Affordable golf in Scotland: the best value courses

It is easy to forget, looking at Old Course and Turnberry green fees, that Scotland is where affordable golf comes from. The game grew up on common links land played by everyone for next to nothing, and that tradition is alive: all over the country you can play historic, championship-standard links for £40 to £95, often on the same coast, and the same firm turf, as the courses charging four times more. You are not trading down in quality — you are just skipping the famous name.

On the Dornoch Firth, Tain (about £40) is an Old Tom Morris links that plenty of people quietly prefer to its world-famous neighbour up the road, and Brora (£75) — a James Braid gem where sheep and cattle still graze the fairways behind electric fences round the greens — is one of the great cult rounds in Britain. On the Angus coast, Monifieth (£70) is a genuine Open final-qualifying links for about a quarter of what Carnoustie charges next door.

You do not have to pay Old Course prices to play great links in Fife. The East Neuk hides three of the best-value old links anywhere: Crail (Balcomie) (£95), run by a golfing society founded in 1786 and set on a gorgeous clifftop; Elie(£95), James Braid's home course with its submarine-periscope starter; and Scotscraig (£95), a links-heath hybrid that is another qualifying venue. On the west coast, Glasgow Gailes(£75) is a proper links in the Troon–Prestwick belt at a fraction of its neighbours' fees.

Even the marquee ground has back doors. The New Course at St Andrews (£120) runs over the same historic linksland as the Old for well under half the money, and Murcar (£120) shares the Aberdeen dune ridge with Royal Aberdeen. In Angus, the qualifying links of Panmure and Montrose (both £110), and in East Lothian Dunbar (£110), give you championship links on the great coasts without the championship bill.

Fees drop hard outside high summer, the free-draining east coast is playable and cheap right through winter, and many towns — St Andrews, Montrose, Monifieth — still run superb municipal links anyone can play for a modest sum. Add twilight rates and you can string a week of great golf together for the price of two premium rounds. See when to visit, what a trip costs, and our links golf guide for how to play them. For bases, try Crail for the East Neuk, Carnoustie for Angus, or Dornoch for the north.