Edinburgh Evening News 11th May 1892
The Edinburgh Evening News 11th May 1892 reports:
[Note that the orientation of the diagram is rotated 90 degrees. East is to the top.]
You can see the layout of this course by selecting 1892 on the Golf Course Maps web page.
The nine hole-course of the Dunfermline Golf Club, having served the members for over a year, has now been extended to a full course by the acquisition of adjoining lands. The links are on the hills above North Queensferry, and immediately to the east of the railway.
Crowning the summit is the clubhouse, which will be familiar to many as that of the exhibitors in the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1890.
On the course, which has already been played over, there are good putting greens, but on the new links a considerable expenditure of time and energy will be required in most cases to get the greens into proper trim, although the natural materials are good.
The first four holes will be as played hitherto with the tricky second hole and the ever present hazard of the high hedge.
Crossing the road the fifth hole is 200 yards to the east, in a park as level as a cricket field. A very lucky approach shot might do this hole in two.
Passing through a corner of the grounds of Crook’s House the new links proper are reached.
The sixth hole is on the south slope of the hill, and so near does the boundary wall come that a heeled ball may easily be lost in the whins. Standing now on the highest part of the hill, the player looks down a long slope to the seventh hole, 230 yards away, at the foot of the hill.
On the right a sudden fall away takes place from the cliff top, and many balls will be lost in the quarry below. To the left the hill slopes away abruptly, and any ball not absolutely on the line may roll a considerable distance. The green at this hole will, however, be good.
The next two are the “sporting holes” of the new course, the eighth requires careful play and the ninth being a kind of miniature “Rockies.”
The tenth hole will be the favourite of those who fancy their driving, two good shots being required to get on the green, on which, despite its new “bumpiness,” there is very good turf already.
The holes next zigzag up the hill. At the twelfth hole, on a plateau, a stroke may be lost by not getting quite on the line. The stile is reached once more at the thirteenth hole, to the east of Crook’s House.
The fourteenth is alongside the fifth, and then the road is crossed once more to the old course.
The fifteenth hole is 260 yards distant on the very top of the hill.
The next is just below the clubhouse, and a hazard is formed by the old wall, which crosses the line of play.
Back over the wall the seventeenth hole is reached, and the course finishes behind the clubhouse with an easy hole.
The whole distance is over two miles. There is considerable sport on the course, and as breezes are prevalent and slopes are steep considerable judgment must be exercised. It is also intended that the nine-hole course shall be kept up for those who wish the short game.
There is not a hole on the course from which magnificent view may not be had from the May Isle to Ben Lomond. The murmur of the sea is ever heard, and from the shipyards at Inverkeithing the busy rattle of the riveters’ hammer is subdued by distance. Ships are lying at anchor, steamers continually passing up and down, whilst occasionally the quaint songs of the sailors are wafted up from the bay below.
The highest point on the course is the clubhouse on the old links, from which the hill slopes steeply down to the hedge, and then rises abruptly to the second hole. Holes five and fourteen are in a level meadow. On the new links the highest point is the sixth hole, from where there is a heavy slope all the way to the foot at the ninth tee. On the line of play to the seventh hole, the hill falls abruptly away to the right.
Holes and yardages
First 150 yards
Second 190
Third 210
Fourth 120
Fifth 200
Sixth 180
Seventh 230
Eighth 210
Ninth 240
Tenth 300
Eleventh 255
Twelfth 180
Thirteenth 175
Fourteenth 200
Fifteenth 260
Sixteenth 210
Seventeenth 200
Eighteenth 190
Total, 3,700 yards.
Back to 1892 – first 18-hole course