Carrick - Dunbartonshire - Scotland

Loch Lomond is an outstanding area of natural beauty and well deserving of a visit with or without the golf bag, and whilst I’d loved to have taken myself to the “real” Loch Lomond golf club, the Carrick makes a suitable deputy.

Make no mistake, the Carrick is set up for visitor golf. Opened in 2007, it has more than a whiff of “resort course” about it, particularly the clubhouse which doubles as a multi-floor spa (highly recommended though) with balcony level hot tub views over the 18th green.

If it’s resort course golf you’re expecting, that’s exactly what you get for the opening stretch. The first four holes are played around an inland lake, complete with fountain, to greens that were heavily indented with pitch marks at my time of playing. Played across lower ground where the course architecture is far from my own personal tastes, the holes are at least well bunkered, a theme that continues across the rest of the course.

Following this, the layout starts to take up some of the more prime land with the 5th hole being the first that’s played alongside the loch, but it’s not until the 8th hole, as you edge away from the loch and move towards higher ground, that the genuine reason to come and play the Carrick becomes more apparent. This stretch from 8 through to 14 offer a real contrast to what came before. The 8th, probably the best bunkered hole on the course returns you towards those wonderful rolling hills that frame much of the course. A draw off the tee is the play here or you’ll no doubt have to play from the sand for your next shot. A short walk then takes you to the uphill 9th. This and the wonderful 10th are the holes that really stole the show for me. The views from the 10th green are magnificent and must be amongst the best in Scotland. Be sure to also stop by the half-way house, created from a boat sunken into the ground next to the 10th tee. This boat used to belong to the Cameron House Hotel for day trips around Loch Lomond and they retired it to this fine spot.

Whilst 9 and 10 are pure theatre, I don’t have quite the same love for 11 and 12 which are a little bland in comparison, but the 13th right to left dogleg par 4 with a green nestled amongst the firs is a beautiful hole. Following this comes the signature hole, a par 3 with a dramatic drop towards Loch Lomond. Signature hole it may be, but I don’t feel that the angle of this hole, playing towards the trees rather than the water, makes the most of its surroundings. The 15th, the second par 5 to take you right along the loch-side is a lovely hole, but again, there seems to have been an opportunity missed by not adding an infinity green over the loch. The remaining few holes return back to the less interesting lakeside land as you head back to the clubhouse and the Florida-esque lake holes.

One aspect I must point out after playing the course is that this place is far from easy. My scorecard showed that I was well above handicap and I usually pride myself in scoring pretty well when playing courses away from my own. Play off the whites, or further back even, and your game will be severely tested. In summary, this is a course that’s made up of three parts; the unremarkable inland lake holes, the handful of holes by the loch side and the finer section that climbs across the higher ground all make for an interesting and varied day’s play. The course conditioning is never going to be up to the level of a top private members’ club, but it’s well worth playing if you’re in this neck of the woods for those holes that are routed away from the clubhouse.

The Carrick’s come in for some recent criticism regarding underfoot conditions on the course and there’s no doubt that the club still has some way to go before it resolves all outstanding drainage issues. Sorting out the soggy fairways will take some time but the damp conditions certainly didn’t appear to deter the large numbers from playing here when I revisited the Carrick a couple of days ago.

Perhaps the members are prepared to put up with less than perfect tee to green conditioning when they know they are putting on eighteen fantastic USGA-standard greens (that were in absolutely tip-top shape when I played) or maybe they´re just willing to give the maintenance team the chance to implement a raft of improvement proposals?

I was also very pleased to see that all bunkers on the course have undergone an extensive makeover, with aesthetically pleasing grass banks now covering the ugly old faces of the old sand traps. It’s obvious that a lot of recent work has gone in to upgrade the infrastructure at the Carrick but the course is still very much a work in progress.

Having opened only a few years ago in a blaze of local golfing publicity, it’s now settling into the harsh reality of normal operations and it’ll take a little more time and effort to get things right, especially on a site that seems to endure more than its fair share of inclement weather. Once current course improvement programs are completed, there’s a fair chance the Carrick will be able to fulfil its true potential.

Jim McCann