Scotland's Craigielaw: A stunning new classic links

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New golf course development is at best, a very competitive field. Try to develop a new course in Scotland where there are already more than 500 courses, many of them century old champions and established names known to golfers around the globe and the task becomes nothing less than daunting.

Craigielaw may be only 8 years old but the feel is that of a crusty old centenarian.

Bunkering is cunning and fraught with danger.

Ancient stone-walls are only a part of Craigielaw's defense arsenal.

Totally exposed to cantankerous winds Craigielaw is pure links golf at its best.

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Luckily for golfers everywhere, these details didn't deter the developers of one of Scotland's newer links courses at Craigielaw Golf Club. They even took the challenge a few notches higher and chose to develop their course in the heart of the heaviest concentration of quality layouts in existence, the county of East Lothian, located just 30 minutes outside of Edinburgh.

East Lothian, better known as Edinburgh's Golf Coast, is home to the world's top ranked links course at Muirfield, headquarters of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, the oldest golf club in existence and responsible for writing the very first rules of the game. This is where you will find fabled North Berwick, a links so good it has been impersonated by golf architects around the globe.

Musselburgh is the world's oldest playing course and hosted 6 British Open Championships in the late 19th century. There is an historic links at Dunbar and another trio in Gullane. More golf beauties are located nearby at The Glen, Longniddry, Luffness New, Royal Musselburgh and Kilspindie. And all of this golfing wealth is focused into a brief 25-mile stretch of glorious East Lothian coastline. Now there's a new course on the list, the upstart youngster at Craigielaw.

In the 600-year old game of golf, newcomers, no matter how good they might be, are seldom welcomed with open arms. Tradition demands they must first prove themselves over time, gaining experience and maturity. If they are up to it and have the staying power, eventually they may earn the respect of their elders - it's a laborious process that can take many years and often over a century to accomplish.

But nobody explained the rules to Craigielaw and since opening just 8 years ago, it has taken East Lothian and indeed, the rest of Scotland by storm -- Craigielaw has become, at least in traditional golf terms, an overnight success. Play it once and you will discover why; this is an extraordinary links course in an exceptional location and as good...even better than many of the well-known courses you have been dreaming of. Craigielaw's rocket ride to stardom is no accident; any course this good deserves nothing less.

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear and the site selected for Craigielaw is about as good as anyone could have wished. This might be the most pedigreed piece of linksland in all Scotland - Mary Queen of Scots played golf over this same land back in the 16th century.

Surrounded by golf history, Craigielaw is located immediately adjacent to the ancient links of Kilspindie on one side, with highly regarded Longniddry Golf Club on the other. Muirfield and the 3 links layouts at Gullane are only a couple of miles further along a coast Mother Nature designed with only golf in mind.

Given the perfect palette to work with, noted British designer, Donald Steel, has conjured up a genuinely natural piece of links magic that seems to have been sitting here for a hundred years. Steel's respect and sensitivity for links courses comes shining through in grand style. He has worked with Mother Nature and not against her; there have been no massive transformations of the landscape, only a very thoughtful routing of the holes, showing off the God-given terrain to its best golfing advantage.

The end result is a tough links layout, more than enough to test the most accomplished scratch golfer from the back tees, yet with a selection of three tee positions, a course to also be savored by the mid to high handicapper.

Measuring a hair over 6,600 yards from the tips, Craigielaw is filled with imagination and variety, each hole seeming to offer a totally different challenge from the previous and every one a joy to play. Void of the gimmickry found on many links, Craigielaw has no need of such things -- it's arsenal of defenses is to say the least, formidable. There are meandering streams, ancient stonewalls and the ever-present, though always unpredictable wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth.

The rough is vicious, shrewdly placed bunkers, both fairway and greenside, present a veritable army of the most frightening defenders to be found in Scotland. Craigielaw's bunkering is nothing less than superb. The greens are immaculate, mostly domed, difficult to hold and filled with undulations, sometimes subtle, often not - but always in perfect condition.

This is a layout to please even the most dyed-in-the-wool links purist and all in the midst of a bevy of East Lothian's best and most historic courses. It's refreshing to find a new links layout of this caliber, filled with character, true to links traditions and offering as tough an examination of golf as any of its neighbors. Craigielaw may have taken Scotland's golfing world by storm, but you get the feeling this was only the beginning. Already ranked among the elite group of East Lothian's must play layouts, Craigielaw has a great future ahead, so best play it soon, before the crowds descend.

For a few ideas on how to include Craigielaw and a few other East Lothian gems on your Scottish golf trip, click here.

©2009 David Brice / Golf International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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