Tim,
I'm off to play Elie in a few weeks.
I'll take some photos and share them here.
Ian,
Thanks. I'd appreciate that. Something tells me I would love the place.
Would enjoy hearing more about the club/community culture.
Hi Tim
Nobody seems to want to say much about the club/community culture, so I'll throw in my 2 cents based on my 20+ years living nearby in Fife.
As to the club, there are (or at least used to be) three in Elie/Earlsferry (which I'll call "Elie" from now on for brevity)--Golf House Club (the posh one); Earlsferry Thistle (the "artisans" club, whose clubhouse on the 4th is now a pub); and a ladies club. All the great golfers who came out of Elie (Braid, the Simpson brothers and Rolland) were of the artisan ilk and belonged to the Thistle. When I moved to Fife in 1991, my wife and I took a drive up there to play a game and there was a "No Dogs and Women" sign outside the clubhouse, so we beat a hasty and indignant retreat. Shortly after that a very well-connected friend of mine from my annual 1980's visits to Dornoch asked me, since I now lived in Fife, whether or not I wanted to join the Golf House Club. I knew then that GHCE was a waiting room for entrance to the R&A and this was a chance to get on the ladder to GCA geek Nirvana, but I declined, as I prefered to not be a member of a club which treated women as second-class citizens. Maybe it has changed since. Mark will know.
As to the community, Elie is a typical Fife coastal village which is semi-comatose from October to April (I know, because I have been there many times in the winter and live in a similar place). In the summer, however, it is heaving with families and children and even sunshine from time to time, and the beaches and the golf courses and the tennis courts are full of well-buffed and happy families with children. There is even a Michelin-starred restaurant on the main Street and a fine pub down by the harbour which sponsors cricket matches on the mud flats when the tide goes out, more that once including players from test sides, including the West Indian team. All that being said, it is very much a village with a locals/incomers dichotomoy. The incomers tend to be largely leading (or wannabe-leading) familiy members of the professional communities of Glasgow and Edinburgh (lawyers, accountants, bankers, doctors, etc.), whilst the locals are the tradesmen and tradeswomen who serve them. It's a mini-Southampton/Boston North Shore, but without the additional soupcon of serious wealth.
As to the golf, Tony's great photo thread above says it all. While there are a very few finer courses in Scotland, there are even fewer ones that I would want to play again, and again, and again.....
Rich