Top 100 Golf Courses of Scotland 2014
Top 100 Golf Courses refreshes its Scottish golf course rankings
22nd December 2013
Top 100 Golf Courses, the most informed and dedicated ranking website, is pleased to bring you the 5th edition of its biennial golf course rankings for Scotland. There are around 600 courses located north of Hadrian’s Wall and we rank 220 of them within our Top 100 chart and/or the fifteen Scottish district listings that will soon be updated for 2014.
There’s little movement at the summit of the Top 100 chart, where the top six places remain exactly as they were two years ago. Indeed, the only course to penetrate the glass ceiling of the Caledonian Top 10 is Castle Stuart, rising three places to number 9, and it becomes the first new name to feature in that elite portion of the chart since we established the Tartan chart in 2006.
Eyebrows may well have been raised in 2010 when we first introduced Castle Stuart to the Scottish rankings in as lofty a position as 16 but that spectacular entrance has now been usurped by Martin Hawtree’s links at Trump International, which leaps into our new listings at position 13, immediately behind its near neighbours at Royal Aberdeen (Balgownie)and Cruden Bay.
After visiting Skibo Castle in August last year, I mentioned in my review that its ambitious course conditioning programme would soon see it “nudging towards a place in the Scottish top 20”. Well, don’t say I didn’t forewarn anybody as it’s just risen a mightily impressive (and well deserved) fifteen places to position 19 in the new chart. It’s amazing what you can forecast when you actually get out and about to visit courses rather than just sitting in an office writing about them!
Further down the new Top 100 listing, the much-admired Tom Doak design at Renaissance Club- where three new holes have just been installed along the Firth of Forth – rises eight positions to number 27 whilst, in the bottom half of the chart, the two links layouts at Luffness New (up nineteen) and Crail (Craighead) (up twenty-eight) make significant moves in an upward direction.
Unfortunately, a number of courses take a drop in order to balance the books and the major casualties in that regard are Belleisle (down thirty-four to 97), Panmure (down twelve to 38), Ladybank(drops eleven to 40) and Montrose (Medal) (falls eleven to 42).
Two courses, St Andrews (Eden) (at number 91) and Edzell (Old)(at number 92), re-enter our new listings. The former was ranked at position 79 in our 2008 chart, with the latter rated as number 76 in 2010. Another two courses also squeeze into our latest listings and they are the Highlands delights that you’ll find in Kingussie (at 99) and Grantown-on-Spey(at 100).
At Top 100 Golf Courses, we genuinely welcome criticism – both good and bad – so let us know if you think any of our Scottish courses are too high or too low in the standings. Are there one or two that shouldn’t be there at all or have we maybe overlooked a course that really should be featured in the Top 100 chart? Please don’t hesitate to tell us.
Top 100 has never claimed to be “definitive” but we like to think we are the most “informed” golf course ranking operation in the golf industry. If you’ve played any of our featured courses in Scotland, we’d be delighted to hear what you think, so why not contribute to the process and send us a course review or two?
