Scotland Golf Bible

A guide to green fee value for money

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193. Maybole. 29 Apr 23.

October 22, 2026 /

Maybole: a town that has never agreed on anything, including whether it needs a golf course.

Price Paid: £4 (winter rate, paid at the swimming pool over the road)
Current Price (2026): £8 GolfNow; £24 list (Golf South Ayrshire)
Value: 3/5 at £4 paid | 2.5/5 at £8 GolfNow | 1/5 at £24 list
Moly’s Score: 40 gross, 34 net, 17 Stableford points (9 holes)

Getting a consensus in Maybole has never been easy. Start with the name. A charter of 1192 calls the place Maybothel, which some read as Old English for a maiden’s house. Others prefer Gaelic: a plain with a cattle fold on it. The old folk called it Minnybole, which points to a moor instead. When the Ordnance Survey arrived in the 1850s, its surveyors dutifully listed the rival theories and dismissed one as purely fanciful. Nobody has settled it since.

Then there is the town’s most famous argument. In 1562 John Knox came to Carrick and was challenged by Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossraguel, to debate the Mass. They met in the Provost’s house with forty witnesses apiece and argued for three days. Neither man won. The 1860 Encyclopaedia Britannica records that both claimed victory. That is Maybole in a sentence.

Which brings me to golf, and an argument the town has been having for a decade: does Maybole need a golf course?

The club was founded in 1905 on a course off the Dailly Road. It later moved into the Memorial Park, land the town bought to remember its Great War dead. In 1935 a storm lifted the pavilion off its foundations and smashed it. Visitors then paid sixpence a round and couldn’t play on Sundays. Closure threats came in 2016, 2018 and 2020. In February 2023 the club finally folded for “lack of support”, and the golf press mourned a 118-year-old institution.

I went looking to debunk the 118 years, and I couldn’t. Golf’s Missing Links headlines the club as 1905–2023, then says in its own text that it ceased to exist in 1923. Even the archive can’t reach a consensus. But its Golfer’s Handbook entries run unbroken from the 1930s to the 2000s, so 1923 is plainly a slip for 2023. The club’s age stands. The course is younger.

Fourteen months later, Carrick Speakers Golf Club folded too, after 35 years. That made two clubs gone from one nine-holer. The course carries on regardless as one of eight run by Golf South Ayrshire, and the local councillor insists there is no threat to it. A community company now wants the pavilion as a meeting space and e-bike store. That may be the future of the Scottish town course: still there, but no longer anybody’s club.

The Maybole Golf Club pavilion, shuttered since the club folded in February 2023. Green fees are now paid at the swimming pool across the road, and a community group has applied to turn the building into a meeting space and e-bike store.

I arrived ten weeks after the club folded, paid my £4 at the pool, and played alone. The course repays the effort. It is hilly and constantly undulating, with small greens. The par 3s are the real examination: the 3rd and 6th measure 198 and 219 yards off the yellows, a long way to a small target, and both cost me a shot. Footgolf shares the fairways, and dog walkers share everything else.

The tee markers deserve a paragraph of their own. Each hole has a yellow metal bin, hand-painted with its name and yardages. The 1st is “Railway”. Somebody took real care over these. The dog walkers have found another use for them.

The 1st, “Railway”: hand-painted yardages on a metal tee bin. It doubles as a dog-bag bin, which is about as municipal as golf gets.

The 3rd green looks back over the rooftops of the old Kennedy capital. The 5th climbs steadily to a green beneath the Maybole War Memorial, a reminder of why this park exists at all.

Behind the 3rd green, Maybole’s slate roofs and church fall away down the hill. The green is small and sloping, typical of the course.
The 5th green beneath the Maybole War Memorial. The bunker is neatly raked, its edge less so: honest council maintenance.

The conditioning is honest council standard: well-cut fairways, raked bunkers, and rough edges where the budget runs out. It is better than its South Ayrshire stablemate Dalmilling (Blog 192). I went round in 40 for 17 points, in 65 minutes, which on those greens felt fair.

The 4th Green, showing the dovetailed Foot and Normal golf
From the 9th tee, the view back to the swimming pool, where you pay, and the town beyond. A lone dog walker is on duty.

At £4 this is 3/5 value. Cheap is not the same as good value: there is no club, no clubhouse, and a course that is honest rather than memorable. At £8 on GolfNow it slips to 2.5/5. At the new £24 rack rate it is 1/5, because for that money you’d expect the clubhouse lights to be on.

Whether Maybole needs a golf course is a debate that, like Knox and the abbot, will probably end with both sides claiming victory. For £4, I’m happy to declare mine.

Facts:
Course Type: Parkland (hilly town course in the Memorial Park)
Par: 33 for 9 holes (6 par 4s, 3 par 3s); 66 played twice
Distance: 2,420 yards from the yellows (4,840 for 18)
Course Rating/Slope: 64.0 / 109 (yellow, 18 holes)
Course Quality: 2/5
Moly’s Gross Score: 40 (34 net, 17 Stableford points)

Moly’s card, 40 shots took 65 minutes!

192. Dalmilling. 28 Apr 23.

October 20, 2026 /

Dalmilling – please check this course is still open.

Price paid £17.99 (GolfNow), against a £19 rack rate.

Current price (2026): £45 list; £22 GolfNow; £19 GolfNow Hot Deal.

Value 2/5 at £19–£22 via GolfNow; 1/5 at £45 list price.

Dalmilling has a long history of being given up on. Around 1220, Walter fitz Alan, High Steward of Scotland and ancestor of the Stewart kings, brought the Gilbertines (England’s only home-grown monastic order) to found a priory here on the River Ayr. Within a decade they had resigned it “of their own free will”. By about 1240 the last two canons had been told to hand the lands to Paisley Abbey and go home to England. Nothing of the priory survives.

The 1st, encapsulating the fairly bland layout of the least inspiring of South Ayrshire Council’s courses.

The golf course, opened by the council in 1961, has outlasted the monks six times over, no thanks to the landlord, South Ayrshire Council, which has tried to close it at least three times. There was an attempt which ended with a councillor facing 200 angry golfers. In 2017 the council leader wanted houses and an urban park, conceding that the course was good for golfers but not for anyone else. Then in early 2020 it appeared on a list of five of the council’s eight courses earmarked for closure. Each time it survived. The 2018 reprieve came with promises of trees and a perimeter path, and the pandemic golf boom turned the 2020 hit list into an investment Programme. Hence the headline; Before you drive.

The 6th, the best hole on the course: 107 yards, but the burn in its ditch makes it count.

The council has spent money on the clubhouse but not, as far as I could see, on the course. There were no rakes, a Golf South Ayrshire policy already covered in Blog 136. The tees were marked by little plastic cones, and the teeing grounds were scuffed bare. It took me straight back to the Caird Park nine-holer in Dundee, where I started playing: honest municipal golf, maintained to a budget, for people who expect nothing more.

A typical Dalmilling view at the 8th: wide, open and generous, with divots abounding.

At 5,209 yards from the yellows, with five par 3s, it’s short. The one hole with genuine character is the 6th, a 107-yard par 3 over a burn sunk in a steep-sided ditch, with mature trees on either side. Naturally, I made a double-bogey 5 there.

Fran putting on the 12th, with the open layout under a flat grey April sky.

Dalmilling is a good starter course: short, open and forgiving. But it doesn’t need 18 holes. Nine good ones would serve beginners better and cost the council less. I suspect it survives on the season-ticket and green-fee income of Belleisle (Blog 189) and Troon rather than on its own account. At £17.99 it was cheap, but cheap isn’t the same as good value, hence 2/5. The list price has since more than doubled to £45, for a course where I saw no sign of investment. That’s 1/5. GolfNow still sells it for £19–£22, a gap which suggests even the council doesn’t know what it’s really worth. Or perhaps, they’re laying the ground for closure?

Course Type: Parkland
Par 69 yellow tees (2 par 5s, 11 par 4s, 5 par 3s)
Distance: 5,209 yards (yellow tees)
Course Rating / Slope (yellow): 65.7 / 113
Course Quality: 2/5
Moly’s Gross Score: 85 (32 Stableford points)

Moly’s Dalmilling scorecard, poor for such an open course, albeit ground conditions heavy.

174. Aberfeldy. 30 Nov 2022.

February 22, 2024 /

Better Days

Value 1/5

I played the three 9-hole courses of Aberfeldy, Mains of Taymouth and Strathtay on the same wet Highland Perthshire day. This is important context, because whereas Mains of Taymouth and Strathtay were well presented, Aberfeldy was in awful condition.

The 8th green at Aberfeldy, on a day the course should have been closed.

All three courses sit along a 12 mile stretch of the River Tay, between Kenmore and Grantully, and experience the same climate. It’s evident Aberfeldy GC is struggling to maintain the course with its small membership, with volunteering a critical resource.

The length of fairway meant Moly lost 3 balls from shots hit into the “fairway”.

Finding the course in such a bad state, especially from the 2nd hole onwards, leaves me somewhat uncomfortable in writing a review, as I’m sure there will be reasons why the course was effectively unplayable. Nonetheless, I’m committed to writing what I found on the day; all it would have taken by the club was a “course closed” sign on the first tee.

The Moness Burn, which feeds the Tay, is the key feature and hazard, which has to be crossed several times, here shown on the approach shot to the par 4, 7th hole, one of the more difficult holes. Beware the dog walkers, as the burn seemed a well used route.

Golf in Aberfeldy, much like in Scotland overall, is a story of expansion and contraction; the websites Missing Links and Breadalbane Heritage collectively tell Aberfeldy’s story, but there are gaps likely created by the old matter of ‘club’ versus ‘course’. There is also a book, intriguingly “Never an Old Tin Hut”, by local historian Jack Rees, published to mark Aberfeldy’s centenary in 1995.

The 2nd green was GUR. It wasn’t the worst!

In summary, Breadalbane GC and course, was founded in 1895 at its current location and would later be renamed Aberfeldy GC. But there are records of 2 other courses as early as 1891, in nearby Weem and in a place called Welar, the latter course can still be made out on Google Maps just north-east of Camernay. The current very flat course was characterised by sharing its ground with cows for many years.

The course expanded to 18 holes in 1995 including 6 holes north of the river, but was returned to 9 holes in 2016, due to the drop off in demand.

The “advanced composite footbridge” over the Tay, shown here from the 5th hole, made accessible 6 holes on the north of the river between 1995 and 2016.

The pictures tell their own story about the course condition. With much better courses nearby, one can’t see the long term survival of Aberfeldy GC. The local interest in golf can also be gauged in the lack of business sponsorship, even although Aberfeldy is base to one of the great whiskey distillers, Dewars. Plus, Breadalbane Academy, Highland Perthshire’s main school, is only 500 yards away, yet sadly has no mention of golf within its sporting curriculum.

The 9th green, adjacent the main road and clubhouse, was the most manicured.

This was a sad day for me, but I’m sure many people have fond memories of Summer golf in Aberfeldy. I thought the course condition when I played might be reminiscent of the course in the late 1890 – ever an optimist.

Round List Price £15. Actual Paid £10 (Winter rate).

Moly’s Score – 45 for 14 points (off 13)

Course/Slope Rating (yellow) nk/~65

Course Type: Parkland

Par 35  ( 1 par 5s, 5 par 4s, 3 par 3s)

Distance (yellow): 2688 yards

Moly’s score of 45 included losing 3 balls on fairways doubling as rough!

110. Machrie Bay. 21 Sep 2020.

October 29, 2021 /

Don’t make the same mistake as Walter Hagen – this is not worth playing

Round £15. Par 33. Slope (yellow) 100. Value (out of 5) – 1

Machrie Bay, is on the west of the island of Arran, not far from the majestic Shiskine. What a big disappointment – unless you’re chalking up all the courses on Arran, I would give this nine hole course a miss. At £15 for nine holes, this was very poor value when compared with the similar prices on offer on the island.

The very poor first tee at Machrie Bay, not an impressive start.

The world was in the middle of the Covid Pandemic when I played, but in looking closely at the poor course condition it was clear that the pandemic was not the reason – the course was suffering years of neglect. The teeing grounds were bad and many of the greens were covered in moss.

The moss covered 1st green at Machrie Bay.

There’s not much to say about the course. It had many very plain holes, little more than fields with a tee at one end and a green at the other. It did have 2 holes worth noting, both which play over the road that circles the island. The 2nd, played from the white tees was a difficult par 3, and the 9th hole, a fairly short par 4, with a very dangerous blind second shot over the road, for which distance control is critical – I played a good shot and never found my ball again!

The tough par 3 second hole at Machrie Bay – pictured from the white tee.

On the day I struck the ball well and scored 40, for 19 stableford points.

The par four 6th hole – the typical bland hole at Machrie Bay

Finally to Walter Hagen. There is a delightful newspaper clipping on the Machrie Bay website here. Enticed to play “The Machrie” course, a beautiful course on Islay, Hagen turned up in Arran to play Machrie Bay. Don’t make the same mistake – but then again doing something the same as Hagen might not be too bad!

Facts:

Course Type: Parkland

Par 33 (0 par 5, 6 par 4s, 3 par 3s)

Distance: 2154

Moly’s Gross score: 40

Moly’s Machrie Bay scorecard – gross 40, with triple bogie at the last
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