Cawder Golf Club (Championship)

Cawder Golf Club members are in the enviable position of not only having two fine 18-hole courses on which to play, they also have a magnificent old 17th century mansion house as a clubhouse, bringing a degree of grandeur to the proceedings before and after a round of golf here.

Routed over gently undulating parkland with mature trees in abundance, the Cawder courses are amongst the very best 36-hole golf facilities in west central Scotland. The Keir course – with no par fives – is a bit on the short side at only 5,871 yards but the main course, the Championship, measures a very reasonable 6,297 yards with a par of 70.

James Braid laid out the original courses in the mid 1930s but the Championship has been redesigned on several occasions since then. The first time was just after World War II, then in the late 1960s when part of the course was lost to mine workings. The final draft of the present layout was completed in 1981 and the course has remained largely intact since then.

There are some pleasant changes in elevation throughout the round on the Championship course with a lovely surprise near the end – at “Kelvin,” the 454-yard 14th and “The Gardens,” the 390-yard 15th – where water comes into play, offering beauty and danger in equal measure.