Bogey:
Go -- by all means, go! Two days would be fun, for reasons I'll explain.
Cullen was one of the real highlights of my lone trip to Scotland. Full of quirk, an easy walk, a round that won't last two hours (so you can play it several times a day if you want), a warm and inviting clubhouse, local folks who are genuinely pleased to see someone from our side of the ocean visit their small, often bypassed burg. The honorary president of the club is the The Right Honourable The Earl of Seafield -- how bad can it be?
In truth, there is a bit of mundane-ness to parts of the course. After the straightforward opener, the 2nd is a par 3 "up and over" shot that takes you to an almost meadow-like portion of the course -- the turf here doesn't quite have the linksy character of the holes nearer the coastline. But this small stretch of holes includes a couple of fun par 3s. Then you're at the 7th -- a truly heroic hole, a long par 3 of well over 200 yards (maybe it's a par 4; par is largely irrelevant here) from a tee on high to a green far down below. Great stuff. Then you play out to the farthest reaches of the course before turning back to take on the back nine, and the sea cliffs that dominate the middle section of the course. The two par 3s -- the 12th and 13th -- are great fun, and true "Dell" holes in which the target is hidden. The closing holes are flat and not terribly challenging, but run over true links turf. Overall, a course much in the spirit of golf in smaller, out of the way communities in Scotland -- a course built on the land available, with imaginative routing, and the usual conventions of par and length thrown out the window.
A highlight of the clubhouse is lunch (or dinner) with a bowl of Cullen skink -- a local delicacy, akin to New England Clam Chowder, prepared with the catch from the local fisheries.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/travel/fare-of-the-country-the-smoky-soup-of-scotland.html?pagewanted=all&src=pmSadly, this is an area often overlooked by visitors to Scotland, and esp. of the golfing set from the States, who view the northern Scottish holy grails soley in terms of Dornoch and Cruden Bay and rarely bother to look for anything in between. Lossiemouth Old and New are not too far down the road to the west (although the pace of traveling on these roads is leisurely), and Elgin is a short 10-minute trip south of Lossiemouth with a fine inland course. The community of Buckie along the way offers two modest courses (Buckpool and Strathlene), while the twin ports of Banff and MacDuff offer an 18-hole Mackenzie (Duff House Royal) and Royal Tarlair, home of the famous par 3 13th hole "Clivet," where if you hit it long, your relief is somewhere on the Shetland Islands.
But a real highlight just east of Cullen is the cliff-hugging town of Gardenstown (no golf), where the small fishing village hangs to the side of the cliffs that dominate the terrain here. From Gardenstown you can walk across the beach to the single row of homes that comprise the tiny village of Crovie, where residents park in a lot at the end of the village and walk to their home. Nearly wiped out in a huge storm years ago, the town still stands, home mainly to holiday cottages and vacationers. A true step back in time.
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/gardenstown/crovie/A great, wonderfully scenic part of the country, where Scottish nationalism and pride runs very deep, and the conversations can be hard to follow, so thick is the brogue here. But folks are generous and friendly, and it's well worth a visit.