Hilton Park (Hilton)

Hilton Park Golf Club was formed from the demise of two local clubs – Glasgow North Western and Bankhead – which lost their playing facilities due to housing developments by the municipal authority.

No doubt due to the fact that so many potential members had to be taken into consideration, it was decided to set out two 18-hole courses – the Hilton and the Allander – on the moorland site offered to the new club by the Duke of Montrose.

To this day, Hilton Park is the only club in the county of Dunbartonshire to have two 18-hole golf courses operational on the same site, as Loch Lomond’s second course, Dundonald, is situated forty-seven miles away from its sibling in Ayrshire.

James Braid designed both courses which were built by the construction companies of John Stutt and Hawtree & Taylor and they opened for play within months of each other in 1928, the year after the club was established.

The layouts were closed during World War II for military purposes and a number of the holes never reopened (leading to a course redesign) so the modern day Hilton course has changed quite a bit since it was first conceived by its eminent designer.

Holes 7, 8 and 9 form a tricky trio of short par fours on the front nine, and there’s many an unsuspecting golfer who’ll come to grief at this rather innocuous little stretch of holes.

On the inward half, the signature hole appears at “Muckle Drap,” the 184-yard 17th, where the tee shot is played from an elevated position to a green nestled beyond a burn, over 100 feet below.