruden Bay Golf Club (Championship Course)

An Unforgettable Walk Through the Dunes

The Championship Course at Cruden Bay Golf Club opened in 1899 after the Great North of Scotland Railway commissioned a links beside its new hotel. Old Tom Morris worked on the original layout with Archie Simpson. Tom Simpson and Herbert Fowler then reshaped it in 1926 while retaining much of the earlier routing and several green sites.

The course follows a figure-of-eight path through immense sandhills, so neighbouring holes often disappear from view. Elevated tees reveal rumpled fairways below before the route drops into sheltered hollows, where punchbowl greens sit between the dunes.

The par-three 4th crosses a deep hollow towards a raised green beside the Water of Cruden. Later, the closing stretch brings blind shots and back-to-back par threes before the route changes direction again. The North Sea remains close throughout, yet much of the course feels enclosed within its own pocket of linksland.