Murcar Links Centenary

Book is a good read -

for non-members too!

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Writing a golf club history takes a lot of dedication, a lot of research and much patience – which is why I have never done one! I think it is almost a prerequisite that the author has to be a member of the club in question – and Dr Alastair McLeish, a member of Murcar Links Golf Club for more than 20 years, fitted the bill on that score.
He obviously had all the aforementioned attributes because “Murcar Links Golf Club: The First Hundred Years” (Waverley Press, Aberdeen) is a good read, not only for Murcar members, but for all those with an interest in North-east golf.
History books can be boring if the author is only using words to link up landmark dates but Alastair’s enjoyment of tackling the subject shines through as he brings back memories of those who have been part of the rich fabric of club golf in the area during my life-time and the earlier years.
Dr McLeish has also done well to condense into 140 or so pages the history of a golf club that has been a busy one down through the years. It took him three years and I’ll bet many rewrites of chapters until he felt happy with them. He can be proud of his work. The book is on sale at Waterstone’s Booksellers Ltd at 269-271Union Street in Aberdeen.
For golfers of my vintage, it was always Murcar Golf Club and will probably remain so. Even the Scottish PGA, for one, has difficulty in getting up todate with its “new” name – Murcar LINKS Golf Club – in their pro-am draws, etc.
Two or three years ago, the members voted to restore the title Murcar Links which the club held from its origin in 1909 - in March of that year, club captain Robert Littlejohn used his casting vote in favour of the name Murcar Links in preference to Seaton Links and Blackdog Golf Club. The fourth choice was Berryhill Golf Club.
And Murcar Links Golf club it was from 1909 until it came back into play as plain and simple Murcar Golf Club at the end of World War I in 1918.
To have “links” as part of club’s name has become very fashionable over the last 10 or so years – the tourism people say that the American visitor is apparently attracted by the word links – and, spurred on by dynamic Derek Mortimer during his recent club captaincy, the members voted to change back to “Murcar Links Golf Club.”
During Derek’s captaincy, a complete internal reconstruction of the Murcar clubhouse was undertaken; also the first toughening-up of this links test by former local junior champion Graham Webster since Royal Aberdeen professional Archie Simpson designed it in 1909 and James Braid tweaked things a little later … and a upgrade of the practice facilities which are ideally placed next to the clubhouse and are among the best in Scotland if not farther afield.
Local businessman and Murcar Links member Graham Thom was the man who financed the modernisation of the practice facilities, which are essential if the club/course is to stage as many big events, professional and amateur, in future as it has done so often in the past.
As Alastair McLeish reveals to non-members in his book, the revamp of the links were not to every member’s liking and eventually the voted to put a stop to the “new look” which had included “the uprooting of great chunks of gorse in an attempt to restore the original look of the course.”
And yet the late Jimmy (J J M) Thomson once told me that in his younger days, Murcar was a much more difficult course to play, i.e. you had to be a straight driver/hitter of the ball because the fairways were narrower due to the growth of gorse bushes.
Even before Dr Beeching axed so many lines in the country, Murcar Golf Club must have been one of the few, if any who had its own railway, more than two miles of it running out from the Seaton Brick & Tile Company, over the River Don, up the side of Royal Aberdeen Golf Club’s Balgownie links, past the Murcar clubhouse to the brickworks factory at Blackdog.
The Seaton B&T Company, which laid the line in 1899, agreed to carry golfers until the golf club had its own railcars which it eventually purchased and so the petrol-driven “Murcar Buggy” became a boon for the members.
It prospered in the days when privately owned motor cars were a rarity – 1921 was its peak year with some 31,746 passengers at fourpence (old money) each way and sixpence on Sundays. The train ran for the last time on June 30, 1950.
Other things have changed irrevocably down through the years. Dr McLeish records that in 1911 George Duncan (who would go on to win the Open in 1920) and James Sherlock began the first round of an 36-hole exhibition match at Murcar at 1.30pm. They duly completed 18 holes, had lunch in the clubhouse – and were back on the first tee to start the second round at 4.30pm.
Another notable date from the Murcar history is January 1910 when Murcar Links Council voted by 10-2 in favour of Sunday golf “in defiance of Calvinist tradition.”
“At that time,” writes Dr McLeish, “ Sunday golf was banned at all of Abedeen’s public and private courses.”
Murcar Links centenary celebrations official begin on March 29, 2009 with a flag-raising ceremony. There are plans to bury a stainless steel time capsule which will be filled with golf memorabilia and will probably be dug up for the club’s bicentenary in 2109.
During 2009, there will be centenary competitions for all Murcar members. A team of eight will travel to Pitlochry to take part in a match against other Scottish golf clubs celebrating a 23009 centenary
Some of the Murcar Links best players – and they have had many exceptional golfers as members down through the decades – will compete in the Scottish Golf Union’s Scottish men’s amateur stroke play-championship over the Murcar Links from May 29 to 31.
Incidentally, the defending champion will be Wallace Booth from Comrie, a nephew of Sandy Booth, one of Murcar’s leading players in the 1960s
The highlight of the year will be the black-tie Centenary Dinner on Saturday, June 6 at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre where an array of guest speakers is line up. The significance of the choice of date is that it will be 100 years to the day since the course was opened.
Two days earlier, on Thursday, June 4, Murcar Links will host a Scottish PGA-organised pro-am.
Murcar Links Golf Club captain during its Centenary Year is Hugh Stuart, an admirable choice. Forres-born Hugh played for Great Britain & Ireland in the Walker Cup matches of 1971, 1973 and 1975.

Hugh played for Scotland at international level since 1967 to 1975. He was Scottish amateur champion at Prestwick in 1972 when he beat Hazlehead’s Sandy Pirie in the final and beaten finalist, by Gordon Murray, in 1976.
Hugh was also Aberdeen Links champion in 1961 and 1965.