North Berwick Golf Club and the West Links

A seaside links older than the club

Golf has been played over the West Links at North Berwick since the 17th century, on a stretch of ground at the edge of the Firth of Forth. The club itself was formed in 1832, which its own history describes as making it the thirteenth oldest in the world, on the account of one reliable source.

The founding was a modest affair. There were ten founders, only one of them, Captain Brown, a Waterloo veteran, living in North Berwick. The others were for the most part drawn from what the club calls the gentry and nobility of the surrounding countryside.

A clubhouse and a second club

In 1879 the question of acquiring a clubhouse was raised, not for the first time. Remarkably, the club had been content until then with marquees for its meetings and dinners. To widen the membership, which stood at about 60, a new club was formed and called the North Berwick New Golf Club, or simply the New Club.

Most members of the old club joined it, and membership climbed to 143 by 1883. The clubhouse opened in 1880. In 1894 the New Club took over the lease of the links, and the older club carried on with a shrinking membership until 1963, when its 27 remaining members agreed unanimously to merge. The merged club took the name The North Berwick Golf Club, which is why it can claim its 1832 start.

Women on the West Links

North Berwick Ladies’ Golf Club was formed in 1888, and played a nine-hole course laid out twenty years earlier, next to the present 16th fairway. The ladies’ first clubhouse was a timber building in the grounds of the Marine Hotel. In 1935 they began to play the West Links itself and shared the clubhouse as associate members.

In 2005 the separate Ladies’ club was formally integrated into The North Berwick Golf Club, with full voting rights and representation on the committee.

The Redan and the town

The 15th hole, the Redan, is the West Links’ most copied idea. It has been replicated at many courses around the world, with the architects Charles B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor most associated with it.

The railway arrived in North Berwick in 1850, and in the late nineteenth century the town developed its golfing and holiday facilities, becoming popular with Edinburgh commuters. The West Links has hosted Final Qualifying for The Open Championship and the men’s and women’s Amateur Championships. The clubhouse overlooks the 18th green, and was refurbished in 2008.

Champions and the shore

North Berwick became a fashionable holiday resort in the nineteenth century, thanks to its two sandy bays. Willie Anderson, a golfer from the town, won the US Open four times, in 1901 and from 1903 to 1905.

Offshore, the Bass Rock holds a thriving colony of seabirds, including puffins and gannets, which can be watched at close range through remote cameras at the Scottish Seabird Centre near the harbour. North Berwick Law, a volcanic hill of 613 feet, rises above the town.

Visiting

North Berwick is about 20 miles east-northeast of Edinburgh, on the same ScotRail line that has linked it to the city since 1850. The town has two courses, the West Links and the Glen, or East Links, and a Golfing Heritage Trail runs through it.

Our advice: take the train, play or walk the West Links, and finish at the clubhouse above the 18th green, where the club says every visitor is treated like a member for the day.