Where To Next - Gailes
BY MURRAY BOTHWELL
5 MIN READ
Golf has been played across Ayrshire’s tumbling dunes and windswept linkslands for hundreds of years and names synonymous with golfing history litter the pages of “best of” books on the game. Just north of Royal Troon lies a contemporary triumvirate of courses in an area known as Gailes, the old Scots word for the leafy bog-myrtle and indicating that the surrounding hinterland of the links had some extensive damp patches. A combination of historical, traditional and modern designs which have hosted numerous Internationals, Championships and qualifiers between them, the three courses of Western Gailes, Glasgow Gailes and Dundonald Links are without doubt the epitome of classic links golf and are all within a wedge of each other.
Passing Glasgow Gailes, a tree-lined turning takes you off through fields, around the back of Dundonald’s par-3 15th and across a level crossing to reach Western Gailes’ traditional red-roofed clubhouse. A typical Ayrshire links, being tucked between the railway and the sea, it is no more than two holes wide with seven holes to the north and eleven to the south of the clubhouse. Heather, marram, fescue and old dune complexes occasionally hide holes from view, whilst crumpled fairways and meandering burns gather the ball without a care for your score. Add the wind off the adjacent Firth of Clyde, noticeably shifting as the tide changes, and new challenges are added to the timeless, undulating terrain and finely contoured greens set cleverly into the folds and bowls of the surrounding dunes.
Just over the tracks lies Gailes Links, the 1892 sister course to the venerable Glasgow Golf Club’s prestigious Killermont course. The fairways of Gailes became so popular, being playable all year round unlike Killermont’s parklands, that within a couple of years the members had negotiated a permanent railway station to be built and save them the two mile walk from Irvine. New members were subsequently invited to become capable players over the links course before being offered membership to play in Glasgow. The impressive double-height windows of the lounge, set into the clubhouse’s red Ballochmyle sandstone, look out over the 1st tee and 18th green.
As a course, Gailes Links is slightly less undulating than Western Gailes with a mix of gentle fairways punctuated by swales and ridges, but deep pot bunkers and tricky pin positions make for a challenging game if you’re not accurate. With only three par-3s it gained its position as an Open qualifying course thanks to its excellent practice area and that need for golfers to be accurate off the tee: even a short distance off the fairway can find the manicured hell that is heather. Beautifully wild and purple in season, it is trimmed to between 10cm and 30cm deep allowing you to generally find your ball quite quickly, but do very little with it. Any wind direction here will help you only a few times in your round and this is why it’s one of the great tests of links golf.
Nearby lies Dundonald Links, redesigned from the old Southern Gailes to accommodate championship golf, and unlike many traditional links courses tucks its golfers away behind high dunes and deep hollows so that you continually feel you have the course to yourself. What lies behind the floodlit stone-pillared gates as you arrive is initially a mystery, but after a short winding drive you soon reach the impressive new clubhouse with its quality furnishings and merchandise downstairs, whilst upstairs is a spacious dining area overlooking the course and the setting sun behind Arran.
The speed of the greens and their swales are legendary for such a new course, and thankfully the practice short-game greens which form the focal point of the superbly-appointed lodges replicate these perfectly. No excuses then. Evening BBQs on the lodges’ west-facing patios give the opportunity for guests at Dundonald relive the highs and lows of the game just past, or ponder the anticipation of the day ahead. Evening meals and fine dining can also be taken in the grass-roofed clubhouse, the environmental awards for this course becoming an annual addition.
Already home to four Scottish Opens, the course’s pot bunkers tease and torment, and memorable meandering burns form numerous greenside boundaries into which errant shots can quite easily roll from off its slick putting surfaces. Those same burns also delineate their magnificent 3rd hole, a fearsome par-5 into wind where not only does the burn form a linear right-hand boundary with the forest but then cuts across the fairway at a tempting angle, asking so many questions so early in the game of your ability with but one simple decision… what to do next.