Golf in Edinburgh

Edinburgh sits in the drier east of Scotland — not as bone-dry as the East Lothian coast a few miles further on, but a long way from the 1,200mm a year that falls on Argyll. May through September is the reliable window; April and October play dry more often than the calendar suggests, and the municipals stay open and cheap right through winter on temporary greens.

The city's courses are more sheltered than the exposed coastal links, which makes Edinburgh a sensible bad-weather fallback: when the wind is screaming across Gullane Hill, a parkland round at Mortonhall, Duddingston or Ratho Park is a far more pleasant afternoon. Braid Hills is the exception — it's high and open, and on a clear day the view across the city to the Forth bridges is the reason to play it, but on a wild one it can be every bit as raw as the coast.

Demand peaks in June and July, and the municipals fill on summer evenings with after-work fourballs, so book Braid Hills and Silverknowes online a few days ahead in peak. The members' clubs and Dalmahoy take visitor times year-round with more notice.

The most Edinburgh way to play the city in a day costs less than a single round on the coast and tells you more about the place.

Start on the hill. Braid Hills No. 1 takes online bookings from early morning at an Edinburgh Leisure rate that barely scrapes into double figures off-peak. It's a proper test — whin, blind shots, and a routing that uses the contours of the highest ground in the city — and the view from the upper holes, across the whole city to the Forth and the Fife coast beyond, is the one every visiting golfer remembers. Two hours, change from £20, and you've understood why locals never bothered making a fuss about the coast.

Spend the afternoon on history. A few miles north-west at Barnton, the Royal Burgess Golfing Society (origins in 1735) and the Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society (1761) sit almost next door to each other — two of the oldest golf clubs in the world, both on mature parkland, both taking visitors on set days with a handicap certificate and a phone call in advance. Play either and you're walking ground that organised golf has used since before the United States existed. Neither charges anything like what the history would justify.

If members'-club formality isn't the mood, swap the afternoon for Dalmahoy on the western edge — a championship parkland that hosted the 1992 Solheim Cup — or keep it simple with another municipal: Silverknowes along the Forth shore, or Craigentinny out east with the sea on the breeze. Either way you've played the two faces of Edinburgh golf — the council hill and the ancient club — in a single day, for less than the green fee at most of the names you came to Scotland for.