What is the difference between a regular golf course and a links course?

Answer 1

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A links golf course, sometimes referred to as a seaside links is the oldest style of golf course, first developed in Scotland. The word comes from the Scots language and refers to an area of coastal sand dunes. It also retains this more general meaning in the Scottish English dialect. It can be treated as singular even though it has an "s" at the end, and occurs in place names that precede the development of golf, for example Lundin Links, Fife.

Links are located in coastal areas, on sandy soil, often amid dunes, with few water hazards and few if any trees. This reflects both the nature of the scenery where the sport happened to originate, and the fact that only limited resources were available to golf course architects at the time, and any earth moving had to be done by hand, so it was kept to a minimum.

The challenges of links golf fall into two categories. Firstly the nature of the courses themselves, which tend to be characterised by uneven fairways, thick rough and small deep bunkers known as "pot bunkers". Secondly, due to their coastal location many links courses are frequently windy. This affects the style of play required, favouring players who are able to play low accurate shots. As many links courses consist literally of an "outward" nine in one direction along the coast, and an "inward" nine which returns in the opposite direction, players often have to cope with opposite wind patterns in each half of their round.

Links courses remain most common in Ireland and also in the United Kingdom, especially in Scotland. The Open Championship is always played on links courses, even though there are some celebrated courses in the United Kingdom which are not links, and this is one of the main things which differentiates it from the three major championships held in the United States. There are also some well known links courses in other countries, including these courses in North America: Pebble Beach Golf Links (on the Pacific Ocean), Whistling Straits in Wisconsin (on Lake Michigan), Seaside Golf Course and Ocean Forest Golf Course (on Sea Island, Georgia), Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Oregon, and Shinnecock Hills (between Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay) in Southampton, New York, all in the U.S.; and, in Canada, Harmon Seaside Links (in Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador),

Links courses tend to be on, or at least very near to, a coast, and the term is typically associated with coastal courses. However, links conditions can be duplicated on suitable ground, even hundreds of miles or kilometres inland. One especially notable example of an inland links-style course is Sand Hills Golf Club, a much-acclaimed early-2000s layout in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.

Answer 2

Links Style Golf Course

Answer 3

Links Style Golf

Answer 4

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A true links course is a seaside course with a firm sandy base. The course "links" the land to the sea. Because the wind blows hard along the sea, to effectively play links courses you must know how to hit the ball lower and run up to the hole. Links courses will be typified by rolling mounds and dunes throughout, lots of bunkering and very high rough off the path. The Scots believe that trees have no place on a golf course. There are many parts of the US that have made "links style" golf courses out of rolling farmland with many of the same features, although American operators generally over water their courses, effectively taking the lower running shot out of play.

Answer 5

A links course is built on linksland the land that separates the farmland from the land next to the sea that has been shaped by the on shore winds off the sea. This land is usually hard packed sand and filled with dunes and was only ever used as pastureland. In its' natural state it was easy for a course designer to simply find a route plan through the dunes to act as a golf course and minimal work had to be done to shape greens and tees. Being close to the sea and so windswept there was always a lack of trees and gorse and fescue acted as the rough. Inland courses were usually well treed and even when built on open farms trees were planted to make them parkland settings. It has become popular of late to try to duplicate the barren links courses inland but they just never measure up to the true linksland courses.

Answer 6

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RE:
What is the difference between a regular golf course and a links course?

Answer 7

The above answers are all great as to the layout of a links course. However, perhaps one of the most interesting features of a links course is that because of the usual (or unusual) seaside weather conditions, if you played the same course seven days in a row, it would most likely be similar to playing seven different courses.

Answer 8

A links course goes out in 9 and comes nack in 9. a regular course comes back to the clubhouse after nine and goes and comes again.

Answer 9

I'll put it simply...

The difference lies in the layout of the course. Links courses are set up like a chain, and the individual holes are the links. They go nine out and nine back in (hence the "out" and "in" on your scorecard). Viewed from above, the course looks like a chain folded in half. Regular courses conform their layout to the shape of the property.

Answer 10

"Links"

Definition: Many golfers use "links" and "golf course" interchangeably. But "links" is actually a specific type of golf course.
A traditional links course will have many - perhaps all - of the following features:

• The course is built along the seaside;
• The soil is sandy and drains easily;
• The course is laid out naturally, so that unusual bumps and slopes in the fairways and greens remain, rather than being smoothed over;
• The rough features natural seaside grasses;
• Bunkers are numerous, very small and very deep (to keep the seaside breezes from blowing the sand away)
• Fairways are rarely (if ever) watered and play firm and fast;
• Links courses usually have few if any trees;
• The course routes out and back, meaning, the No. 1 hole begins at the clubhouse and the front nine plays straight out so that No. 9 is farthest hole from the clubhouse; the direction turns back in at No. 10 and the course ends with No. 18 back at the clubhouse.


Criteria for "Links" Come from Long-Ago Scotland
Especially in the U.S., the term "links" is frequently misapplied. "Links" refers to a very specific type of course. But nowadays it is common for any golf course that is relatively treeless to call itself a links course. And that's not accurate.
But in America, they get away with it. Most American golfers - and I am one - have never seen a links course ... except for the ones we see each year while watching the British Open.

The British Golf Museum says that "links" are coastal strips of land between the beaches and the inland agricultural areas. This term, in its purest sense, applies specifically to seaside areas in Scotland.

So "links land" is land where seaside transitions into farmland. Links land has sandy soil, making it unsuited for crops.

The land, in fact, was thought to be worthless because it was not arable for crops.
But back in the mists of Scotland, someone got the bright idea to put a golf course on that land. What else where they going to do with it? And links golf courses emerged.

Because they were close to the beach, lots of sand traps were a natural (the soil was very sandy, after all). But the traps had to be deeply recessed to prevent sand from being blown away by the constant wind. Because the soil was of a poor quality and constantly buffeted by the seaside winds, not much would grow on it - mostly just tall, reedy grasses, and certainly no trees.

So a true links course is not any course that is treeless. The term "links" historically applies specifically to strips of land in seaside areas that feature sandy soil, dunes and undulating topography, and where the land is not conducive to cultivated vegetation or trees.

Because they were built on narrow strips of land, links courses often followed an "out and back" routing. The front nine went out from the clubhouse, one hole stringed after another, until reaching the 9th green, which was the point on the golf course farthest from the clubhouse. The golfers would then turn around on the 10th tee, with the back nine holes leading straight back to the clubhouse.

In modern terms, a "links course" is more broadly defined by Ron Whitten, the great writer on golf course architecture for Golf Digest, to include golf courses built on sandy soil (whether seaside or not) and that are buffeted by winds. Whitten says a links course must play firm and fast, with sometimes crusty fairways and greens that feature many knolls and knobs to create odd bounces and angles. And, of course, a links course, in Whitten's definition, needs to be relatively treeless with a native rough that is tall and thick.

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