Newbattle - Lothians - Scotland

Newbattle is one of my more frequent destinations when I head to Scotland's capital. It offers decent golf in a tranquil location in Dalkeith. The opening hole presents a challenge with which you quickly become familiar here : trees all the way down the left side of the fairway. A small.sunken green compounds the challenge. At the 2nd you drive from an elevated tee (always a thrill) to the valley (and river) below before turning sharp right to the green. The bulk of the course is across the river and up the hill. The par three 3rd is followed by a series of par fours around the edge of the property which means the ever-present danger from the trees down the left. Special mention must be made of the cunning downhill par three 8th. Holes 10-16 are dull but the highlight of the round arrives on the 17th tee. This fine hole swoops down from a great height to a narrow fairway below before rising sharply to the green. The round concludes with a good par four. Newbattle is well worth seeking-out if you are looking for enjoyable and affordable golf in the Edinburgh area.

My round at Newbattle started very brightly, with the opening hole playing to a lovely sunken green, followed by a tee shot on the short par four 2nd that plunges down to a right doglegged fairway. After crossing the old Maiden Bridge to the 3rd, the landscape changes, becoming more open, with fairways sometimes ill defined, such as at the 6th and 13th, which run parallel to each other – and if the couple of fairway bunkers separating those two holes are Colt originals then I’ll eat my hat as they were as basic a couple of sand pits as I’ve ever seen anywhere.

In truth, the only holes I really liked on this part of the front nine were the two par threes at the 3rd and the downhill 8th, both of which were beautifully bunkered in a style that I would have anticipated from Colt.

There’s a very solid run of holes from the short par four 9th to the left doglegged 13th - the only par five on the card - before the final par three is played at hole 14, measuring all of 236 yards from tee to green.

The penultimate hole begins with a drive across the river and ends with an uphill approach to a domed green, followed by a shortish par four 18th which kinks slightly right to finish in front of the clubhouse.

Almost all the putting surfaces on the course were laid at grade with the green surrounds, which I didn’t expect to see as I’d anticipated the Colt greens to be raised.

Now maybe I was expecting too much, perhaps the master architect never actually stipulated that greens had to be elevated from the level of the surrounding land; it’s just that that’s what I was expecting to see so I left here feeling a little bit disappointed, even though I’d no real reason to feel that way because Newbattle’s a solid course that’s well worth playing.

Jim McCann