Crossroads and Characters

68. THE COURSE WITH A VIEW.

In 1907 Dunning Golf Club found itself a new home half a mile above the village next to the Path of Condie road on Mains of Pitcairns farm. Mrs. Barbara Gordon, who has written an interesting account of the Club's history, was the daughter of the part-time greenkeeper. The greens cut into the hill were a favourite place for the farm's sheep to sun. Mrs. Gordon and her sister used to rush home from school to take 'birch besoms to sweep the sheep droppings off the greens'. She also remembers that the 8th hole fascinated their innocent young minds. It lay along the den of Dunning Burn and was a great favourite with courting young couples among the membership. 'Many a wayward ball was deliberately sent over the dyke' into the bracken of the den 'and much longer than the regulation 5 minutes for a lost ball was spent over there'.