Gullane Golf Club Number One

East Lothian is an area blessed with incredible golf courses like Muirfield and North Berwick, but Gullane more than deserves its place alongside them.

Gullane No.1 might be ranked by us as the third-best links in its own area, but that scenario is proof that stats can be deeply misleading at times.

No.1 might well have two ‘better’ links ahead of it in East Lothian, but when you consider those above it are Muirfield and North Berwick, the context suddenly changes everything.

COURSE REVIEW: North Berwick Golf Club

In fact, to be rated the third finest course in this coastal area to the east of Edinburgh is something in itself to boast about. It sits in an area so well-stocked with classic seaside courses that it had EIGHT in our GB&I Links Top 100. One in 12 of the courses in that prestigious list were from this relatively small area of Scotland.

COURSE REVIEW: Muirfield Golf Club

No.1 is part of a 54-hole complex located in a village steeped in golf – one that has two courses in our Links Top 100 and a third that was a contender for it. No.1 is the premier course, although some believe No.2 (see below) is all but its equal. Some neutral locals, indeed, prefer its more steady fare to the entertainment of North Berwick.

It begins and ends in the town – just a few yards from the omnipresent A198 that snakes between the club’s courses – and rises to the crest of Gullane Hill, from where a legendary view is enjoyed.

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It hosted the 2015 Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open over a composite course of 16 of its holes plus two from No.2.

Members of the club, founded in 1884, enjoy frim seaside turf, pot bunkers, wispy grasses and smooth greens on all three links with No.1 having the more memorable holes, not least the corridor-narrow 2nd and spectacular par-5 3rd.

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