Budget Scotland Golf Tour: 7 Days, 7 Great Courses — What It Actually Costs

The standard narrative about a week's golf in Scotland starts with the marquee names and works upward from there. That's the version with the Old Course, Royal Dornoch, Carnoustie, and a hotel that serves dinner in a dining room with a view.

This is not that version. This is a week of genuinely good Scottish golf chosen on value rather than prestige: no genuinely bad courses and nothing that's a sacrifice. We price the green fees from each club's own published rates. We don't print a figure for car hire, fuel, beds or food — those move by the week and by the booking site, and a number we can't source is worse than none.

The route: Scotland's value links circuit

The itinerary runs a rough east-coast loop, which keeps driving to a minimum and concentrates the golf in areas where good courses are close together and green fees are reasonable.

Base: Edinburgh (nights 1 and 7) + Fife (nights 2–4) + Angus (nights 5–6)

A hire car is essential — public transport between some of these courses is impractical. Book it in advance from a city branch and compare the week's price, not the daily headline.

Day by day

Day 1 — Arrive Edinburgh, play Braid Hills No.1

Municipal, run by Edinburgh Leisure. Green fee: £41 for a casual 18-hole visit. Parkland on the Braid Hills, elevated views across the city, excellent condition for a muni. Good legs-stretcher after travel. No need to book far ahead. Park at the club or walk up from Morningside.

Stay: Edinburgh B&B or hostel.

Day 2 — Drive to Fife, play Leven Links

Green fee: £85–£135. Leven is a proper Fife links, public access, fast greens, excellent condition. Less famous than the St Andrews courses and considerably cheaper than the Old. Drive Leven to your Fife accommodation: Elie, Anstruther, or Crail (30–40 minutes from Edinburgh across the Forth Bridge).

Stay: a self-catering cottage or budget B&B in the East Neuk.

Day 3 — Play Crail Balcomie

Green fee: £70–£170 depending on season. One of the oldest courses in the world. A short, characterful links above the sea at Fife Ness, with hole names in Scots and some of the smallest and most awkward greens in Scottish golf. Not long, not easy on a windy day. Fair value at the off-peak end of that range.

Anstruther Fish Bar for lunch (it is worth timing your round to arrive by midday). The queue at 12:30 is real; the fish and chips justify the wait.

Day 4 — Play Lundin Links or Elie

Lundin Links: £60–£175. Elie: £60–£200, both depending on season. Both are proper Fife links, both overlooked in favour of the St Andrews names, both well worth playing. Elie is slightly more famous (the starter uses a periscope to check the blind 1st fairway, which is one of golf's genuine oddities); Lundin plays longer and arguably harder. Pick based on what's available.

Day 5 — Drive to Angus, play Monifieth (Ashludie)

Green fee: £40–£65 on the Ashludie. Monifieth is a public links east of Dundee with four centuries of golf on the ground — the championship Medal Course has hosted Open qualifying, but at £80–£160 it is outside this week's budget. The Ashludie next door shares the same fast links turf for less, and the drive from Fife is 30 minutes across the Tay Bridge.

Stay: Dundee city centre (the cheapest hotel stock on this route) or a Carnoustie B&B (puts you a mile from the next day's course).

Day 6 — Play Carnoustie Burnside

Green fee: £99–£135. The Burnside is Carnoustie's second course — far cheaper than the Championship course (from £249) and shares much of the same land. It genuinely plays like a links of its calibre. If your budget extended to the Championship course, this would be the moment to spend it; if not, the Burnside is the right call.

Day 7 — Drive to Edinburgh, play Musselburgh Old Course

Green fee: £20–£25. Musselburgh is one of the oldest golf courses in the world, a nine-hole loop around the Musselburgh Racecourse, public and entirely free-spirited. It is not a fine turf experience. It is a historical experience, and in East Lothian at the end of a week, it is a fitting way to close. After the round you are 8 miles from Edinburgh city centre.

What it costs (per player)

Item	Cost
Green fees (7 courses as above, Elie as the fourth round)	£415–£771
Hire car and fuel (seven days, split between the car)	get a quote for your dates
Accommodation (seven nights, mixed B&B / budget hotel / self-catering)	get a quote for your dates
Food and drink	your call

The green-fee line is the one we can price to the pound, because every club publishes its rates and we read them. The rest depends on when you go, how many share the car and the room, and how you book — so we leave it to the quote in front of you rather than print a figure that was only true the week we looked.

To cut the cost:

• Reduce to four or five nights (cut Day 1 and Day 7, and a night's accommodation with them)
• Use hostels — the SYHA network covers most of this route
• Replace Carnoustie Burnside with Arbroath Golf Links at £35–£120 (same stretch of Angus coast, and better than its price suggests)
• Swap Leven for Anstruther (£35–£50), or go in winter, when off-peak rates apply across the board

What makes this route work

No course on this list is a compromise. Every course plays well, maintains its links character, and is worth the journey. The difference between this itinerary and a marquee tour is not the quality of the golf — it's the absence of branded names, hotel dining rooms, and resort packaging.

The Fife courses on days 2, 3 and 4 would form the backbone of most "best value Scottish golf" lists. Leven, Crail and Lundin are genuinely underrated in a way that Kingsbarns and the Old Course are not.

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For the individual course detail on the Fife section: Fife Golf Guide: Best Value Courses Beyond the Old Course. For the Angus courses: Carnoustie Championship Course.