A golf weekend in Ayrshire

Ayrshire is the west coast's answer to Fife: a run of Open and former-Open links strung along one short stretch of coast, less than an hour from Glasgow, with Glasgow Prestwick Airport sitting literally between two of them. You can play championship golf on the Saturday, more championship golf on the Sunday, and never drive more than twenty minutes. The only decision is how much of the budget you want to hand over — the marquee names are dear, but the Gailes links alongside them are a fraction of the price and seriously good.

Royal Troonlast hosted The Open in 2024, when Xander Schauffele won, and is home to the most famous short hole in the game — the par-three 8th, the “Postage Stamp,” just 123 yards to a tiny green ringed by deep bunkers, where the wind decides everything. It is the classic Ayrshire round.

Turnberry (Ailsa)is the more spectacular of the two — the lighthouse, the cliffs, the run of holes along the shore that hosted the 1977 “Duel in the Sun,” when Tom Watson edged Jack Nicklaus over the closing holes in one of golf's greatest afternoons. It is a bucket-list round at a bucket-list price; play it once and you will remember it forever. Whichever you choose, book months ahead for a weekend.

For your second day, do not overlook Prestwick, which staged the very first Open in 1860 and hosted the next eleven. It is a gloriously old-fashioned links of blind shots, humps and history — the sleepered Cardinal bunker slashing across the 3rd, the blind Alps hole, the Railway holes tight against the old stone wall — and it is barely a mile from the airport. It plays nothing like a modern course, which is exactly why you should play it.

A short way up the coast, the Gailes stretch hides two of the best-value championship links in Scotland. Glasgow Gailes (about £75) and its neighbour Western Gailes are proper links tests at a fraction of the marquee fees, and the modern Scottish Open host Dundonald sits right beside them. Pair one of these with Troon or Turnberry and you have a top-drawer weekend without paying two premium green fees.

Troon or Prestwick puts you central to every course and minutes from the airport — handy if you are flying in for the weekend. See our full Ayrshire golf guide, or let the planner build it around your dates.