There are courses where the architecture is the star and there are courses where the land is the star. Cruden Bay is both at once. You walk off the 18th green and you can't tell whether you've just played one of the most brilliantly designed courses in Scotland or just spent four hours on the most spectacular piece of duneland nature ever handed to a golf course architect. The honest answer is both. Old Tom Morris laid out the original course in 1899.