The Great Linksland Awakening: Why Scottish Golf’s Best Secret Is Now Within Reach

There’s a moment that happens roughly once every five years when I’m covering a major championship—usually around the third round when the pressure cooker of competition really starts cooking—when I’ll catch myself thinking about a round I played somewhere nobody’s heard of. That’s when I know golf has gotten too complicated.

I’ve been fortunate enough to walk hundreds of courses in my 35 years covering this game. I’ve caddied for Tom Lehman when he was pressing hard for majors. I’ve watched the Tour evolve from something quasi-democratic into a increasingly stratified business. And I’ll tell you what strikes me most about the current golf landscape: we’ve created this weird mythology around linksland that prices ordinary golfers right out of the conversation.

The source article makes a compelling case that this doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, what the piece reveals is something I’ve suspected for years—there’s an entire tier of world-class Scottish, English, and Welsh golf that remains criminally underrated, wildly underplayed, and refreshingly affordable.

The Linksland Myth We’ve Built

Here’s what most casual golf fans understand about links golf: it’s where the Open Championship happens. St Andrews. Royal Birkdale. Carnoustie. These are the temples, and frankly, they’re built on a foundation of genuine greatness. But they’re also built on scarcity pricing that makes them feel less like public golf and more like a luxury good.

"Linksland golf is the original form of the game. Played on sandy turf that was once beneath the sea it is fast-running with fairways and green shaped by the ocean rather than machinery."

This is accurate, but it’s also become something of a trap. We’ve allowed ourselves to believe that if it’s not St Andrews or Muirfield, it’s somehow a consolation prize. That’s nonsense, and frankly, it’s costing amateur golfers some of the most rewarding rounds they could ever play.

In my experience covering the tour, I’ve noticed something interesting: the players who seem most at peace with their games aren’t necessarily the ones winning majors on championship layouts. They’re the ones who understand that golf, at its essence, is about the challenge and the journey—not the venue’s ranking.

The Five Hidden Treasures (And Why They Matter)

The article identifies five courses that represent genuine value:

Gullane No. 3 (starting at £70 weekdays)
Perranporth in Cornwall (£60)
Elie in Fife (£60 weekdays)
Newbiggin in northeast England (£30—yes, really)
Borth in Wales (£43)

What fascinates me about this list isn’t just the pricing—though that’s remarkable. It’s that these courses share something that often gets lost in the conversation about modern golf: they’re embedded in actual golf communities. Listen to this description of Gullane:

"Gullane is a special town. Everyone in golf knows about St Andrews – the greatest golf town of them all – but Gullane, a few miles east of Edinburgh, is the next best thing."

And then there’s this detail about Elie that made me smile:

"the starter famously has a submarine periscope at his (and your) disposal to check that the first fairway is clear for your first blow."

That’s not just quaint. That’s golf being golf—playful, slightly eccentric, grounded in tradition and community rather than corporate hospitality packages.

What This Reveals About Golf’s Current State

Having spent the better part of four decades watching professional golf evolve, I can tell you this: there’s been a genuine democratization happening in the background while everyone’s been focused on the LIV drama and the PGA Tour realignment. It’s the slow recognition that great golf doesn’t require a six-figure green fee.

The courses on this list represent something I think we desperately need more of: authentic golf experiences that don’t require a second mortgage. Perranporth demands "imagination" according to the piece—a line that stuck with me because modern course design has, in my view, become too safe, too predictable. Links golf, by contrast, still requires you to think.

What strikes me about courses like Newbiggin (starting at just £30) is that they’re removing the financial barrier to an authentic links experience. Yes, they might sit in less glamorous geography. Yes, the one in northeast England deals with "industry" nearby. But golf isn’t actually diminished by those factors. If anything, it’s enhanced. You’re not playing golf as a status symbol; you’re playing golf because you love the game.

The Broader Picture

The Tour has taught me that exclusivity can only last so long. Eventually, the market corrects. What’s happening with linksland accessibility feels like a correction—a recognition that you don’t need a championship pedigree to offer a championship experience.

The article doesn’t shy away from this either. It acknowledges that the famous Open venues "are difficult – or expensive – to play," then pivots immediately to solutions. That’s pragmatic thinking, and it’s also good for golf. When golfers discover that Elie can be just as rewarding as a pilgrimage to St Andrews, they stay engaged with the game longer. They travel more. They appreciate golf’s history more deeply.

The Real Story Here

In my view, what the article is really documenting is the discovery of depth. For years, links golf has been treated as a pyramid with a few famous names at the top. What’s becoming clear is that it’s actually an ocean—vast, varied, and mostly unexplored by the average golfer.

That’s genuinely exciting. And frankly, after three decades of covering a game that’s increasingly focused on distance, technology, and money, it’s refreshing to see a piece that asks a simple question: where can regular golfers experience real golf without breaking the bank?

The answer, it turns out, is all around them. They just need to look.