Member of Duddingston.
Course condition is generally pretty steady and the greens have been superb the last couple of summers. Drainage issues are being addressed - drainage trenches dug and now bedding in on the 5th and 17th fairways.
Would be happy to have a quick chat at some point if you're keen - drop me a pm. Worth contacting the sec to arrange a courtesy round too. I also run an email group of about 40+ members and we regularly welcome new club members to help establish some connections - if you're joining en masse, you may be ok in that regard, but you'd be more than welcome.
I also travel from Corstorphine area, no problem getting across town on a Saturday morning.
Happy to have a quick chat at some point if you like - just drop me a pm.
Duddingston coming on very nicely just now. Greens are true, very firm and slick. Course looking good.
Drainage wise the 5th and 17th fairways where some minor flooding used to occur have had drainage channels dug and have more or less bedded in - if you didn't know they were there you wouldn't notice.
As far as all year round golf goes, we were mainly on temp greens for about 10 weeks (Dec-Feb) last winter, but if conditions allow the main greens are kept in play. The greenstaff also hung around this winter at the weekends to bring greens back into play following a further 10am check if they had been a bit frosty first thing. Some small areas of the rough can become a little muddy over particularly wet winter's, but this wasn't the case last winter.
The course genuinely doesn't have any weak holes - a super test, which will have you using all 14 clubs in the bag every round.
I like Mortonhall, it's a good course generally in great condition, but I wouldn't move there from Duddingston even if it saved me a couple hundred quid a year. Monktonhall is another that gets rated alongside Duddingston - it's got a good spell of holes on the back nine. Can't comment on Burgess or Bruntsfield, the other two apparently vying for Lothian's finest parkland.
I also like the feel of the place, its genius loci - much of the tree planting was designed by Capabilty Brown, and it does have the feel of a vast rolling garden landscape - the layout of the golf course is generous and well considered. Someone above mentioned KA's range being superior - I'd contest that and say that Duddingston's practice area between the 6th, 7th and 8th holes is a far more serene and appropriate place to work on your game - bliss on a warm summer evening.
