Carnoustie Country Confidential
Carnoustie has a way of making people remember one hole and forget an entire region.
When The Open returned in 1999 after a 24-year absence, Jean Van de Velde introduced the Barry Burn to a worldwide television audience. The championship came back in 2007 and 2018, and each time the conversation began with the same question: who would survive Carnoustie?
A fair question. But I’ve lived in this part of Scotland for large chunks of my life, and I’ve always thought the better question was: what happens after you walk off the 18th?
For a start, you needn’t walk far to find another round. The Championship shares its ground with the Burnside, where Ben Hogan qualified for the 1953 Open he went on to win, and the Buddon, which offers a different way to enjoy this remarkable stretch of linksland. The famous course may bring you to Carnoustie; the other two give you a reason to stay.
Then follow the coast. At Panmure, Hogan spent two weeks preparing for his victory and left his mark on a bunker at the sixth. At Monifieth, the railway runs close enough to the opening holes to concentrate the mind wonderfully. Keep travelling and you find golf woven into the towns and villages rather than set apart from them. This is a coastline where you can play a serious round, find a proper lunch and still have the afternoon to explore.
The contrast inland is just as compelling. The wind and firm turf give way to trees, rivers and the rising ground towards Perthshire. Blairgowrie offers a very different golfing day from Carnoustie; Edzell makes an equally persuasive case for turning off the main road. Put coast and countryside together and you begin to understand why a single trophy course could never tell the whole story.
And there’s life between the tee times. Dundee has become a city worth lingering in. Broughty Ferry makes a welcoming base, with the Tay on its doorstep. Arbroath offers its harbour and smokies; Montrose has a character all its own. The pleasure here is in making a journey of it, allowing one place to lead you to the next.
That is the Carnoustie Country I want to share. I know some of it from years of living here, and I’m returning to discover what has changed, who is doing something interesting and which familiar places still make me stop.
My forthcoming Linksland Signature Golf Guide will take you beyond the championship headlines, through the courses, places, people and practical details that turn a round at Carnoustie into a Scottish golf journey. The Beast is waiting. So is everything else.
