3 / 12
OUR HISTORY
Stonehaven Golf Club was founded on Friday, April 13 1888,
and the first clubhouse was opened in June 1889. The original
chimney stack still stands by the 7th tee. At that time, the course
had ten holes, reduced to nine a year later, and it was not until
July 7 1897 that the “new” course and clubhouse on the present
site was opened.
For a short time, the professional was George Duncan, who later
won the Open Championship in 1920 and who played three
times in the Ryder Cup team, being winning captain in 1929.
Also to grace the fairways was another (5 times) Open
champion, the legendary James Braid, who played a challenge
match on August 18 1906 against his nephew and twice Open
Championship runner-up Archie Simpson, the professional
at Royal Aberdeen. Afterwards, Braid and Simpson planned
improvements to the course.
A much less welcome visitor called in August 1940, when a
German aircraft fleeing home after a raid, dropped a bomb on the
course only a hundred yards or so from the clubhouse. The crater
it left, known as Hitler’s Bunker, remains clearly visible today and
very much in play between the first and second fairways.