Golf at Greywalls

East Lothian has often been called a golfer's paradise. The region's microclimate ensures more playable days than elsewhere in Scotland. Most of East Lothian's golf courses are traditional Scottish links style with undulating fairways, hidden bunkers, gorse and heather lining the fairways.

The original owner of Greywalls, the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton insisted that the house be built "within a mashie niblick shot of the eighteenth green at Muirfield".

Today Greywalls sits proudly alongside the clubhouse of the world renowned Muirfield. From dining rooms and bedrooms guest look out onto the course and across this famous landscape to the Firth of Forth and the Kingdom of Fife.

Muirfield is the most famous and one of just three private major courses in Scotland requiring private arrangements for play.

Home to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Muirfield is regarded as the oldest Golf Club in the world having been originally founded in 1744. As host to The British Open 15 times Muirfield is ranked amongst the top fifty courses in the world.

Today, with ten golf courses including four championship courses within 5 miles of Greywalls this has to be the perfect venue for anyone wishing to sample the full spectrum of Scottish Golf at its best.

Nearby Gullane has three courses. Unlike many other Scottish links courses they are quite hilly which adds to the golf challenge and offers superb panoramic views over the Firth of Forth.

Archerfield Golf Club, adjacent to Greywalls, is one of Scotland's newest clubs and has two magnificent courses - Fidra with an inviting mixture of pine forest and a fast-running Scottish links and Dirleton offering a more traditional Scottish links with sweeping fairways and undulating sand dunes bordering the fairways.

North Berwick has two excellent courses which, like so many Scottish golf courses, are available to the public as well as members. There is also a charming children's course at North Berwick. Grown-ups will need nothing more than a seven iron - but it is a very popular little diversion.

Further afield, less than 20 minutes drive, is the challenging course at Whitekirk - a hilly inland course with magnificent views over the East Lothian countryside - and Dunbar with its historic links course often used as a pre-qualifier for the British Open.