GM Promotion: Experience North Eastern delights in the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am

There are still a few spaces available to experience three of Scotland’s finest links courses by playing in the inaugural Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am between 1-3 May.

Experience North Eastern delights in the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am

Play three of Scotland’s finest and most unique courses: Royal Aberdeen, Trump International and Cruden Bay, experience them in the company of a top professional golfer and like-minded golfing enthusiasts in a competitive format, enjoy a gala dinner in Aberdeen’s superb Marcliffe Hotel with entertainment from Dougie Donnelly and Sam Torrance… For golf lovers it sounds like an incredible package. Well there’s still a chance to experience it, with spaces still available to take part in the inaugural Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am from 1-3 May this year.

Team entries are still being accepted for the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am, and single golfers are also welcome to enter; a team will be assembled for them. It’s a great opportunity to play three amazing courses at the best time of year for golf in the North East of Scotland, in the company of fellow golf-lovers.

Teams entering the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am are welcome to bring their own professional (there’s no requirement for your pro to be a member of the PGA.) A PGA pro will be assigned to teams who don’t wish to bring their own professional. A number of top name professionals have signed up to the event, including David Law – a recent winner of the European Tour’s Victoria Open, a two-time Scottish Amateur champion and an Aberdeenshire native.

Team entry for the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am costs £2,400 and for more information you can visit the official tournament website – www.aberdeengolflinks.com or you can email the organisers at getintouch@aberdeengolflinks.com

Played as a 54-hole competition, prizes in the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-AM will be awarded to the top-three teams, with an amazing total prize fund of £40,000. For those travelling to play in the event, preferential rates are available at several hotels in the Aberdeen area with prices starting at just £40 per person, per night.

What’s great about the three courses to be played in the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am is that, despite their proximity to one another, each is very different. Royal Aberdeen delivers classic Scottish links, Cruden Bay offers exceptional natural beauty and great variety while Trump International showcases the very best of modern links architecture.

Although the club at Royal Aberdeen was founded in 1780 (the sixth oldest club in the world,) the move to the present site at Balgownie didn’t take place until 1886. The course has evolved over the years with early design work by Archie and Robert Simpson from Carnoustie, advice on alterations by James Braid and more recent changes by Hawtree and Company. Having hosted significant events over the last 15 years, including the Senior Open of 2005, the Walker Cup of 2011, the Scottish Open in 2014 and the Amateur Championship in 2018, this is a progressive club keen to keep pace with the modern game.

Team entry for the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am costs £2,400 and for more information you can visit the official tournament website – www.aberdeengolflinks.com or you can email the organisers at getintouch@aberdeengolflinks.com

The front nine at Balgownie is one of the most famed stretches of holes in golf, delivering a tremendous selection of holes. The run for home is testing but fair, again with some wonderful holes to negotiate. Royal Aberdeen is a true links great, a historic course offering a natural beauty and a simply brilliant test of golf.

Entering the lounge at Cruden Bay you will encounter a truly incredible view down over the rolling dunes and the ribbons of fairways cutting through them. On the horizon to the left; the ruins of Slains Castle, an almost unreal structure like something from a horror film; it won’t be a surprise to learn Bram Stoker stayed there while it was still inhabited and used it as an inspiration for Dracula.

Cruden Bay offers some exceptional holes; the par-3 4^th with the village and the sea on the left, plays to a raised green over a grassy hollow with dunes to the back and the right. The next is a magnificent par-4 carved between the sand hills and the 9^th delivers one of the greatest views in golf (it has been voted the very best in Scottish golf.) You climb to the top of the headland and look down upon the course and up and down the impossibly beautiful coastline.

You then forge over the headland and back around it towards the clubhouse where you’ll reflect on a thoroughly enjoyable round.

Team entry for the Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am costs £2,400 and for more information you can visit the official tournament website – www.aberdeengolflinks.com or you can email the organisers at getintouch@aberdeengolflinks.com

No course constructed in the UK in recent years has received such press coverage and interest as Trump International on the Menie Estate at Balmedie. Most feel that what has been created over this incredible stretch of dune land is one of the very best courses in this country.

There are no weak holes, it’s a triumph of design from Martin Hawtree. Admittedly, he had some superb terrain to work with, but what he has created is hugely impressive. There’s a wonderful blend of long and short holes and, with both nines starting and ending at the clubhouse, the wind helps and hurts equally on both sides.

For a relatively new track, opened in 2012, it already has a feeling of maturity. The fairways are developing that links firmness and the greens are extremely true and fast-running. The holes flow through the dunes and pristine grass walkways lead from greens to tees. Amidst the towering sand-hills, this place has to be seen to be believed.

Simply playing these three magnificent courses on the Aberdeenshire coast is a thrill for any golfer but to do so as part of a professional tournament, recognised by the PGA, will add hugely to the experience. Having the chance to take part in an organised competition, to witness a professional negotiating these iconic tracks with skill and strategy and to build friendships within your team and with the others competing, it promises to be a superb and memorable few days. Add to that the crowning glory of a gala dinner at the magnificent Marcliffe Hotel, with after dinner entertainment from Scottish sporting legends Dougie Donnelly and Sam Torrance OBE and it’s clear the inaugural Aberdeen Golf Links Pro-Am is going to be the first of many.