Scotland Golf Bible

A guide to green fee value for money

Category: 4 star (Page 1 of 22)

194. Troon Links (Lochgreen). 29 Apr 23.

October 24, 2026 /

The road to the Open ran through this municipal course for forty years; Jack Nicklaus took it, though not the way the legend tells it.

Price Paid: £19.99 (GolfNow)
Current Price (2026): £38 list; £30 GolfNow Hot Deal
Value (out of 5): 5 at price paid / 5 at current GolfNow / 4.5 at current list
Moly’s Score: 85 gross, 72 nett, 38 Stableford points (playing handicap 13)

The 5th, stroke index 1, runs beside the Glasgow to Ayr railway. On the far side of the line lie Royal Troon’s members’ courses. On this side, the people’s golf. Moly took a 7.

In my Troon Darley blog (136) I wrote about two tiers of Scottish golf: Royal Troon’s clubhouse and the Troon Links clubhouse are less than a mile, but a world, apart. Lochgreen is where those two worlds used to meet.

From 1923 to 1962, anyone who wanted to play in The Open at Troon first had to qualify, and half the qualifying was on the municipal course. In 1923 it was still called Troon Municipal No.2. Gene Sarazen shot 75 on it on the Monday. On the Tuesday he went out first on Troon’s New (Portland) course into the worst of the rain and wind, shot 85, and failed to qualify. Walter Hagen scraped in on 159. The municipal half had not been Sarazen’s hurdle.

The 15th tee, framed by pines and full flowering broom, a highlight all round the course.

The 1962 Open was the last with no qualifying exemptions, so even the reigning US Open champion, a 22-year-old Jack Nicklaus, had to play a round over Royal Troon’s Old Course and one over Lochgreen. Every Lochgreen write-up mentions this. One goes further, claiming he “shot an 82 and then a 68 on the Troon Links Lochgreen course to qualify by one shot”.

Fran on the 12th tee, in the “Dovecot Section”. Three holes of mature estate parkland, a different course entirely from the links holes either side.

It doesn’t add up. Only one of the two qualifying rounds was on Lochgreen. The qualifying mark was 154, and 82 plus 68 is 150, four shots inside it. The figures look borrowed from the championship proper. Nicklaus opened with 80 on the Old Course, including a 10 at the 11th, then shot 72, making 152, exactly the halfway cut. Twelve players on 153 went home. So the scramble happened, but on Royal Troon, not here. Somewhere along the way the legend crossed the railway line. His actual qualifying scores have so far eluded me.

The 16th, a par 5 with devilish bunkers cut into a heathery bank, unseen from the fairway until you’re on top of them. The bunkering is Lochgreen’s strongest feature.

So, the course? Lochgreen is quite long. At par 74 with five par 5s, it’s the longest of the three Troon Links courses. The par flatters, though. From the yellows the Course Rating is 71.1, nearly three shots below par. Under the handicap rules in force in 2023, that worked in my favour: the 38 points came against a par the rating says is soft. Since April 2024, Scotland’s handicap formula deducts the difference, and the same round off the same index would give a course handicap of 10, not 13, and around 35 points. Lochgreen’s par 74 used to be a three-shot present to every Stableford player who teed it up there.

The 6th green, a tough par 3. A deep revetted bunker, properly shaped and properly punishing: the quality of Lochgreen in a single frame.

The links holes play over firm turf that I suspect differs little from Royal Troon’s across the line. The driving is generous, but the greenside bunkering is not: deep, revetted and properly placed. The 5th, with the railway tight on the right, is the hole to remember, and it was my only blank on the card. Holes 11 to 13 break off into the parkland of the Dovecot Section, with veteran trees, a stone ruin and a reed bed behind one green. That suits a course named after a loch drained long ago. The Lochgreen name survives; the loch itself is now a culverted burn.

The approach to the 13th: crisp greenside bunkers in the parkland stretch, with a reed bed behind, the nearest thing left to a loch at Lochgreen.

The condition was the weak point. A year after my Darley round, and a month later in the season, the fairways were still thin, worn and straw-coloured. Nothing about the Glasgow winter overflow I described in Blog 136 had changed. The greens held up; I just didn’t hole anything on them. Better putting would have made it a very good round rather than a decent one.

The 10th green, a par 3 in good order. It was getting to it that showed the wear.

On value, one development since Blog 136. Then, GolfNow was the competitor the council was responding to with “dynamic pricing”. Now South Ayrshire sells its tee times through GolfNow’s own platform. The discount app has become the shop counter. At £19.99, Lochgreen was 5/5. At the current £30 Hot Deal it still is. At £38 list it drops half a point, mostly because of the condition. It’s still a long, historic, properly bunkered links for a fraction of the price across the line, if you could get on, that is!

Fran putting on the 18th green in front of the Troon Links clubhouse, the shared home of Lochgreen, Darley and Fullarton.

Next, Fullarton (Blog 195), the shortest course of the three, where the land story begins.

Facts:

Course Type: Links, with a three-hole parkland stretch
Par: 74 (5 par 5s, 10 par 4s, 3 par 3s)
Distance: 6,476 yards (yellow)
Course Rating / Slope: 71.1 / 120 (yellow)
Course Quality: 3.5/5
Moly’s Gross Score: 85 (38 points)

Moly’s Lochgreen scorecard: 85 gross, 38 points. The 7 at the 5th was the only blank.


191. Prestwick St Nicholas. 27 Apr 23.

September 17, 2026 /

Friendship has unrivalled value.

Round price: unknown (guest of a member); GolfNow rate at the time £55-£65. Current Fee (2026) £130. Current GolfNow (2026) ~ £65

Value; at current fee, 3/5, at GolfNow 4/5.

Before our game, I’d never met Doug McKinnon, a great friend of my friend Frank Crowe who introduced us. Not only was I heartedly welcomed, Doug waved aside any attempt to pay my guest fee. That kindness is this blog’s message.

The gorse lined first amid grey Ayrshire skies, a classic links opening.

It’s not unusual either. Golfers are proud of their golf club and will show it off given an opportunity, especially as they understand how visitor green fees have outstripped the pocket of most golfers. Indeed, allowing Members’ guests is one of the great benefits of club membership. Social media groups now solely exist, not only in Scotland, to provide platforms for reciprocal guest arrangements as it’s often the only way many are able to afford the more expensive courses.

‘St Nicholas’ is proper links land on the north edge of Prestwick. Gorse adorned throughout, with the Firth of Clyde tight along the course and Arran across the water influencing the local weather. We played into a shifting south-easterly, which, on ground this exposed, epitomised links defence.

The Salt Pan Houses behind the 1st green, a Category A listed building, and one of the most complete survivals of Scotland’s saltboiling industry.

A pair of stone Cat A listed buildings sit behind the 1st green, the Salt Pan Houses, built circa 1760 for the Maryburgh Salt Works. They are regarded as the most complete remains of Scotland’s salt boiling industry. That industry keeps resurfacing: the 3rd is named Maryborough after the works, the 12th is simply “Pans.”

Doug chipping at the 3rd, with the Salt Pan Houses again, closer up.

The club’s founding story is worth recording. Its website leads with “Co-Founded by Old Tom Morris in 1851”, the sort of claim that often outruns the archive. However, this time it’s spot on: Morris, then ‘Keeper of the Green’ at nearby Prestwick Golf Club, met working golfers at the Red Lion Inn in 1851 to found the Prestwick Mechanics Club, the tradesmen’s response to the gentlemen’s club next door. It didn’t become “St Nicholas” until 1858, didn’t get its own course until 1877, and didn’t settle at Grangemuir Road until 1892. So the lineage holds, but the turf we played has sadly nothing to do with anything Morris laid out. However, the story of a working man’s club founded in the shadow of a gentlemen’s one, is better suited than the clubhouse plaque.

The approach on the tough par four 8th, a flooded quarry pit guarding the green.

What you actually play has real variety: flat, easy walking in stretches, then holes that turn hard without warning. The 8th, Quarry, with its flooded pit crowding the green, is one. Knowing which holes to attack and which to defend is the whole strategic game here.

The 2nd hole, Bruce, lays a consistent clue to the great underlying story of the land. Along with the 5th (St Ninians) and the 15th (Kingcase) they all point at the same legend: Robert the Bruce, cured of leprosy after striking his spear into the ground at Kingcase, founded St Ninian’s leper hospital there in gratitude. The well and chapel ruins survive behind the modern church, dated to the 13th century. Three holes walk you straight through it.

Moly on the par three 2nd tee, called ‘Bruce’.
The 15th ‘Kingcase’ the revetted bunker guarding front left, a testament to the conditioning, with the Salt Pan Houses’ chimney line visible again on the horizon.

Two names I couldn’t fully uncover. The 9th, Cock O’ Bendy, nobody at the club could explain. The 11th, Pladda, made more sense once worked out: the only par 5, running along the shoreline, named, one imagines for the small island off Arran, visible from the tee. Ayrshire links have form for naming holes after the view rather than the ground. I carded an 11 there.

The 16th, Tom Morris, I imagine is a regular “card wrecker” where I took 7, gorse pressing in both sides back to the clubhouse. The 17th, easy by comparison, brought a birdie. Golf!

The tough 16th, Tom Morris, running the gauntlet between the gorse back toward the clubhouse; my card-wrecker of the day.

The real teeth are saved for last. The 18th, Home, is 225 yards into the prevailing wind; most golfers won’t reach it with a driver, so it plays as a short par 4 with the wrong club in hand. Doug reckoned Colin Montgomerie once called it the hardest par 3 in Ayrshire; I couldn’t find that written down, so take it as clubhouse lore, but into a stiffening wind I wasn’t arguing.

The 18th, 225 yards into the prevailing wind, one of the toughest par 3s in Scotland.

Would I go back? Without hesitation. A fair, strategic links test with real history behind it, and a good place for a first-timer to start on links golf. For the membership, it looks a thoroughly good club to grow old in. At the GolfNow rate, 4 out of 5. As Doug’s guest, worth more than any number I’ve got.

Facts:

Course Type: Links

Par 69 (1 par 5, 13 par 4s, 4 par 3s)

Distance: 5,686 yards (Yellow tees, as played)

Moly’s Gross Score: 92

Moly’s Prestwick St Nicholas Scorecard

190. Irvine ‘Bogside’. 26 Apr 23.

August 28, 2026 /

An Example of the Golf Market Leaving Normal Golfers Behind

Price Paid: £32 (via GolfNow)
Current Price (2026): £125 (summer, May-Sep)
Value: 5/5 at price paid. 2/5 at current list price.

Tucked between the Ayrshire coastal railway line and the mouth of the River Irvine, this course is shadowed by more famous neighbours, giving an occasional opportunity for value.

Fran facing the magnificent sleeper bunker at the 5th, “Sandface”.

In 1887 Eglinton Estates leased land for a course to be built between the railway, the river, the village of Bartonholm and the ‘Bogside’ racecourse. The racecourse had opened in 1808 and from 1867 hosted the Scottish Grand National, but money ran out and the last meeting ran in 1965, with the Grand National moving south to Ayr. The 11th hole is called “Grandstand” although no remnants exist.

Approach to the 11th “Grandstand”; nothing remains of the racecourse grandstand.

The golf course is strategic fare. Willie Fernie, professional at Troon, made the first significant alterations after the original 1887 layout, and Harold Hilton surveyed the course in 1912. But much of what’s here now is Braid’s,including four entirely new holes (the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th) carved from land bought from the neighbouring farms and the Eglinton estate.

When we played, the turf was superb given how early in the year, with fast, subtle greens. Not every hole is tight, the 7th, The Cup, is as wide open as Bogside gets, a breather after the squeeze of the holes before it.

Moly at the short par 4 7th, the wide fairway narrows significantly around 230 yards.

The course has some very difficult holes, no more so than ‘Cannon Hill’, the 6th, a worthy stroke index 1.

The approach to the difficult par four 6th, “Cannon Hill’s”, the stroke index 1 hole.

The railway is often in play and gives the course added edge, out of bounds running the length of several holes. The 4th, The Moor, is the hole people talk about: a pond hard against the tee, out of bounds down the left, and a green backed directly onto the railway boundary, the line’s overhead gantries filling the skyline behind the flag.

Tron Carter (TC) of No Laying Up loves the 4th at Bogside.


It’s not just me rating it; Tron Carter of the No Laying Up podcast built himself a fantasy 18-hole course on episode 1151, one hole per course he’d played, matched by hole number, and Bogside’s 4th made the cut as part of his dream.

Here’s my one real gripe. There’s a fair amount of blind driving and approach work through the round, notably at the 12th, one of Braid’s own new holes, no less and again at the 14th, where the green sits in its own hidden punchbowl. That sits oddly against the man who redesigned the course: Braid wrote in Advanced Golf (1908) that blind holes should be avoided, “and especially a blind shot to the green.”

The ‘blind’ 14th green, where the bowl should help your approach find the green.

Now the value case. I paid £32 through GolfNow; today’s rack rate is £90–£125 depending on season, and GolfNow itself is currently listing Bogside at £115 with no Hot Deals running, barely a discount off list price. There’s a folk explanation clubs like to reach for here, that American visitors equate a high green fee with quality, so pricing low would actually cost business. It doesn’t hold up well under scrutiny. A lot of US visitors book through tour operators, buying flights, hotels and golf as a single package, and never see the individual green fee at all; they can’t be pricing courses on a fee they don’t see. What overseas visitors genuinely lack is a reference point: what a comparable course nearby charges, or what this course cost a few years ago. That’s a much simpler explanation for why fees have room to rise unnoticed than any theory about American taste. Whatever the reasoning, Irvine’s tripled its rate since 2023, and the golfer picking up the difference isn’t the tourist it’s golfer like me, deciding whether this round is still worth it. At £32, this was one of the best value rounds I’ve played anywhere in Scotland; Open Final Qualifying pedigree, Braid’s bunkering, a genuinely varied test, for municipal money. At today’s prices — list or GolfNow, that value case collapses; this is a 2/5 course at what it costs now.

The 18th tee and, right on cue, a reminder of the neighbours. .

It finished well, at least. The 18th runs you out almost to the clubhouse door, and it was worth lingering afterwards in the lovely old building with real history inside; Old Tom Morris attended a professional tournament here in 1919, and his signed photograph still hangs on the wall.

A wedge into the 18th, Flagstaff, found enough of the green to leave a putt worth having, and it dropped for a birdie three — the kind of ending that forgives a round its rough patches.

Facts: Course Type — Links/Heathland. Par 71 (yellow tees). Distance — 6,152 yards (Yellow tees).

Moly’s Gross Score, 93 (nett 79).

Moly’s Irvine ‘Bogside’ scorecard

189. Belleisle. 25 Apr 2023.

July 30, 2026 /

Belleisle – the people’s course, heading back to the gentry?

Price paid £30 (GolfPass voucher).

Value 5/5 at £30; 4/5 at current GolfNow (~ £43); 3.5/5 at list price £60.

Belleisle’s story has a sweet beginning. The estate’s lands, originally Netherton of Alloway, passed through Ayrshire gentry before Hugh Hamilton bought the property around 1787 using Jamaican plantation money, renaming it Belleisle. The Baronial sandstone mansion was rebuilt in the 1800s, then the Coats family, Paisley thread manufacturers, acquired it in 1886.

The beautifully manicured 12th fairway at Belleisle, showcases the condition.

Following the death of George Coats, Ayr Burgh Council purchased the entire estate for £25,000, opening James Braid’s two courses in 1927. Finally, the working man could walk the same ground his grandfather had doffed his cap to. There is a certain irony, then, in the fact that the listed green fee has doubled in two years since I played to now £60. One finds oneself wondering when the first £100 municipal round will arrive and whether Scotland will even notice what it has lost.

The opening tee at Belleisle; wide, well-maintained, and immediately signalling something above the municipal average.

Belleisle is the flagship of Golf South Ayrshire’s eight courses, which are covered in Blog 136. It is a proper Braid design, only two par fours under 400 yards from the yellow tees, fast-running fairways, and sound bunkering. The greens and surrounds are the real quality indicator, and on the day Fran and I played, late April sunshine, warmer to the eye than to the skin, they were excellent. It played like a good private members’ course in England. Which, at a municipal green fee, is precisely the point.

The approach to the 2nd, beautiful parkland character

The white tees add nearly 400 yards and lift the par from 69 to 71, with holes 1 and 15 both becoming par 5s. The 15th in particular, 426 yards from yellow, 478 from white, would actually be easier from the white.

The 15th, a long par four with a stone bridge, a burn, and an estate lodge for company.

Fran and I played steadily. I shot 89, undone by a 10 on the 18th, a 504-yard par 5 with a burn, a dogleg, and a steep gully that I negotiated with maximum creativity!

Fran playing into the 6th, with the par 3 7th and Arran beyond. Municipal golf at its finest.

A shortage of bunker rakes is noteworthy, a Golf South Ayrshire policy issue discussed in Blog 136, not a Belleisle-specific failing. The absence of twilight rates is more surprising for a late April afternoon, and is itself a small symptom of the broader commercial drift in municipal golf pricing.

Fran’s approach to the 18th, with the roofless shell of Belleisle House behind. Sold by the council in 2012, gutted by accidental fire in 2019, the council were mid-process repurchasing it when the blaze broke out.

The mansion tells its own story. Belleisle House, Category B listed, Scottish Baronial, presiding over the 18th fairway; it was sold off by South Ayrshire Council in 2012 for £300,000 and gutted by an accidental fire in 2019. The council now own the shell. The golf course thrives; the house that once commanded the estate does not.

For international visitors wanting to understand Scottish golf, Belleisle is essential. It showcases what civic investment in the game can produce at its best. At £29.99 it was exceptional. At £43 via GolfNow today it remains good value. At the £60 list price, the ancestors might start to feel the ground shifting beneath them again.

Course Type: Parkland
Par 69 yellow tees (2 par 5s, 12 par 4s, 4 par 3s) / Par 71 white tees
Distance: 6,036 yards (yellow tees)
Course Rating / Slope (yellow): 70.2 / 119
Moly’s Gross Score: 89

Moly’s Belleisle card, 89.

« Older posts

© 2026 Scotland Golf Bible

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑