Think you know Scottish golf?

By Ken Moum| September 5, 2013

The 18th hole of Duddingston, with the clubhouse in the background, the pro shop is in that little bumpout on the right side. Between the 18th green and clubhouse, it’s barely 50 yards to the first tee, and the golfers you see in the back left are on the first fairway. Photo: Duddingston GC

I’m sure everyone who reads Golfdom knows that Scotland has more to offer golfers than links courses, but I am often surprised to hear American golfers say that they think it’s a place with almost no trees, and that the golf courses look dull, brown and treeless.

So it’s with great pleasure I offer you Duddingston GC in the heart of Edinburgh.

The club was established in 1895 as the Insurance & Banking Golf Club at the Duddingston estate by Edinburgh’s financial community. The land is part of a former deer estate and has many links with Scotland’s history including in 1745, prior to the Battle of Prestonpans, the encampment of the cavalry of Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in an area adjoining the course and known today as Cavalry Park.

Here at the short par four fifth hole, you see a tee shot that is familiar to anyone who has played a parkland course in America. Photo: Duddingston GC

Owned by the Duke of Abercorn the estate is just below the 823-foot-high extinct volcano known as Arthur’s Seat. Proof that golf course designers haven’t changed much over the last 120 years, Willie Park, the initial designer, on seeing the estate declared it to be of a size that would make a “first class course.”

One thing you’ll see at a course like Duddingston is this—a tee shot out of a chute.

But even with the familiar look of an American parkland course the maintenance model is very different.

It’s a model that everyone has seen on links courses played in The Open Championship, like last month’s event at Muirfield.

Note that here, on the 185-yard tenth hole, there’s virtually no rough around the green. The five bunkers aren’t just in play if you fly into them, a ball can be “collected” on a shot that appears to be headed for the green. Photo: Duddingston GC

As you can see here, it’s not as tight a cut as seen on linksland, but there’s certainly none of the ankle-deep rough we see on U.S. parkland courses.