Cruden Bay Golf Club

The verdict

Cruden Bay is the great cult course of the Scottish coast, the one that sober, well travelled golfers come back from raving about. It sits on a strip of giant dunes on the Aberdeenshire coast, north of Aberdeen and just below the fishing town of Peterhead, where the village of Cruden Bay and the ruin of Slains Castle look down on a perfect two mile crescent of sand. Golf has been played here since the 1890s, the links opening in 1899 to a layout by Old Tom Morris and the Royal Aberdeen professional Archie Simpson. In 1926 Tom Simpson and Herbert Fowler reworked it into the course we play today, and Simpson, never short of confidence, rated it among his very best.

What you get is not a polished championship test but something rarer and more fun: a roller coaster of a links that throws blind drives, plunging valleys, a green tucked twenty feet below the fairway and one of the finest short par 3s in Scotland at you over eighteen holes, all of it framed by the sea. Purists argue about whether its quirks are genius or madness, and that argument is exactly the point. For the travelling golfer building a northeast Scotland trip, Cruden Bay is the wild card that everyone remembers, the round that makes the whole journey worthwhile.

The holes worth the trip

Cruden Bay opens gently along the flat by the clubhouse before tipping you down into the dunes, where the fun really starts. The standout is the 4th, a short par 3 that plays across a valley to a green set into the base of the big dunes, with the beach and the bay behind it. It is routinely named among the best one shot holes in Scotland, and on a still evening it is as pretty a tee shot as the game offers. The par 5 6th carries the name the Bluidy Burn, after a battle in 1012 in which the Scots are said to have driven the Danes off this very ground, the burn that crosses the hole running red for days afterward.

The back nine is where Cruden Bay earns its reputation for glorious eccentricity. The 14th, a short par 4 called the Whins, drops to a green sunk so far below the fairway that you cannot see the putting surface from the landing area, a blind approach into a natural amphitheatre that no modern architect would dare build and every golfer adores. The 15th plays through a gap in the dunes to another hidden target, and the closing holes climb back toward the clubhouse with the whole sweep of the bay laid out behind you. Some of it is unfair, all of it is memorable, and that mix is precisely why Cruden Bay has a hold on the people who have played it.

None of it overwhelms with length. At a shade over 6,600 yards off the back tees the course defends itself with contour, wind and the cleverness of Simpson's green sites rather than yardage, so it rewards imagination and a deft short game far more than raw power. Play it once and you spend the drive home arguing about your favourite hole.

Where to stay nearby

Cruden Bay village sits right beside the course, with the comfortable Kilmarnock Arms in the centre and a scatter of guesthouses within walking distance of the first tee, a relaxed base for a links pilgrimage. For more polish, the city of Aberdeen is around forty minutes south and offers full service hotels, good restaurants and an airport with direct flights, making it the natural hub for a northeast trip.

Most visiting golfers build Cruden Bay into a wider tour of the Aberdeenshire and Highland coast, pairing it with Royal Aberdeen and Murcar on the city's edge and pushing north to Royal Dornoch and the great links of the far north. A long weekend out of Aberdeen, or a week working up the coast, turns this single round into one of the best links trips in the country.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near Cruden Bay.