Whiting Bay Golf Club – Three Centuries Of Isle of Arran Golf

The late 1890s was a great time for the birth of golf on the Scotland island of Arran. Arran remarkably boasts six golf courses founded within 11 years of each other, and up to the dawn of the 20th century. They include – Lamlash (1889), the 9-hole Corrie (1892), Whiting Bay (1895), Shiskine (1896), Brodick (1897) and the 9-hole Machrie Bay (1900). Six years later in 1906 the six clubs got together to form the Arran Golfers Association. Our first introduction to golf in Arran was visiting The ...

Arran – A First Visit To This Unique Scottish Isle.

A first visit to the isle of Arran. Yes, after many visits to Kintyre and the Outer Herbrides we are heading to Arran, an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at 432 square kilometres (167 sq mi) and located just 90-minutes by ferry from the mainland at Ardrossan to Brodick. Though culturally and physically similar to the Hebrides, it is separated from them by the Kintyre peninsula and where we were headed after ...

Honfleur – Lovely French Town Where The Seine River Meets The English Channel

Honfleur is a lovely-looking city in the department of Calvados, in northern France’s Normandy region. Founded by Vikings in the 800s, Honfleur has served for centuries as a port for trade and travel. The town is located on the estuary where the Seine river meets the English Channel. The Church of St. Catherine (see You Tube video), dates from the second half of the 15th century, replaced an older stone church which was destroyed during the Hundred Years’ War. The Vieux-Bassin (old harbour), ...

Campbelltown – Scottish Pipe Bands & Great Kintyre Golf.

In between travelling for a first time to the island of Arran and making the journey to the Outer Hebrides we made a visit to Campbelltown. It’s a Scottish town down towards the Mull of Kintyre and where we have travelled before and on this latest occasion we stopped over in August 2022 Scottish golfing visit. Campbeltown is situated on the stunning peninsula of Kintyre, and the largest towns in Argyll.  It’s a long drive from the main highway leading from Glasgow to the A-83 turnoff ...

Barra Island Golf Club – A Second Visit Was Truly Double The Pleasure

It was 2012 when I first visited the remote Isle of Barra golf course in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to return to the islands in 2015, 2016, 2019 and last year in August 2022, and when making a third visit to Barra. Five visits .. Now is that not a strong recommendation? The Isle of Barra course lays claim to the most westerly golf course in the UK.  You can’t go any further west or you would arrive on the shores of Canada. The golf course is ...

Doha Golf Club’s Academy Course – Best Fun 8 1/2 Holes On The DP World Tour

If you’re read my articles on the ‘Course Features’ section on this website you may gather many of the stories have been researched and posted following visits to golf courses made during the course of reporting on events while on the various Tours. Whether it be on the PGA Tour, the Asian Tour, the Australasian Tour or the DP World Tour there’s always been a welcome door open for the visiting media to play a local golf course. And there can better course to tackle than visiting ...

Crail’s Gil Hanse Designed Craighead Links Celebrates 25th Anniversary – His First 18-Hole Course

A day after the crowning of a new men’s U.S. Open champion one of the world’s oldest clubs is celebrating the 25 th anniversary of the Gil Hanse designed Craighead Links course at Crail Golfing Scotland in Scotland. Hanse’s redesign work in Beverly Hills was on show last week for golf fans around the world to admire, while also testing the ancient club-and-ball game’s best ahead of American Wyndham Clark grabbing the golfing oscar in being crowned the 123 rd U.S. Open champion. The ‘Silver ...