Muirfield Golf Club

Muirfield is home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and 16-time host course of The Open Championship. Golf World Top 100 Courses rankings editor Chris Bertram explains why it is thought of so highly.

The home of the fabled Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers might not be laid out over the most interesting terrain or offer the spectacular views of other elite links in the UK&I but its relentlessly strategic and fair examination rarely fails to impress those who visit.

Testament to that suggestion is the fact only great players win Opens at Muirfield – including Jack Nicklaus, who named his own club in Ohio after it – because its combination of cleverly-positioned penal bunkering, constantly changing direction and subtle difficulty around and on the greens results in a comprehensive examination that separates the greats from the merely gifted.

Being laid out in two loops, with the first nine played clockwise around the perimeter and the back nine anti-clockwise inside it, gives this storied links its constantly changes of direction.

Muirfield is all class. It will test you off the tee and it will test you even if you have found its tight fescue fairways. Everything is precise, from placement of the sharp-edged bunkers to the mowing lines down the fairways and around the greens.

A better presented links you will not find in this country.

Connoisseurs who play here will lap it up. Thrill seekers may left feeling all the fuss is a little overdone. No-one will leave thinking they have had anything other than a special experience.

This is one of the days you remember.

It is also important to note that once you have organised your tee time (well in advance) on the limited periods of Tuesday and Thursday between 8.30am and 9.50am, you will be made most welcome here.

Do not expect to be changing in the greenkeeper’s shed or flatly ignored by members. You will find it is quite the opposite and most who visit here are pleasantly surprised at the warmth of the welcome.