Stranraer

The original course used by the members of Stranraer Golf Club was located in the east end of the town and was opened in 1906, the year after the club was formed. It was a 9-hole course, laid out over three fields by the 1883 Open Champion Willie Fernie who played a match against Dan Kelly, the local professional, to mark the occasion.

The course and clubhouse were requisitioned by the War Department in 1940 as a Transit Camp – nearby Cairnryan became an important construction site for Mulberry Harbours in the D-Day landings – and the members were without a course until well after World War II when James Braid was called out of retirement to design a new course at Creachmore just outside the town. Stranraer was Braid's last design prior to his death in 1950. Two years later, the new Stranraer opened for play.

Situated on an escarpment beside Loch Ryan, Stranraer is laid out on former farmland with many stands of mature trees. It is a fine parkland layout with several holes also played along the loch shore. With a total length of 6,308 yards, there are no fewer than fourteen par fours on the course with only one par five, the appropriately named “Lang Whang” 15th hole.

The signature hole is the 397-yard par four 5th named “Corunna” played from an elevated tee looking over Loch Ryan towards Ailsa Craig out in the Irish Sea. The tee shot down to the lochside must find a tight fairway between a heavily gorsed bank on the left and out of bounds along the shoreline to the right (where two bunkers are postioned to catch pushed drives). It's a thrilling hole to play and, in fact, it has been voted by readers of a Scottish golf magazine as one of the toughest eighteen holes to play in the country.