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Murcar Links Golf Club
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Great Courses of Britain and Ireland:
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© L.C. Lambrecht
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Set on dramatic dunesland next to Royal Aberdeen,
this wild links prepares for its 100th anniversary
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By
Tom Harack
If you agree that a golf adventure doesn’t have to begin or end at the links
themselves, the drive north along Scotland’s east coast to Murcar Links Golf
Club will be part of the fun. True, you can fly into Aberdeen, Murcar’s home,
but most American guests will be coming overland from St. Andrews, Edinburgh,
Glasgow and other points south.
Although the voyage takes about two
hours from St. Andrews depending on traffic, the route, mostly along A90, is
a revealing composite of Scottish life: quaint towns, expanses of rolling farm
terrain and the dunesland of a putative Donald Trump development, and
bustling urban centers like spunky Dundee and Aberdeen, which is at once a
strapping seaport and a vibrant university town.
Throw in the
left-hand manual transmission and orientation, traffic like crosstown Manhattan,
and the odd rapid-fire double roundabout, and the experience can be
intense. But just when one begins to anticipate an in-town golf
atmosphere—think Portmarnock or St. Andrews—a mile-long, single-lane dirt road
from the highway leads to the seclusion of Murcar.
Murcar is a links
layout of the high-dunes variety, which translates to numerous panoramas of the
North Sea, as well as dramatic changes in elevation and other severe
contours. Extreme examples include Tarbothill, the 402-yard 10th, where the
blind tee shot requires a 248-yard carry to the crest of a steep hill—into the
prevailing wind. More subtle manifestations are the sloping skirts and sudden
drop-offs surrounding many of the small greens. The holes are often tight,
though at just over 6,300 yards, the course is not long. The first
four holes tack from the clubhouse to the strand, with Murcar’s spectacular
six-hole stretch skirting the shoreline beginning at the 4th, a 489-yard par 5
that typically plays downwind, like the others in this sequence.
Other
highlights are the uphill 162-yard 5th, Plateau, and the 423-yard 7th, named
Serpentine for the burn crossing the fairway at 180 yards and a favorite of
members.
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