Our Club
The history of Panmure.
Founded 3 May 1845. Originally laid out by Allan Robertson and Alexander Pirie of St Andrews. Reshaped in 1922 by James Braid. Still played today by the descendants of its first members.
Seventeen gentlemen formed Panmure Golf Club on 3 May 1845. A month later, on 6 June 1845, Allan Robertson and Alexander Pirie travelled from St Andrews, examined the Barry links and laid out the original course in nine holes. They charged the club thirty shillings for the work.
From nine holes to eighteen
The original course expanded to ten holes by 1851 but the new layout proved unpopular with members, and the club reverted to nine holes in 1871. It was not until 1880 that Panmure became an eighteen-hole course in the form that broadly survives today.
The first clubhouse was built by the Railway Company at Monifieth's then-new station. As membership grew a larger facility was built in 1871 — the building that today serves the Ladies' Panmure Golf Club. By 1893 congestion from multiple clubs sharing the Monifieth links made the search for new ground unavoidable.
Relocation to Barry, 1899
In 1899 the club moved to its present site at Barry. The terrain was at first considered difficult — described in the club's own minutes as "large hummocks and deep ravines with marshy looking bottoms" — but the early committee saw "great promise of many sporting holes" in the land between the railway and the coast. They were right.
In 1922 James Braid — five-time Open champion and by then the most prolific course designer in Britain — was invited to walk the layout and suggest modifications. The changes he proposed were implemented over the following years and form the core of the course as it plays today.
The Maule connection
The club's badge — the scallop shell — is taken from the Maule family coat of arms, with permission from the Earl of Dalhousie. Patrick Maule was created the first Earl of Panmure in 1646; his descendants eventually sold the land to the club. The first hole and the principal dining room both bear the Maule and Dalhousie names.
Championship heritage
Panmure has hosted some of the earliest events in organised Scottish golf, including the inaugural Scottish Professional Championship in 1907, and has staged Open Championship regional qualifying many times. In 2019 it hosted qualifying for both The Open Championship and the R&A Girls Amateur Championship.
The course has been walked in earnest by Open champions including Harry Vardon, Ted Ray, James Braid, Tommy Armour, Henry Cotton, Roberto de Vicenzo, Sandy Lyle and Pádraig Harrington — and famously, in May 1953, by Ben Hogan in preparation for his only Open Championship win at Carnoustie.