Lundin Golf Club

The Lundin Golf Club was founded on the 8th May, 1868. In that year the Leven Clubs had extended their links from the Mile Dyke eastwards towards Lundin Links. This extended course occupied the narrow strip of land lying between the railway line and the Firth of Forth.

The Lundin Links end of the course was described in 1868 as ‘benty, tussocky and ripe with whin’, with which the errant driver of today might still agree. It would appear that the Club had some difficulty in establishing itself and went out of existence some nine years after its formation.

The course was made up of nine holes on the existing links together with nine on ground formerly occupied by the Lundin Ladies Golf Club to the North of the railway line. Sir John made land available to the Ladies on the Standing Stanes Park and a field adjacent thereto. One suspects that the Ladies may have required some persuasion to relinquish their tenure, but Sir John provided appropriate encouragement by having Braid design their new course as well! The new 18 hole course was completed by the Autumn of 1909 (at a cost of £143. 2. 6) and on 29th November, 1909, Mr B C Cox, Captain of the day, drove the first ball using a ‘Dreadnought’ club donated by Sir John.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the course remains largely as it was some 100 years ago. The first five holes are in classic links tradition proceeding alongside the beach from the clubhouse to the Mile Dyke. Players then cross the now extinct railway line and play the nine ‘new’ holes on what one might describe as a cross between links and parkland turf. Back across the railway, the last four holes revert to the classic links tradition. Not long by modern standards, Lundin nonetheless presents a thorough test of the golfer’s skills, and the 18th hole provides a real test of nerve with the boundary fence hugging the left side of the green.