What is a Links and what isn’t a Links?

[Duncan Cheslett]

Ed Battye rivals Sean Arble as today’s leading reviewer of U.K. golf courses. His Golf Empire website is primarily a directory of open competitions but also features an impressive section of Ed’s reviews of courses.


He has just taken on the unenviable task of attempting to list all the true links courses in the U.K. Linked to the list is a lengthy article explaining his rationale


[size=78%]https://www.golfempire.co.uk/golf-course-reviews/info/links-spectrum-list.htm[/size]

[Mark Pearce]

Ed Battye rivals Sean Arble as today’s leading reviewer of U.K. golf courses.

Who?

[Adam Lawrence]

Ed is a pretty good judge of a golf course and not a bad writer. His Askernish piece might be my favourite thing I have read about the course.

[Sean_A]

Ed Battye rivals Sean Arble as today’s leading reviewer of U.K. golf courses. His Golf Empire website is primarily a directory of open competitions but also features an impressive section of Ed’s reviews of courses.


He has just taken on the unenviable task of attempting to list all the true links courses in the U.K. Linked to the list is a lengthy article explaining his rationale


[size=78%]https://www.golfempire.co.uk/golf-course-reviews/info/links-spectrum-list.htm[/size]

I couldn't finish the article as it was very complicated and difficult to follow. That said I can't get my head around Sheringham as a links. I don't think it plays or looks linksy. I would say it's much closer to a downland course than a links.

Ciao

[Tony_Muldoon]

Can't see how you decide the higher course at Portrush is pure links and the lower not?


At least he admits its arbitrary.

[Thomas Dai]

Here’s a further link that should provide more insight into the formulation of the listings -
https://www.golfempire.co.uk/golf-course-reviews/info/links-spectrum.htm - it includes comments for individual courses. Note it’s quite a long piece so quite a bit of scrolling is needed.
Atb

[Ally Mcintosh]

I like Ed’s enthusiasm and writing in general.


There are always going to be a few strange choices as there seems to be with any list of true links... one of these days I might have a go myself to see if I can iron out these anomalies.


In this list, aside from a couple of obvious ones (like Portrush as mentioned by Tony), one of the stranger decisions was equating almost all modern builds with the term “faux links”: Machrihanish Dunes is as “true links” as they come. It is the definition of the words. It is a very, very different proposition to Castle Stuart which rightly is classified as faux links.

[Tom_Doak]

Can't see how you decide the higher course at Portrush is pure links and the lower not?


At least he admits is arbitrary.

There is no accepted definition, so it is all arbitrary.


Worse yet, the only purpose of such discussions is to cast some courses as authentic and, more importantly, disqualify others.  That's why I try not to get sucked in.  It's all golf.

[jeffwarne]

I saved the link for reference purposes-lots of work went into that, even if it made my head hurt.


I find the best is recommendations from this website and others (Top100 Golf is ever improving)and I really try not to get too wrapped up definitions of "links".
In fact some of the coolest courses I've seen had a bit of mix of terrain, soils and topography that I thoroughly enjoyed. Golspie,Cardigan, Durness,Bull Bay, Portsalon and several of the local 9 holers in Tasmania I stumbled on come to mind.
You'd miss a lot choosing only to play someone's definition of 18 "True Links" holes

[Jeff Schley]

Wow that is alot of stuff to digest. That isn't an article it is a reference and may come in handy as a POV at some point. Good catalog of information, I haven't seen many of those courses so for what he views as a links vs. not is probably at least consistent.

[Thomas Dai]

Land has many uses and growing food is an extremely important one.
If the local residents/farmers had been able to successfully grow crops on a particular portion of land in the centuries before golf was invented then golf would likely never have been ultimately played on that portion of land. Same with heathland and moorland and downland and marsh land etc.
Atb

[Peter Flory]

I'm OK if I'm playing something that is only 88.5% links.  Being in Chicagoland, I'll settle for something that is 5% links.  I've driven an hour to play Harborside...

[Niall C]

I read the article and it is a list of lists. He didn't really give his own definition or explained why he thought individual courses made the grade which I think would have made it a more interesting read. That said, I was surprised how many of them I've played and I don't know that is a good thing. I like the idea that there are a lot more courses out there to see.


I also agree with Jeff, some of the more fun and interesting courses possibly wouldn't make the grade for any of the lists mentioned but you'd be missing out on if you passed them by.


Niall

[Forrest Richardson]

George Pepper knows my displeasure with his definition, in which he excluded my Links at Las Palomas in Sonora , Mexico — even though it WAS a links. From my book:

links  — Seaside golf course constructed on a natural sandy
landscape that has been shaped by the wind and receding tides
(from the Old English “hlincas”, meaning the plural of a ridge,
a Scottish term to mean the undulating sandy ground near
a shore )

[Forrest Richardson]

Tom D. obviously is missing my book/dictionary. And, here i thought his GCA library was robust, accurate and complete. Ha!