Biggar Golf Club

Biggar Golf Club has been at this since 13 June 1895, when the first course was laid out on high ground at Langlees about a mile from the old Caledonian Railway station. The town wasn't satisfied for long: after a spell at Heavyside from 1901, the people of Biggar held a bazaar in 1907 to raise £1,000 for a new golf course and public park together — and got Old Tom Morris himself to open the resulting nine holes. The course was extended to eighteen in 1922, and it still sits where that bazaar put it, inside Biggar Public Park on Broughton Road, south of the town off the A702.

The golf is honest, flat parkland — 5,447 yards, par 68, with gentle undulation that makes it walkable for everyone and the Southern Uplands doing the scenery without charging extra. Short does not mean soft: the course built its reputation as a tight test, and the club's own record book makes the point — the amateur course record of 60 belongs to former club champion Steve Callan, while the professional mark of 63 is held by a certain Paul Lawrie. The short ninth, water left and out of bounds right, is the signature hole and has ruined many a promising card.

This is municipal golf run by South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture, and the pricing is the honest kind: £28.30 for an adult round at summer peak, £22.85 in the shoulder months and £12.50 through the winter, paid at the starter's office. The park around the course has a caravan site and plenty for a non-golfing family to do, and the licensed clubhouse serves teas, snacks and meals to members and visitors alike. As a value day out within an hour of Edinburgh or Glasgow, a peak-season round here costs less than a trolley hire at the grand names.