Mortonhall Golf Club

Mortonhall Golf Club, founded in 1892, is Edinburgh's oldest still-played golf course; it's also one of Scotland's best clubs. The course offers 6,502 yards of championship golf among silver birch, fir, pine, sycamore and cherry trees - and great grass.

Mortonhall Golf Club management asks golfers to finish rounds in three and a half hours max. Don't dillydally on No. 1, Khyber, a par-4 measuring 357 from the whites and requiring a drive between the Braid Hills' slopes and the drive leading to Mortonhall House, followed by a blind shot to the green. Take a big stick, rather than a fountain pen, to Poet's Walk, the monster 559-yard par-5 fourth hole, which requires second shot to cross the sixth hole and a vast gully to be rewarded with the relative comfort of an east-inclining plain that rewards again, this time with a vista of East Lothian, Bass Rock and Berwick Law.

Finish a round of golf at Mortonhall Golf Club on Warren, a 394-yard par-4 that makes for a fine closing bucket: It doglegs right and is extra difficult against a harsh west wind.