Royal Aberdeen GC (Pictures)

[Evan_Green]

Here are some photos from Royal Aberdeen. Well worth playing in its own right, it makes for a great 36 hole day in combination with a round at Cruden Bay.

What impressed me the most about this course was the tremendous size of the dunes on the front nine.


The charming clubhouse. The opening tee shot is nerve-wracking given its proximity to the large clubhouse windows. the first tee is on the left side of the picture.


View from the 1st tee and clubhouse. How many clubhouses have a view like this?












My pal is 6 feet tall. Look at the size of these dunes!


Wonderful movement of the terrain.












What a par 3! #17


#18. A bear of a par 4.

[Mark_F]

Evan,

Royal Aberdeen is a fabulous course that unfairly gets dissed because of an apparently ordinary back nine.  

Maybe a couple in the middle aren't all that flash,  but 10,11, 16, 17 and 18 at least are all terrific.  

Much better than Cruden Bay...

[Paul_Daley]

Mark: I agree, and one of the main reasons why this links gets overlooked is, the golfer's mad rush to get to Cruden Bay and Royal Dornoch. Limited time and budgets, Carnousite gets the bulk of East Coast traffic, and so "Aber" misses out. That said, it is notorious for not actually telling the world about it's charms, either. Another top East Coast links to miss out on the fanfare is Montrose.  

[ForkaB]

Good stuff, Evan

People who prefer Cruden Bay to Royal Aberdeen must be more into eye candy (from the clubhouse and out on the course) than GCA.  Golf-wise, there is really no comparison, as Mark rightly says.

[ForkaB]

Sean

As usual, I overexaggerated.  RA, Murcar and CB are all fine courses, and roughly in that order.  Also 2nd tier vis a vis links, as you have suggested (but that's a very elite 2nd tier--Nairn, Westward Ho!, Lahinch, North Berwick, etc.).

I too am a Montrose virgin, alas.  Let me know when you're going to be there.

[Mark_F]

Rich,

People could also prefer CB because it's a damn sight easier to find.

I'm sure I must have driven past RA's entrance several times last trip...

[Darren_Kilfara]

I had a delightful game at RA this past summer - they held an Open competition with a £20 entry fee, and it was a warm and sunny day with just enough of a breeze to keep things interesting. I think CB is the more interesting golf experience (which hasn't been mentioned yet as a factor in its popularity), but RA is undoubtedly a more classical and polished course. I rather liked the back nine, too...the front nine is wilder and justly more famous, but the back nine was plenty interesting, and tough as nails to boot, so I think it gets an undeserved bad rap.

By the by, you know the ridge running through the middle of the 7th green? In that Open the pin was cut just on the top side of the ridge; I was just over the back-left of the green in two and made a seven, after chipping down to the wrong half of the green, putting four feet past the hole, then putting back down the slope to where my chip ended up. Can't remember the last time I hit a four-footer 25 feet past the hole!

(One other note: I enjoyed Montrose but I don't think it's anywhere near the class of RA and CB. Too much flattish terrain mixed in with the interesting stuff.)

Cheers,
Darren

[ForkaB]

You're on, Sean

However, like Hamilton, I will aim to miss. Hopefully you will not be like Burr and shoot to kill.  Presuming so, we will just dust ourselves off, have a quick 18 at North Berwick, where I will show you where and how you have gone tragically wrong.....

[Paul_Daley]

Sean: there's no shame in missing Montrose: nearly everyone misses it - perhaps surprising on account of it being the 4th or 5th oldest golf course/club in existence. The design is not flawless, or even near-flawless, but the good stuff makes a round an enjoyable journey. The club hangs it's hat on the par-3 third hole, known as "Table", which runs diagonally away from the shoreline. At 6,400 yards and a par-71, the layout is not long, but in a stiff brezze - like all of them - this links is a bear.

There is another famous par-3 at Montrose known as "Gully", where the green, seemingly, spews and falls in every direction. Given it's length of 235 yards, a saving grace is that it is often played downwind.

Montrose is, at times, a sight for sore eyes, with its blazing golden gorse and dune-binding fescue running rampant.
 

[Keith Durrant]

Paul, from Montroselinks.co.uk, here's a picture of "Table":



And "Gully" from the tee:



And its wonderful green !

[Paul_Daley]

Keith: That is a welcome filip to log-on and see images of two fine Montrose par-3s. Good on you! For those who haven't played Montrose, the shoreline is quite close to the right of "Table's" tee. What the image doesn't portray is how the tee-shot is angled 45 degrees away from the coast. When the pin is located hard-right, and the wind is whipping off the sea, the 154-yard shot is something else - the type of shot that Lee Trevino would eat for breakfast.    

[Brian_Ewen]

Paul , agree with your thoughts on 'table' .

Also , that pic must be taken from the dunes , as there is no way you see that much of the green from the tee .

Anyone got any pics. of other Park jnr 'Table' holes ? .

Brian

[redanman]

Royal Aberdeen is a real favorite of mine and I am a champion of its ignored/dissed second nine.  It has several direction changes and although the terrain is flatter than the all-worldly dunes of the first nine, it is wonderful golf all-round.

[Bill_McBride]

Somewhere I have a photo of the cliff behind the clubhouse at Crail with the gorse in full golden bloom.  There is nothing more beautiful!  What are the months of gorse in bloom?  I was in Scotland (and Wales too) in May with beautiful bloom, but July in St. Andrews it was all gone.

Bandon Dunes Resort has some beautiful gorse blooming too.

[David_Tepper]

Bill -

The gorse in and around Dornoch seems to bloom in mid-May. I have been there 3 times in mid-May and the bloom is usally going full blast right around then. Being out on RDGC when the gorse is in full bloom is almost sensory overload.

A good number of the rape seed fields are in yellow bloom about that same time. Between the gorse and the rape seed, the countryside is alive with yellow.

As my May visits to Dornoch have gotten a little longer, it seems like the gorse bloom starts to fade a bit by the end of May.

My guess is the timing of the bloom is dependent upon the local/regional climates in Scotland and how harsh or mild the winter & spring have been.

DT


   

[Andrew Mitchell]

Evan

Great pictures - brought back happy memories of my visit last September.  We had similar overcast skies but it looks as if the sun came out for you on the bacjk nine!

We played Cruden Bay the following day. I enjoyed the course and the quirky lay out at Cruden Bay but the overall conditioning (the greens in particular) was poor in comparison with RAGC. The greens at RA were superb.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

My wife and I were in Dumfries and Galloway last weekend (not golfing) and there was lots of gorse in bloom - not yet full out but near enough.