Spey Bay Golf Club

Petit club le long de la cote.

Sympathique pour faire 9 trous en fin de soirée.

Peu de complexité.

A blast from the past this fine links course is the real forgotten treasure. Designed by Ben Sayers in a rush it opened in 1908 and still reflects the early days. Greens are small but teasing. The heather is a feast for the eyes due its varied colours but is cut down so as to form a Persian carpet rather than act as a challenge to the wrists. The sea is visible from virtually every hole while some tees even adjoin the shingle beach. Birdsong accompanies the golfer; nature is unsullied. The hotel is no more but the new clubhouse is a model of its kind suitable for the holidaymaker and any golfer forgoing pretensions. The value for money is unequalled as of now Autumn 2017. Appropriate for any age any skill. A constant delight.

I’m going to buy Spey Bay a drum. They obviously haven’t got one... because nobody is banging it for them. And they should be!

I stumbled across this natural and highly captivating links course on a family holiday to the Scottish Highlands. All I can say is; what a discovery!

Designed by the legendary Ben Sayers, and opened for play in 1907, the first few holes introduce us to a coastal heathland style of links golf with springy, sheltered fairways played through subtle shingle valleys of fescue, heather and sporadic patches of gorse.

Spey Bay lies on Crown land five miles north of Fochabers in Moray. This wonderful course has long had a chequered history despite being the golfing abode of prime minister Ramsay Macdonald. It has now been revitalised by a local businessman. So the clubhouse is a model of a village set-up and the course is just about back to its very best having been opened up with the terrors of the gorse, humps and hollows reduced to manageable proportions.

A visit there will take you back to the 1920s. Well groomed heather adorns either side of the fairway and offers a matchless harmony of magenta and purple. With only one par five, rolling fairways bespeak par fours with subtle dog-legs. The sea is evident virtually throughout. One tee and green actually abut the second largest shingle bank in Europe standing sentinel and keeping the waves at bay. The course is utterly thrilling, remote from any adjoining property and a world away from the cares of everyday life. The signature hole is the short 8th. Impossible to forget!

As the Michelin Guide would say in French, 'worth the detour'. More than that it is not to be missed.

Inte många plana ytor på fairway, underbar och bitvis svår om du inte spelar rakt! I vind är denna bana nog rätt utsatt som en links ska vara!