Cruden Bay

The wind scorched our faces, and the cold seeped into our bones, but Cruden Bay will remain in our hearts forever.

Every hole will likely be lodged in my memory despite playing appallingly for the first five. Unable to drive, chip, or putt, I barely registered a Stableford point.

Thus, after telling him I would submit a card on my England Golf app, I understood the club's general manager's pre-game mirth.

"And you have never played here before?" he mocked. "Good luck".

Thankfully, after a huge slice of good fortune on the sixth hole, my body and clubs realigned, and my scores started to live up to one of the world's great links.

In the early 20th century, Cruden Bay was an upmarket resort with a grand hotel with 55 rooms, tennis courts, croquet lawns, bowling greens and a golf course.

The Great North of Scotland Railway Company owned the course and contributed to the development of the hotel.

The hotel and railway are long gone, and the current lower-key clubhouse opened in 1961.

It was buzzing on the Friday of our visit, with every table taken by golfers or locals wanting to dig into excellent homemade food.

Cruden Bay takes great pride in its history, evident in the lovely archive room next to the first tee. It's filled with beautiful photos, paintings, and golf memorabilia from the past, a testament to the club's commitment to preserving its heritage.

It also has the most fiendish practice putting green I have played in the UK, with one hole on a bank so steep that it was impossible to rest a ball within ten feet of it.

The first hole is a formidable introduction – more than 400 yards with a bank of rough on the left and bushes on the right of a generous fairway that narrows between bunkers before rising to the green.

Those quirks were a light introduction to links with many more than most.

The second is a par-four on a shelf beside the club's boundary. A drive onto the fairway will leave an approach to a green atop a near-vertical embankment to the right.

By this stage, I had recorded only one Stableford point. These are meant to be the easy holes!

Traffic lights on the tee of the mind-bending, blind, short par-four third denote whether the green is clear.

The target is reachable for those who take a tight line to the right and can ride the rollercoaster fairway undulations.

The par-three fourth is nearest to the village and, against the wind, needs a strong hit to reach a target perched over a steep bank. Par would be a fine effort.

Drama is elevated literally on the fifth – a long par-four from the dunes down to a fairway which opens to the right before turning left to a green sheltered by grassy mounds.

My heart sank when I over-corrected with my driver and ballooned the ball onto what I thought was long grass on a dune at the side of the fairway of the par-five sixth.

However, the turnaround point came when my playing partner found it 40 yards further than I expected on solid ground.

From there, I lashed a three-wood forward and successfully knocked a seven-iron shot over a stream and onto the risen green. My lengthy curving putt missed the hole by an inch.

It was the springboard I needed.

The seventh is another mesmerising hole for the uninitiated. The green, which can't be seen after the drive, is cut behind a dune with only a slither of fairway showing the direction of attack.

Some will say the eighth is a weak hole, but I disagree.

Sure, it might be seen as a generous par-four at just 250 yards, and, as my podcast partner proved, it can be nearly reached from the tee.

But it looks superb, nestled in a valley between dunes, and the run-offs around the green are as challenging as the undulations on the green.

PP had a long putt for eagle, which hit the hole and flew off, subsequently missing his birdie. I had a chance for my three and lipped the cup.

The ascent to the ninth tee is a lung-buster, but once you reach the highest peak on the course, the views across the links and the bay are stupendous.

A cliff on the left of the par-four ninth fairway demands that tee shots be central or to the right. The approach to a plateau green has to be precise, or the ball can fall off in any direction.

The curving par-four 10th is another awesome hole, requiring drives to be bent around a dune on the right before second shots into a green beyond a stream with out-of-bounds on the right.

I reckon the craziest stretch is from the par-five 13th to the par-three 15th.

Drives on the former must be placed short of a stream that winds in an S-shape across the fairway.

The flag is blind on the green above another vertical slope, so the best way of attack is to go in through the left-hand side where the incline is softer

It is followed by a par-four with a rolling fairway that is hemmed in between a huge dune and the beach.

The second shot is blind into a basin green. Those who keep the ball straight have a great chance of scoring.

Traffic lights are again in action on the par-three 15th, whose pin is behind the same dune. A right-handed draw is the ideal shot.

The final two holes are benign by comparison with the rest of the course – especially the flat 18th, which runs between gorse bushes that were in full yellow bloom the day we played.

Despite the final two holes being less challenging, this round of golf left us in awe. The vistas were breathtaking, and the sheer imagination required to design the holes was truly remarkable.

This is how golf was intended, and it was a wonderful experience.