Our Grandpa lived in CB and has been a member of the local golf club all his life. He still visits every week so this is a special place for us.
This cache is about where the original Cruden Bay Hotel was located – it was probably around the car park space. It’s long gone since the GNSR rail line stopped coming this far. Between 1899 and 1940 the Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway operated an electric tramway service between the hotel and the Cruden Bay Railway station!
The golf course is regularly voted in top 100 course in the world and is certainly one of the oldest.
There is evidence, in the form of a ballot box inscribed Cruden Golf Club 1791 that a nine-hole golf course existed before the layout of today's course. It may have been located at the Ward Hill near Slains Castle, and indeed todays club has in its possession a winner's medal from a competition played on the Ward Hill dated 1883.
Today’s links course was commissioned in 1894 by the Great North of Scotland Railway Company and fully opened in 1899 as part of the recreational facilities offered by the Cruden Bay Hotel, newly erected and opened in March of that same year. The inner nine hole "ladies course" was also laid out at the same time.
From the onset, golfers came from all over the world to play the championship golf course - designed by Old Tom Morris of St Andrews, with help from Archie Simpson. Its opening was celebrated with an inaugural professional two day open tournament on 14-15th April 1899, with prizes totalling £120.
Harry Vardon of Granton, J Kinnell of Prestwick, A Simpson of Aberdeen A Kirkaldy of St Andrews, James Braid and Ben Sayers all in the field with Vardon beating Kinnel by 3 and 2 in a match play final.