The Bottom Line
- One of the world's 10 oldest golf courses
- Windswept and wild
Description
- A venerable old lady of Scottish Golf
- "One of the toughest challenges in golf."
- A public links where golfers one and all are welcome
Guide Review - Historic Carnoustie
For more than 500 years golf has been played over the links at Carnoustie in Scotland, as evidenced by this extract from the Registrum de Panmure which refers to one, Sir Robert Maule (1497-1560):
“He was ane man of comlie behaviour, of hie stature and sicnuine in collure both of hyde and haire, colarique of nature subject to suddane anger… lykewakes he exercisit at the gowf and oftimes past to Barry Lynks… this was the yeir of God 1527 or thear abouts”
The reference to “Barry Lynks” is thought to be the section of the course now known as the Barry Burn.
The origins of Carnoustie golf club itself are shrouded in the mists of time. Some give the founding year as 1839, but others would have it as early as 1835.
The first real golf course at Carnoustie was planned and laid out by Robert Chambers, a publisher from Edinburgh, in the early 1830s. But it was Alan Robertson of St Andrews who, in 1850, designed the basics of the course we know today. Old Tom Morris redesigned and extended it to a full 18 holes in the early 1870s, and James Braid put his stamp on Carnoustie in 1926.
Though the members were essentially happy with Braid’s vision of Carnoustie, it was felt by many that, for all its redesigns and renovations, something was still lacking – the finish was “weak.” And so, just in time for the 1937 Open Championship, the final three holes at Carnoustie were redesigned by local architect, James Wright. Today, Wright is credited with having produced the “toughest finishing stretch in golf,” and Carnoustie has taken her rightful place among the venerable old ladies of Scottish golf.
Little has changed at Carnoustie over the past 70 years. Today, you’ll walk the links and find them much as they were when Jim Wright finished work on the final three – tough and uncompromising.
