North Berwick

Scotland's East Lothian Golf Coast runs east from Musselburgh along the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, passing through a series of towns and villages each with its own historic links. North Berwick sits near the outer end of this stretch, and the West Links has a different personality to its more formal neighbours. Where Muirfield is precise and architecturally coherent, North Berwick is meandering and idiosyncratic, the product of generations of golfers who modified the layout to suit the land and the game as it was understood at the time. Stone walls cross the fairways, the routing doubles back on itself in unexpected ways, and some greens sit in positions that no contemporary architect would propose. All of this makes for a round that is genuinely unlike any other.

The Redan at the 15th is the course's most significant contribution to golf course architecture globally. C.B. Macdonald, the American architect who visited North Berwick in the late 19th century and was captivated by the hole, later reproduced it at the National Golf Links of America, and from there the Redan concept spread across the world. The original remains the best: the angle of the green, the bank on the left that delivers a properly played shot towards the flag, and the exposure to the Firth of Forth wind combine to create a hole of perfect, enduring logic. What makes it a template is not its difficulty but its elegance; every element serves the design and nothing is superfluous.

The Bass Rock, a volcanic basalt column rising from the Firth of Forth just offshore, is visible from much of the course and is one of the most dramatic natural features visible from any golf course in Britain. Fidra Island, the smaller outcrop to the west, is said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The combination of historical depth, architectural significance and natural grandeur makes North Berwick a course that rewards study as well as play. A visit to the East Lothian Golf Coast that does not include the West Links is missing one of the essential experiences in British golf.