Moray Old: A quintessential links golf with a rich history

If you want to know what links golf is really all about, and how the game was played back in the late 19th century, then you will not find a more quintessentially traditional seaside layout anywhere in Scotland.

The holes at Moray meander between patches of gorse; sometimes so open that it can hard to discern the right way forward and at other times with the trouble encroaching almost claustrophobically towards the very edge of the fairways.

Expect fast, firm fairways and greens, uneven stances, the occasional blind shot and at the very least a sporting breeze. But the real test at Moray, as at so many courses of this vintage, comes not from the tee but when you get much closer to the greens.

History

Many members will also know that MGC can boast of the first ever female professional golfer in Britain from when Meg Farquhar aged 19 became Assistant to George Smith in 1929.

It was reported in the Gloucestshire Echo in 1993 that Miss Farquhar once struck a “mighty 310 yard drive” on the ninth hole, which reached the green. Meg was only 21 at the time.

The Old Course at Moray has barely changed in the near-century-and-a-quarter since it was designed by none other than Old Tom Morris. And why should it? The course is simply the result of the natural undulations of the land coupled with Old Tom’s eye for routing; how best to link together the individual holes into a course of balance and challenges.

Ramsay MacDonald, the UK’s first Labour Prime Minister, was excluded from Moray Golf Club and mercilessly attacked by the press for his opposition to the Great War, but went on to hold the top job on two occasions.

What makes it special

This region actually boats a surprisingly temperate climate considering how far north it is.

Protected on three sides by mountains, only when the weather comes from the north east – which thankfully does not happen too frequently – do conditions turn really nasty. Most of the time this is one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom.