Hotels For Golfer - Discount Golf Accommodation Scotland

St Andrews - The Old Course

The oldest golf course in the world has many remarkable features which help make it so special to golfers around the world. It is the Home of Golf where golf was first played 600 years ago and yet it remains a real test of golf for today's champions. Despite its reputation and status, it is a public course and is one of six public courses on St Andrews Links.
The Old Course has evolved over time and was not designed by any one architect. The people who played a major role in shaping it are Daw Anderson (1850s), Old Tom Morris (1860s- 1900) and Dr Alister Mackenzie (1930s).
The course is known for its particular physical features including 112 bunkers, some of which are especially famous e.g. 'Hell' on the long 14th, 'Strath' on the short 11th and the Road Bunker at what is probably the most famous golf hole in the world, the 17th or Road Hole (so called because a road - which is in play - runs hard against the back edge of the green).
Another peculiar feature of the Old Course is the double greens where the outward and inward holes are cut on the same putting surface. These greens are large, not surprisingly, and golfers can be faced with putts of almost 100 yards.
The Old Course is also unusual in that it starts and finishes in the town, but its truly remarkable feature is that in today's modern golfing world, a course which has evolved over six centuries, remains a true test of championship golf.

Turnberry Golf Club

The youngest of Scotland’s Open Championship venues but by no means overshadowed by its rivals. The first 13 holes were laid out by Willie Fernie in 1903 and three years later it was the first hotel and golf complex in the world with the wealthy travelling down by train from Glasgow to visit. It staged its first Open in 1977. Locals have a saying that if you can’t see Ailsa Craig, the 1,208-foot high granite rock off the Ayrshire coast, it’s raining; if you can, it’s about to rain. They do a disservice to an area of Scotland that is home to a glorious course, which is amongst the best. Often when the rest of Britain is shivering in a freezing winter, the sun is shining on Turnberry and the temperature mild. Play Turnberry’s Ailsa Course on one of those days with a light breeze coming in from the sea then there is nowhere you would rather be; play it in the rain and high winds and your step quickens towards the beckoning lights of the 221-bedroom Westin Turnberry Resort, which is as magnificent as its two links courses. Colin Montgomerie, who has his Links Golf Academy here, says: ‘It’s the finest links course in the world.’ The hotel provides spectacular views of a breathtaking coastline and out to the Isle of Arran and the Mull of Kintyre and, on a clear day, all the way to Ireland. With the Ailsa and its new sister, the Kintyre, dominating Turnberry’s 800 acres, a non-golfer could from their hotel room keep track of their partner’s progress with a powerful pair of binoculars.The old Arran course has been completely redesigned as the Kintyre by Donald Steel as a championship standard course.The new course incorporates Bains Hill, a stunning stretch of land extending to the coastline. In common with the Ailsa, the Kintrye offers undulating greens, tight tee shots, pot bunkers and thick Scottish rough. There are some excellent holes, especially the 8th with a drive from an elevated tee towards the sea and a blind second to the green set in a gully by the rocks.

AILSA – 18 holes, 6,976 yards (6,440 yards medal tees), par 70 (69 medal). Professional record 63. Amateur record 70.

KINTYRE -- 18 holes, 6,827 yards, par 72

Muirfield (The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers)

Muirfield, venue for the 2002 Open Championship, is simply one of the best courses in the world. The home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, it was designed in 1891 by Old Tom Morris and, including 2002, has hosted 15 Open Championships since 1892, the Amateur Championship on numerous occasions, the Ryder, Walker and Curtis Cups. From the championship tees, the course stretches to a formidable 6,970 yards and still adds up to a par-70 6,601 yards off the medal tees. Although the thick rough and cavernous bunkers, of which there are 151, can make it a very severe test, it is a course which invokes respect from all who have tangled with it. Henry Cotton called it ‘cruelly fair’. Tom Watson said there was ‘not a weak hole on the course’. Jack Nicklaus, who won in 1966, was so taken with this links in the lee of Gullane Hill, almost 20 miles from Edinburgh, he named his golf complex in Ohio, Muirfield Village, after it.

18 holes, 6,601 yards (Championship 6,970), par 70 (SSS 73). Championship course record: R. Davis, I. Aoki) 63.

Edinburgh Capital Hotel

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