Crail (Craighead) - Fife - Scotland

This could be good, if a lot of money was spent on this course. Gil Hanse has designed a good course on what is not the most ideal piece of land. the course lacks definition, there was no real penalty for hitting a really wicked tee shot. Also the noise from the race track thing is really annoying especially on the par 3 5th and the par5 6th. Gil Hanse obvioulsy thought the course out well as bunkers come into play for most shots, and stone walls are used to create an old style links feel. Hanse is obviously a quality architect as is involved at Castle Stuart in Nairn, the followup to Kingsbarns. The greens were really nice and well contoured with good bunkring. Overall this is a good track, but the course desperately need definition or more gorse to make wayward shots more serious.

After three days playing on Balcomie and Craighead, it is genuinely difficult to pick a favourite from the two; Crail boasts two excellent though hugely different courses. Craighead demands length off the tee but provides relatively wide and welcoming expanses of fairway which ran quickly in the links style despite not being quite the springy Fife turf you can play on the more traditional seaside links. For the most past, only wild tee shots are threatened by deep rough or gorse bushes. Your score has to be made around the greens which in the first weekend of August were very quick and true, hard to hold and with some occasionally big undulations challenging with the putter in hand. For me the course complements the Balcomie beautifully through being so different – all aspects of your game are tested out over a 36 hole day at Crail. The views from the higher ground are if anything better than on the Balcomie, making this a very special course in its own right.

Played from the championship pegs in May 09. A superb layout with some demanding holes, however the lack of definition specifically on the front nine lets the course down. Well worth a visit.

Crail Craighead is a better course, in our opinion, than its much-feted older sister, the Balcomie. I can hear audible gasps, when you read this. Drinks are being spluttered and the words buffoon and dullard are being bandied about. Sure, the Balcomie is a wonderful course with history and class oozing out of every pore but I just think that the Craighead is more of a challenge, more variation about it so, whilst the traditionalists enjoy their round at the Balcomie, the young guns go for it at the Craighead Links.

If you don’t like playing in the wind then perhaps, Craighead is not the place for you as it blows almost every day on this course and due to the routing of the place it is almost inevitable that none of your golfing nooks and crannies will be left untouched. Also, if you think that you will be classed as a big girl’s blouse for having to hit a wood at a par 3 then stay away, it is almost certain when the wind gets up that may be your only option. But if you like adventure, bumpy greens, walls and damn good scenery, proceed with me to the first tee.

The 1st is a genuine 3-shot par 5, maybe 4-shot if the wind is howling in your face and this sets the standard or the rest of the course. The 2nd is a smashing hole with a sharpish dogleg with bunkers that guard the green like Ninja warriors. All the greens are superb the 6th in particular which I found like putting on a crumpled duvet. If the front 9 is good then the back 9 is superb. It is here that designer Gil Hanse has decided to use walls like Dave Thomas uses bunkers. The 10th has a brilliant bunker complex which has to be dodged if you want to make par. The 11th sees your introduction to Mr Hanse’s walls with this one being just over 200 yards from the tee so it is definitely in play. Try not to be caught behind it as you will have to go back to go forward. The 13th is a delightful par 3 which steeps sharply from right to left and if you come off the slope too sharply you could end up against, that’s right, a wall. Although it looks fairly innocuous, the 17th, to paraphrase the Animals has been the ruin of many a poor golfer and God, I know I’m one. Scores here often wreck your card because if the bunkers don’t get you, the impossible green will. The straightforward 18th takes you home but take time out and allow yourself a wee 360-degree to survey the vista because, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Crail is marvellous, simply wonderful and, if you can afford it and spare the time, 36 holes over the Craighead and Balcomie is an experience you will never forget. But if you have to choose one, come to Crail Craighead thrills are free, fun and sunshine there’s enough for everyone. MPPJ

I played the course in Sept. of 2006, we too had a very windy day, constant winds 20 mph with gusts much higher. My main advice is to not wear yourself out looking for golf balls in the rough. My foursome walked and walked and walked looking for balls in the rough. I wish I had not done that, I had a great round going, probably would have broken 80, but I wore myself out walking through the rough helping look for golfballs. So either resign yourself to losing golf balls or be in better shape than I was. I loved the course, but it needs the wind/rough to protect it or it is not too difficult. I would play it again but with an understanding from my group that I would not wear myself out looking for balls.

It can’t be easy growing up in the shadow of a much older, better-known and revered sibling. CGS’s Craighead Links (aged 10) may be a whippersnapper compared to the famous Balcomie Links (aged 150 or so) but it shouldn’t grow up with an inferiority complex; for this reviewer, at least, it is better than big brother across the road. Don’t get me wrong, the Balcomie Links is a lovely golfing experience but, for me, the Craighead course provides a more varied, balanced and absorbing test. Admittedly, the new kid doesn’t have the shore-hugging shape of the old boy but the sea is in view from virtually every point and a handful of holes line the rocky cliff-top. With the fairways dry and firm, the curlews singing (apologies to Bill Oddie if I have the wrong species), the traditionally constructed bunkers and the long grass dancing in the wind this pretty much felt like genuine seaside golf to me.

The greens provide an assorted examination: most are raised, some are at fairway level or in shallow hollows; some are heavily bunkered, others not at all; some are flat(ish), most are artfully crafted and some are cunningly undulating. When I played the greens were medium paced (on flat bits), very true and fun to putt on. One fairly consistent factor is that the greens are relatively narrow. This is particularly the case on the five (arguably six) short par fours. These greens tend to lie at an angle to the fairway making the approach an exacting one; even with a short-iron in hand the player walks a tightrope between birdie glory and bogey ignominy. There are only two consecutive holes that run in the same direction (the 6th and 7th) so the ever-present wind presents an ever-changing challenge.

Yet another design element is the regular, and very effective, use of dog-legs – including the genuine three-shot par five 15th and a number of the fun short par fours. A recurring feature is a beautifully constructed dyke that runs through parts of the course – providing a visually appealing gateway at the 523yrds 6th and an obstacle at the 317yards 11th ( a carry of 201 yards is required here if you want to avoid having a very scuffed ball). Of the many good par fours the 14th (“Lang Man’s Grave”!!) is the stand out, as it loops it’s 414yards around the out-of-bounds that lines the cliff-top. The best hole of all is the 174yard 17th – even from the tee the golfer can see that this extensive, raised green is wildly undulating, there are bunkers front left and right and a hillock of wild grass and flowers provides the backdrop. This is a hole that just begs you to hit your crispest shot of the day and once you have bogeyed it you want to run back to the tee and try again.

I can’t claim to have an HND in golf course design but I do think that the Craighead Links is a very good course with oodles of potential for development. Specifically, additional strategic fairway and greenside bunkering would add to the challenge and visual appeal (which is considerable as it is) and could turn holes like the aforementioned 14th from very good to virtual classics. Nevertheless, Craighead Links still proves that youngsters can, and sometimes do, upstage their very good older siblings. Craighead Links – the Bobby Charlton of Scottish golf courses! Derek, Edinburgh, July 08

For several years as a grad student at St. Andrews I was a member at Crail (pre Craighead days) so when this course opened, I was eager to play it. It is a superb challenge, given the wind off the North Sea, and some very challenging greens. I played it one day in a 40-45 mph howling wind, hit a 7 wood to a 145 par three -- and ACED it. The course has a stone wall that crosses a couple of fairways--makes a special challenge. Graham Lennie (sp!) is a great welcoming host, and other members treat you with honor. It is good to be a bit conservative, you'll get lots of roll, and you have it hit the right part of the green or the ball rolls forever. It is an excellent course--must play---

I first played the Craighead course in May 2001 when it was only a few years old and thought it was a pretty tough new track on the Fife coastal circuit. My next visit in February 2007 cemented that view but this time, my eyes were more open to what exactly made the standard scratch score two shots more than the par of 72.

Three factors here – stone walls, bunkers and greens – make for a very demanding, but pleasing, round of golf and go a long way to providing a worthwhile alternative to the traditional game played on the adjoining Balcomie.

Danes Dyke is over six foot in height and it runs through the course, cutting directly across some fairways to create a couple of blind shots on the back nine. The sand traps are the best I have come across in many a round and the nests of fairway bunkers discreetly located, in particular, at kinks in the dogleg holes like the 1st and 10th holes, are nothing short of superb.

It just goes to show you do not need high walls of white sand located at pressure points to intimidate the tee shot – other architects could take note!

The greens were a little more undulating than I remembered them but they were in simply stunning condition for the time of year – if you cannot putt on those greens you can putt on nothing.

My favourite holes were “Windmill Corner” (the 2nd hole, played to an upturned saucer of a green), “Kilmonen” (the long par three 7th hole immediately beside the Firth) and “Fife Ness” (the short par four 10th hole, one of the best to be built in Scotland in recent years).

Fairways are not as “linksy” as the purists would like (how can they be on former farmland, elevated above the shoreline?) but apart from that, all other major aspects are as one would expect to find if playing links golf on the Fife coast.

I’m not surprised to hear that the American architect behind the Craighead course, Gil Hanse, is involved in another new project, Castle Stuart, near Nairn. I for one can’t wait to try out this next Scottish creation of his.

Final points; one good, one bad, the bad first. I played on a Sunday morning when the petrol heads were out in force next door at the old air field turned race track – revving engines and screeching brakes were a noisy intrusion. The good point; what a lovely, unpretentious clubhouse where you blend in with the members as you enjoy a bite and a pint, having spent a bargain half price winter green fee on either frost-free course.

Jim McCann