Peterhead Golf Club was founded in 1841, making it one of the oldest golf clubs in the world. Their present day Craigewan Links (Previously known as the Old course) was originally created as a 9-hole affair, designed by two times Open Champion, Willie Park Junior in 1892. It was extended to 18 holes sixteen years later by Archie Simpson, then a New course was added fifteen years after that in 1923. The New course was reduced in size to its present 9-hole layout when it fell into disrepair during the early 1940s.
Laid out among the sand hills that lie to the north of where the River Ugie meets the North Sea, the Craigewan is a natural links with contours that owe little to the hand of man and everything to the assistance of Mother Nature – old-fashioned layouts like this are discovered and never manufactured, of course.
Two of the best holes on the card are found back-to-back at the furthest point from the clubhouse. The outward half ends with “St.Fergus,” the 460-yard, par four, bunker-free 9th where the fairway runs along a valley between dunes to a green that requires a very precise approach to hit and hold. The back nine then starts with “Cottage,” the 133-yard, par three 10th hole which has a burn in front and five bunkers surrounding a green that slopes from back to front.
Peterhead constructed a new clubhouse in 1996 and it was here that Butch Harmon – well known American golf instructor – declared to those members present when he visited in 2005 that the course was a real “hidden gem” which he had really enjoyed playing. Praise indeed from a respected figure who has walked many a fine fairway around the world!
