Iron Age skull found in golf course bunker
A fascinating golf course just got a whole lot more fascinating.
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| Musselburgh Links in Scotland. Image courtesy of Best golf courses in Scotland. |
Musselburgh Links golf course is without doubt one of the most fascinating golf courses in the world. The Guinness World Records recognises it as the oldest in the world, officially back to 1672. It is currently a nine hole course located in and around a race track and for real authenticity you can hire hickory clubs to play the course as it was originally intended.
As if Musselburgh Links wasn’t fascinating enough as it is, now an Iron Age skull has been unearthed on the golf course.
The skull of a teenage girl was found by greenkeepers as they excavated a bunker on the fourth hole and archaeologists at Dundee University have dated it to around 500BC. The Daily Record reported:
The course is recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest in the world, dating back officially to 1672 but Mary, Queen of Scots is believed to have played the links in 1567.
It is not the first time Musselburgh Links has been associated with old bones.
The course’s second hole is named The Graves because it is believed to be a burial ground for soldiers who died at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh between the armies of Scotland and England in 1547.
If you want to know more about this course, check out Geoff Shackleford’s great piece on the fourth hole at Musselburgh. The following video piece gives a nice feel for the place too.
Any golf course that has a pub halfway round has my seal of approval.
