North Berwick (West), SCOTLAND   

Holes to Note:

1^st and 2^nd, 330 and 430 yards, respectively: The game gets underway quickly. The 1^st and 2^nd holes are a microcosm of the challenges of North Berwick as a whole. The first is quirky, requiring a mid iron tee shot that lays up short of a public foot path that cuts across the fairway heading toward the beach. The approach shot is a blind short iron to a green sloping criminally away from the golfer on the cliff top.

the intimidating 2nd tee shot

The 2^nd hole is a classic dogleg hole. The tee is set high above the beach and the hole follows the curve of the beach below to the right. It is all too easy to slice the tee shot onto the beach, which is treated as a lateral water hazard (and thankfully not out of bounds). Recovery from the beach is readily possible. If the golfer takes on the challenge of the dogleg, he is rewarded with a shorter and simpler shot into the green. Otherwise, he has a long iron into the green.

So the course goes, mixing classic challenges with unique ones. The land and the holes do become mundane out near the turn with the 8^th and 9^th holes. However, these breathers only serve to heighten what is one of the most exhilarating closing stretches of holes in golf, starting with the 13^th hole.

From behind the 13th green, with the stonewall on the left.

13^th hole, 365 yards: The drive is not dissimilar to that found on many links courses; the second shot is wildly different. A sand dune pinches in the front left half of the green. A stone wall of up to three feet high protects the entire right side of the green, literally. Getting at a back hole position given the narrowing green is vexing; an approach shot missed right of the wall even more so.

15^th hole, 190 yards: The much copied 190 yard Redan par three. The term Redan is borrowed from the military and means 'guarding parapet.' The key is for the tee ball to clear the parapet and yet still stop quickly on the green. Subsequent versions have been better done as a mound some forty yards short of the green obscures part of this hole.

The Redan

16^th hole, 380 yards: A green that needs to be seen to be believed. The drive is over a stonewall with people walking past. The shot needs to come to rest before the burn that crosses the fairway at the 230 yard mark. Then the fun begins. The green - or perhaps the greens - are two upside down tea cups connected by a four foot valley that bisects the green. Trying to hit and hold the green is one of the most fun shots in golf. The recovery shot when the approach fails is most vexing. Coming when it does toward the end of the round when the nerves may well be shot, the hole is a real test. It is among the authors' favorite medium length holes in the world.

The swale in the middle of the 16th green is well evidenced here.

Ironically, one of the harshest critics of courses of this nature (St. Enodoc, Brora, etc.) tend to be the Brits themselves. They dismiss such courses as 'holiday' courses. Such golfers are only satisfied if a course punishes them. They prefer fairways to be hay-lined like Muirfield down the road where only rifle straight shots will do. All this misses the point as hay lined fairways and thick rough tend to sap all the variety out of courses.

Ballesteros never won an Open at Muirfield. Be assured he would have won it if it were contested at North Berwick, where imagination rules supreme.

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