Shiskine Golf Club

Shiskine Golf and Tennis Club is one of the most unusual courses featured on this website, a links that has attained true cult status. Founded in 1896, originally as a nine-hole layout, Shiskine was designed by the 1883 Open champion Willie Fernie. Shortly before the Great War, Willie Park Junior was commissioned to extend the course to 18 holes and to revise Fernie’s original nine holes. Six of the new holes fell into neglect during World War I, leaving behind today’s unusual 12-hole links.

Shiskine is located at Blackwaterfoot on the western side of the Isle of Arran, a small island off the Ayrshire coast, which is often referred to as “Scotland in Miniature”. This is a simply stunning location, affording majestic views across the Kilbrannan Sound to the Kintyre peninsula.

Nearly every shot at Shiskine is blind, either from the tee or for the approach to the green or, in some cases, both. And because of this tortuous terrain, there are numerous stop/go signals and markers to help golfers navigate their way around the course. The modern school of golf course architecture would cringe at many of Shiskine’s features but the course is a shrine to the way in which the game used to be played by the golfing greats of yesteryear. After all, Shiskine was around long before the earthmovers, irrigators, fertilisers and multi million pound design fees.

Shiskine is golfing ground of such purity, owing only the barest influence to the hand of man, that to play here is to enjoy a unique sporting experience. Shiskine can only be described as idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, it’s fun golf and immensely enjoyable. The 3rd and 4th holes, called “Crows Nest” and “The Shelf”, offer real excitement, nestling underneath the Drumadoon Cliffs. This is a links that needs to be played more than once. Only then will you begin to understand and appreciate its quirks.