Top 100 Golf Courses in Scotland 2011

26th December 2010

Scotland, the Home of Golf, is where the game began; the sport has been part of the Scottish heritage since at least the 15th century. With around 560 golf courses in the country, serving a population of little more than five million, you’d expect to find quiet Scottish fairways. However, Scotland welcomes more than 18 million tourists every year and many come in search of the country’s hallowed fairways.

We presented the first ever rankings of the Top 100 golf courses in Scotland in July 2009 – click here for more. Since then, we have continued to perfect the process and we now take into account more data than ever before. Surprisingly, our latest list shows only subtle changes, but we have four new entries, two of which have become virtual household names since they opened in 2009.

Mirroring our latest Britain & Ireland Top 100, Castle Stuart is our highest Scottish new entry – straight in at position 16. We’ve featured this Scottish Highland course as a Gem since 2008, a full nine months before it officially opened its tees for play. Not far behind Castle Stuart is the David McLay Kidd-designed Machrihanish Dunes which debuts at position 25.

The highest climber in our rankings – up 17 places – is an unfamiliar name on the popular Ayrshire coast. West Kilbride, originally designed by Old Tom Morris and revised by James Braid, is a regular venue for the Scottish Boys Championship and it’s a fine seaside course that deserves to be better known. Martin reckons: “The back nine at West Kilbride is as good as it gets starting with a small loop from holes 9-12 (where out of bounds left should be taken into consideration) leading on to the sublime stretch of holes 13 through 16 juxtaposed with the beach where people stroll and dogs play.”

Click here to review our new Scotland Top 100 in detail.