This is a pay as you play 9-hole Par 3 parkland course a few miles away from Colvend, attached to a tea room and nearby holiday caravan park. I played here after our earlier round at Colvend on 20 June 2011. Craigieknowes is only 1391 yards long, with holes ranging from 90-197 yards and with small, slow and bumpy greens, this course looked as though it was catering for the casual market rather than the serious golfer. However, some of the features here made scoring more difficult than might be expected on such a short and basic layout. For example, this is the 3rd hole, an uphill 173 yard Par 3. The green is set amongst some large exposed rocks. Only an extremely accurate tee shot would avoid such hazards and hold the green. I'd hit a pretty good 7 wood, only to hear it hit a rock and see it bounce 50 yards or so to the right, onto the 1st fairway. From there, I hit another smaller rock only a few feet away from the tiny green and lost my ball as I didn't see where it ricocheted to, so a 6 was not too bad in the circumstances. I was glad that the course was quiet, since this section of the course was potentially dangerous. I'd certainly not want to play here without a hard hat when it was busy.
I also bogeyed this, the 7th, a 197 yard Par 3 played slightly downhill over a deep hollow, requiring something like a 190 carry. As at most of the other holes, I'd narrowly missed the small green from the tee. However, the greens were so slow running and hairy that it was easy enough to get greenside pitches close to the flags. The downside was that even short putts were not straightforward. I'd holed out pretty well, but my only single putt of any length was on the 9th, from all of 10 feet, for a solitary birdie. I went round Craigieknowes in 30, with only 12 (mainly short range) putts, so 3 over par wasn't bad. However, if I was playing again at nearby Colvend, I doubt whether I'd want to give this course another visit, hard hat or not.
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