It was popular as a tourist resort from the early Victorian era up to the latter half of the 20th century, due to its seaside location, and is best known for the Carnoustie Golf Links course that often hosts the Open Championship.

The first element has been linked to a variety of Gaelic words, including cathair (fort), càrr (stone), and carn (cairn), but the second has eluded interpretation.

[19] An assemblage of Late Neolithic pottery fragments found at Carlogie, 1⁄2 mile (800 metres) north of Carnoustie, has been interpreted as evidence of a settlement of that age in the area.

[35] Linked in misinterpretation with the Camus stone is the early Christian Pictish cemetery that was situated to the West of the Lochty burn, in the vicinity of the High Street.

[36] The soil in this vicinity is sandy and was prone to wind erosion, and periodically human remains became exposed to the surface prior to the founding of the town.

"[10]The land was annexed by the state in the Protestant Reformation following an Act of Parliament in 1587 and the Bailiery of Barry was granted by James VI as a heritable gift to Patrick Maule in 1590.

The estate was then sold to Patrick Lyon of Strathmore around 1680, and remained in that family's ownership, passing through marriage to James Milne, a wealthy shipmaster from Montrose around 1752.

[50] The Barry parish register attests to a small but thriving community based largely on linen weaving existing on the land that became Carnoustie at least from the early 18th century (before then, the place of residence is not listed in the records).

The first person to take up a feu was Thomas Lowson, a local loom wright, who rented two acres (one hectare) of land near the new road that had been recently been marked out by David Gardyne of Ravensby.

[54] Kinloch promoted the further growth of the village, setting up brickworks and granting loans to prospective feuers to allow them to settle[54] and, by the mid-19th century, the population of the town had risen to more than a thousand.

The Panbride Bleachfield, at which linen from the expanding local industry was bleached was opened by John Dickson in the early 1840s adjacent to the railway near the mouth of the Craigmill burn[60] on land which is now occupied by David Murray Transport.

His business grew such that he built a large factory in 1874 at the foot of East Path (now Park Avenue/Queen Street), employing 200 people and producing 2,000 pairs of shoes and boots a week.

His son, George, took over the business and built the impressive mansion, Winterdyne, that overlooks Carnoustie House Grounds at the top of Queen Street.

This factory, which at its height employed 600 employees, was a state-of-the-art facility containing 400 modern power looms and produced 6 million yards (5.5 megametres) of linen and jute annually.

[72] In 1891, Arthur George Maule Ramsey, 14th Earl of Dalhousie, sold the links to the town on condition that they would be maintained for all time as a golf course.

[71] Tourism in Carnoustie began to decline in the latter half of the 20th century, largely due to the increased availability of package tours to warmer parts of the world.

[81] This is supported by comparison of old photographs of Carnoustie links with the present day situation in which the foreshore is now much further from the Beach Pavilion (now the Rugby Club) than it was 80 years ago.

Half a kilometre up this road, on the left hand side is the medieval motte associated with Grange of Barry, from where the monks of Balmerino Abbey managed the parish from the 13th century.

Continuing eastwards along Dundee Street from the foot of West Path, on the north side of the road is the small former St Annes Roman Catholic Church.

On the left hand side of Links Avenue can be found the scout hut which, despite appearances, is the oldest school building in Carnoustie.

[104] Fishers Tours also run coach services (222, 226, 228, 236, 252 and 272) from Carnoustie to Monififeth, Dundee, Perth, Crieff, Oban, Pitlochry, Fort William, Aviemore, Inverness, Glenrothes, Livingston, Dunblane, Glasgow Braehead, Largs, Stirling, Callander, Arbroath and many more destinations.

Carlogie Primary School was opened in the mid-1970s in the new Caesar Avenue/Linefield Road housing estate and its current catchment area is all of Carnoustie East of Queen Street and the pupils from the surrounding rural area that was used to be served by Panbride Primary School, including Panbride, East Haven, Hatton, Muirdrum, Auchrennie, Pitlivie and Salmond's Muir.

[114] The Carnoustie Community Church is baptist congregation meeting in a converted former Co-op building opposite the War Memorial named 'The Bridge'.

Subsequent winners have included Henry Cotton of England in 1937, Ben Hogan of the US in 1953, Gary Player of South Africa in 1968, Tom Watson of the US in 1975, Paul Lawrie of Scotland in 1999, Pádraig Harrington of Ireland in 2007, and Francesco Molinari of Italy in 2018.

[123] The 1999 Open Championship is best remembered for the epic collapse of French golfer Jean van de Velde, who needed only a double-bogey six on the 72nd hole to win the Open—and proceeded to shoot a triple-bogey seven,[124] tying with Paul Lawrie and 1997 champion Justin Leonard at 290, six over par.

Items accepted include, steel and aluminium cans, cardboard, paper, electrical equipment, engine oil, fridges and freezers, garden waste, gas bottles, glass, liquid food and drinks cartons, plastic bottles, plastic carrier bags, rubble, scrap metal, shoes and handbags, spectacles, textiles, tin foil, wood and yellow pages.

[145] The 16th-century philosopher and historian, Hector Boece, was a member of the Boyce family that owned parts of Panbride parish at that time and is thought to have lived there.

[146] He was one of five men awarded the medal three weeks after the outbreak of Great War, for his role in destroying a bridge under heavy fire during the Battle of Mons on 23 August 1914.

[149] The actor Ian McDiarmid, best known for his recurring role as Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars series of films, is a native of Carnoustie, where he lived before moving to Dundee as a child.

[154] A two-time winner of the U.S. Open golf championship, Alex Smith, was born in Carnoustie in 1874 and learned to play there before emigrating to the United States.