Built partly on Old Tom’s Luffness leftovers, borrowed recently by the Scottish Open, and a third of the price of its Number 1 brother.

Price Paid: Guest of a member
Current Price (2026): £100 weekday, £125 weekend; club offers from £80. GolfNow: ~£80.
Value Rating: Current list: weekday 4/5, weekend 3.5/5; offers 4.5/5
Moly’s Score: 80 gross, 41 Stableford points

When I reviewed Gullane No 1 (Blog 143), Alastair Allanach was my host. He’s a Gullane member who has played more courses than anyone I know. A year later, the day after playing Luffness New (Blog 204), he took me round his club’s middle child.

Gullane sits on the south shore of the Firth of Forth in East Lothian, about 20 miles east of Edinburgh. GolfNow gives the address as North Berwick, five miles further along the coast. It isn’t.

Alastair on the high fairway of the 3rd, with East Lothian laid out below him all the way to the Lammermuirs.

Luffness New (Blog 204) left a loose end. In 1893 Gullane’s landowners, the Nisbet Hamilton Ogilvys, pointed out that the northern holes of Old Tom Morris’s Luffness links were on their ground, and asked for rent. Luffness built a ‘New’ course instead. When the old club’s lease ran out in 1898 it left for Aberlady and soon called itself Kilspindie, and that same year Willie Park Jr’s Gullane No 2 opened. According to Scottish Golf History, the 12th and 13th, and probably the 14th, play over Old Tom’s original Luffness course. They’re the holes that come down off the hill to the edge of Aberlady Bay. Nothing on the ground tells you so.

The 12th tee, dropping off the hill onto what was Old Tom Morris’s Luffness links, with Aberlady Bay below and Arthur’s Seat on the horizon.

Now the economics. When I played No 1 in 2022, the visitor rate was £195. In 2026 it’s £285 on a weekday and £325 at weekends. No 2 costs £100 on the same hill. You don’t need an economist to work out where the visitors are going, and No 2 is much busier than its old reputation as the members’ spare would suggest.

The gentle opening, two pleasant par 4s to warm you up, had me guessing James Braid. Wrong. Park, twice Open champion, laid it out, and the real business starts at the 3rd. It’s a 233-yard par 4 that climbs blind up the flank of the hill, with only the top of the flag showing. I made a three, and at the summit you’re rewarded with a view west to Arthur’s Seat.

The 4th, stroke index 1, falls back towards the Forth. Alastair hit a drive straight at the tankers anchored in the Firth, then a delicate chip between two bunkers.

Alastair’s drive from the 4th tee, with ships at anchor in the Forth, with Fife beyond.
Alastair chips onto the 4th green. Bunkers like these are why you stay on the grass.

The approaches are cleverly done. Hidden fronts and dead ground hide where the green actually starts, and from the findable rough you need more club than the yardage says, again and again.

The 14th, probably on Old Tom’s ground: a marker pole, a flag and an orange shirt. Everything else is a matter of faith.

The greens were remarkable. It was a long dry spell and the fairways were straw-coloured, yet the putting surfaces were firm, true and green, better even than Luffness’s the day before. They were subtle too. I stood over a lot of putts I expected to make, and didn’t make them.

The 6th. A crow weighs up my ball on a fairway that hadn’t seen rain in weeks.
The 8th green: the drought breaks, and the umbrella finally earns its place on the trolley.

When the Scottish Open came to Gullane in 2015, the composite course took 16 holes from No 1 and borrowed No 2’s 7th and 8th, played as the 14th and 15th. The composite was used again in 2018. Those were my two worst holes: a bogey and a double, one Stableford point each. The Tour has the better of me there.

The 7th, borrowed for the Scottish Open: a green on the edge of the bank, with a squall crossing the Forth behind.

Many commentators consider the quality of a course’s winners a decent measure of the course. Gullane’s composite produced Rickie Fowler in 2015, then Brandon Stone in 2018 with a closing 60, a putt away from the Tour’s first 59. That same summer, Ariya Jutanugarn won the Ladies Scottish Open here, and the win took her to world number one. No fluke champions here.

It’s a touch of a curate’s egg, though. Between the great holes there are respite holes. No 2 has fewer bunkers than No 1, though far more than its near-twin No 3. And the 18th is weak: a flat 291-yard par 4 aimed at the clubhouse car park. I made par and felt no better for it.

The 18th: flat, short and pointed at the car park. Not the finish the rest of the course deserves.

At £100 for Summer midweek this is decent value for a course with Scottish Open pedigree and greens of this standard, and the £80 off-peak rates arguably make it a bargain. If No 1’s price makes you wince, and it should, No 2 is where to go. Better still, find yourself a friend like Alastair.

The 14th green with lupins in the dunes and Aberlady Bay beyond. Look at the colour of the green against the fairways around it.
Moly (left) and Alastair: the 19th, and a toast to the middle child.

Facts:

Course Type: Links
Par: 71 (2 par 5s, 13 par 4s, 3 par 3s)
Distance: 6,015 yards (yellow tees)
Course Rating / Slope: 69.3 / 122
Course Quality: 4.5/5
Moly’s Gross Score: 80
Scorecard:

Moly’s Gullane 2 scorecard, 9 over round in 80.