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Musselburgh Links

Golf course in Musselburgh, Scotland

Field	Value
name	Musselburgh Links, The Old Golf Course
image	Starters Building Musselburgh Links Golf Course - geograph.org.uk - 1215823.jpg
imagesize
caption	Old Starters Building (A new starters building was built in 2011).
pushpin_map	UK Scotland	relief=1
pushpin_mapsize
coordinates
establishment
type	Public
owner
operator	East Lothian Council
holes	9
tournaments	The Open Championship (six times between 1874 and 1889)
website	musselburgholdlinks.co.uk
course1
par1	34
image2

Musselburgh Links, The Old Golf Course in Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland, is one of the oldest golf courses in the world. The course is not to be confused with The Royal Musselburgh Golf Club or the Levenhall Links.

Musselburgh Links is a publicly owned course, administered by East Lothian Council. Two golf clubs, Musselburgh Old Course Golf Club and Musselburgh Links Ladies Golf Club, are based at the course. The course has nine holes, and is a par 34.

History

Musselburgh was once certified as being the oldest golf course in the world by Guinness World Records; recently this 'record' was reassigned to St Andrews. There is documented evidence that golf was played at the links in 1672, while it is claimed that Mary, Queen of Scots, played nearby (at Seton) in 1567.

Musselburgh Links was originally seven holes, with an 8th added in 1838 and the 9th in 1870.

Musselburgh was one of the three courses which staged The Open Championship in rotation in the 1870s and 1880s, alongside Prestwick and the Old Course at St Andrews. It was selected because it was used by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, and the course hosted six Opens in all, the first in 1874 and the last in 1889.

Year	Winner	Score	R1	R2
1874	SCO Mungo Park 1st	75	84	159
1877	SCO Jamie Anderson 1st	82	78	160
1880	SCO Bob Ferguson 1st	81	81	162
1883	SCO Willie Fernie 1st	75	83	158 PO
1886	SCO David Brown 1st	79	78	157
1889	SCO Willie Park, Jr. 2nd	78	77	155 PO

When the Honorable Company built a private club at Muirfield, Musselburgh dropped out of the rotation for the Open.

On 14 July 2010, the course became a temporary heliport, when fog in Edinburgh forced the helicopter used by Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to land in front of the first tee.

Legacy

The course left a lasting legacy to the game's rules. The four-and-a-quarter-inch (4.25 in) diameter of a golf hole was the width of the implement used to cut the holes at Musselburgh; in 1893, the Royal and Ancient adopted the measurement as a mandatory requirement for all courses.

Notes

References

(20 March 2009). "It's official:Musselburgh golf course is worlds oldest". East Lothian News.
(24 March 2009). "Recognition for the world's oldest links, at last". [[PGA Tour]].
[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7949045.stm Links plays into the record books] BBC. Retrieved September 24, 2011
"Musselburgh and Seton House".
(13 July 2022). "Some Classic Golf Courses Have Fallen Off the Open Schedule".
"Course History". Musselburgh Links.
(2010). "Unexpected Royal Visitor". Musselburgh Links.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

golf-clubs-and-courses-in-east-lothian the-open-championship-venues musselburgh

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