Panmure Golf Club
56°28′34″N 2°44′53″W / 56.476°N 2.748°W
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Panmure Golf Club is a golf club close to the village of Barry, Angus, Scotland. It is one of the clubs that originally helped purchase the Amateur Championship trophy, and is one of the oldest golf clubs in the world, dating back to 1845. It is a private club that plays over the Barry Links, and is sometimes referred to as Barry or Panmure Barry. Due to its location next to Carnoustie it is often overlooked by visitors, and with the number of members limited to 500 it is one of the most underplayed courses in Scotland.
The Course
Although Panmure is a links course, it has some unusual features. The course is a mile or more from the sea, and many holes have beautiful trees which rarely come into play but create an unusual backdrop to the rolling links holes. The first and last three holes are fairly flat although still interesting, but the middle twelve holes are classic links holes. This is because the clubhouse had to be built near to a railway station, and the first and last three holes were needed to get to the land where the course was originally going to be built. It is also not a very long course at 6511 yards from the championship tees, but it proved to be the hardest final qualifying course for the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie. This is due to the well known barry rough that flanks every fairway, making accuracy from the tee essential.
Ben Hogan
Panmure is famous for being the place where Ben Hogan practised away from the attention of the media, prior to his only Open Championship appearance at Carnoustie in 1953. On the sixth hole he suggested that a bunker at the front right of the green would improve the hole, and one was subsequently created, known to this day as hogan's bunker. Hogan spent much of his time hitting shots to the 17th green, and one day he asked that the green be cut shorter to better simulate the conditions at Carnoustie. The head greenkeeper handed him a mower, and Hogan cut the grass himself, even cleaning the mower before returning it!
Clubhouse
Panmure also has one of the finest clubhouses in Scotland, modelled spiritually on the Royal Calcutta Golf Club.
Panmure was again a final qualifying course for the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie, and despite being easily the shortest, it had the highest winning score of all three qualifiers having a 36 hole score of -5, as opposed to around -9 or -10 at the other 2 courses.