Your Golf Travel - Extraordinary Golf Experiences - Flipbook - Page 31
Scottish-reared steaks cooked on
an open grill in the Duel in the Sun
restaurant, while the hotel itself has
received a similarly spectacular
renovation, although thankfully
‘The Don’ has gone easy on the
gold leaf.
Staying with the Trump theme, it
would be a sin to miss out on a trip
to the US President’s other golfing
gift to Scotland, the controversial
Trump International Golf Links
on the north-east coast. Ranked
as the best new course in GB &
Ireland when it first opened in
2015, the Hawtree-designed links
has softened into its landscape
in the intervening years, with the
narrow ribbons of fairways that split
the mountainous dunes rippling
gently under your feet like ill-fitting
carpets.
Those looking for weak holes
soon accept that they’re just not
there. From the show-stopping
par-3 3rd, which offers one of the
rare views of the sea, to the brutal
651-yard par-5 18th, it demands
total respect at every turn. The
hotel that Trump renovated to
accompany the course, Macleod
House, is pretty special too. Almost
understated by Trump’s standards,
the boutique residence is the very
epitome of Highland cool, with
plenty of tartan on show amongst
the Italian marble bathrooms,
Egyptian cotton sheets, and 50inch wall-mounted plasmas in the
19 luxuriously-appointed guest
suites.
For a final Scottish fling, golfers
should head to the only course
in the country to be built on a
Site of Special Scientific Interest,
Machrihanish Dunes, which
transports visitors back over 120
years to a time when golf was at
one with nature. Amazingly, only
seven of the 260-odd acres of the
site have been disturbed to make
way for the rumpled fairways and
punchbowl greens of the David
McLay Kidd-designed 7,082-yard
course, which makes for a truly
unique links experience, and one
that requires pinpoint accuracy to
score well, especially when the
wind gets up, as it often does on
this remote outcrop on Scotland’s
most westerly coast.
Away from the course, the resort’s
American owners have set about
creating a village atmosphere, with
numerous white-walled cottages to
rent, two comfortable hotels (The
Ugdale and The Royal), and its
very own pub in which to drown
your sorrows after a tough round.
Below;
Gleneagles;
Extraordinary Old Whisky
Enjoy a private whisky
tasting at the Old Course
Hotel Whisky Lounge.
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Follow your round with a journey
through time with a private tasting
session of a carefully selected
number of malts.
Particularly rare choices include
a Killyloch 1967, a Highland Park
40yr and a Glen Grant 1949.
Call Nick Bishop, Head of Select
Sales on 020 733 6 5349, in order
to arrange a private hire of the newly
refurbished Whisky Lounge.
yourgolftravel.com // 0800 193 6628 // Scotland
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