Trip Itineraries
An Ayrshire Golf Week: Playing the Open Coast for Less Than You Think
Six days, eight rounds, three Open Championship venues, and a hire car based in Troon. A diary of an Ayrshire trip without the package, the markup, or the helicopter transfer to Turnberry.
A diary, kept on the back of a scorecard and rewritten in a Premier Inn in Troon. Six days. Two players. One hire car. The aim was Royal Troon, Prestwick and Turnberry, plus the value rounds in between. Total spend per person, all in: £1,840. The notes that follow are what we'd tell a friend who asked.
Sunday — arrival
Glasgow Prestwick airport at 14:30. Hire car (£165 for the week, plus £40 for the second driver — book direct rather than through the broker, saves around £30) collected by 15:15. Twenty minutes to Troon. Premier Inn Troon, £85 a night, parking included.
The room is what you'd expect of a Premier Inn. The location is not — five-minute walk from Royal Troon clubhouse, ten minutes from the railway station, a sea view from the road outside. We dropped the bags and walked into town for fish and chips at Wee Hurrie. The queue at 18:00 on a Sunday was twenty deep. Worth it.
Tomorrow's tee time at Western Gailes is 10:08.
Monday — Western Gailes
Western Gailes (£165). The starter is a man called Jim who has, by his own count, started rounds at this club every working day since 1998. The course runs in a long thin strip between the railway and the sea — eighteen holes, no parallel fairways, the sea visible from every tee.
It rained for the first three holes and stopped for the rest. The 6th hole, played into a quartering wind, took a 7-iron longer than we'd budgeted for and a chip and two putts to recover. The clubhouse afterwards: smoked salmon sandwich and a half of Belhaven Best, £14.
Verdict: probably the best round of the trip on a like-for-like basis. We'll see.
Drove back to Troon for a 17:30 walk on the beach. Light rain. The lighthouse at the south end of the bay was already on.
Dinner: MacCallums of Troon, the seafood place at the harbour. £42 per head with one bottle of wine between us. Booking taken at 4 pm, table at 7. We were the only non-locals in the room.
Tuesday — Royal Troon Old Course
Royal Troon Championship (£280). Two-round combination with the Portland Course was £350 — we took it.
The first nine plays out along the railway line, downwind on this particular morning. We were level fives at the turn, which surprised both of us. The 8th — the Postage Stamp — is shorter than the postcards suggest and harder than the photos make it look. Both of us short. Both of us double-bogey.
The back nine plays back into the wind and never let up. We walked from the 12th tee thinking we'd be fine and posted 47 between us on the next seven holes. The 11th is the hole nobody mentions in the magazine pieces and it should be — a brutal par 4 with a railway boundary on the right that takes balls in a way you don't expect.
Lunch in the Old Clubhouse. £28 for soup, sandwich, coffee.
Portland Course in the afternoon (included in the combination). Markedly easier. We both played to handicap. A relief, frankly, after the morning.
Total of 36 holes, two showers, two beers in the bar. Bed by 22:00.
Wednesday — rest day, sort of
A planned non-golf day for the legs. Drove to Culzean Castle (45 minutes south on the A77) and walked the grounds. £19 entry. Worth it.
Lunch at Souter Johnnie's Cottage in Kirkoswald (Burns connection, lots of school tour buses, decent food).
Back to Troon by 16:30. The pro shop at Royal Troon was open — bought a single yardage book as a souvenir, £15. The man behind the counter remembered we'd played the day before. "How was the Postage Stamp?" "Brutal." "Aye."
Pint at the Anchorage Hotel pub. Early dinner.
Tomorrow: Prestwick.
Thursday — Prestwick
Prestwick (£225). Caddie taken — Prestwick is one of the courses where it's worth it. Ours, Drew, has worked the course twenty-eight years. He told us where to aim on the 1st (right of the white house), where not to aim on the 3rd (the blind shot over the wall), and what to expect from the 17th (the Alps hole — blind, downhill, terrifying).
The course is older than your sense of what a golf course should be. The 17th tee shot is genuinely one of the strangest you'll ever play — you can't see the green, you can't see the fairway, you can see only a marker post and the back of an enormous hill. We both made bogey, which Drew said was fair.
Birthplace of the Open Championship (1860). It feels it.
Lunch in the clubhouse: jacket and tie not required at lunch (only dinner), but a collared shirt is. £24 for a proper meal.
Drew was tipped £40 between us. He shook hands with both of us at the 18th. We will not forget the round.
Drove back to Troon. Booked a table at the Lido on the Esplanade for dinner — Italian, £35 per head, sea view.
Friday — Turnberry
Turnberry Ailsa (£550). The big one of the trip. Drove south on the A77, 40 minutes, with the Isle of Arran on our right the whole way.
The clubhouse is a hotel — you check in at the spa-style reception, not a starter's hut. The lighthouse at the 9th is everything the photographs say it is. The 9th tee shot is across the rocks of the Firth of Clyde and you can't aim too far right or you're playing from the beach. Both of us hit it pure, both of us made par. Probably the best moment of the week.
The course turns inland for a stretch — the back nine has less of the cliff drama than the front but more of the strategic golf. The 16th green is a target the size of a placemat from 180 yards. The 18th plays back to the lighthouse and the hotel and ends with a clubhouse view that justifies the green fee on its own.
Caddie taken. Tipped £50.
Lunch in the Duel In the Sun bar (the room named after the 1977 Open between Watson and Nicklaus). £35 for soup and a smoked salmon plate.
Drove back to Troon in early evening light. Did not say much. Both of us tired in a way that comes from a great course rather than a bad one.
Saturday — Glasgow Gailes + departure
Final round, then home.
Glasgow Gailes (£130). Half the price of Royal Troon, ninety per cent of the experience. A links course inside the same dunes as Western Gailes and Dundonald. The 1st tee is a 5-minute walk from Gailes train station — we dropped the hire car off at Prestwick airport and got the train back up. £6.50 return.
The course is a quieter, friendlier round than the famous neighbours. Nobody in front, nobody behind, no caddie, no fuss. Both of us played to handicap. Bacon roll in the clubhouse afterwards, £4.
Train to Prestwick airport, flight at 18:40.
The car at Prestwick: handed back without incident. The rental company tried to charge us for a chip in the windscreen that had been there before we left — we had a photograph from Sunday afternoon. Apologies and refund.
Home by 22:30.
What it cost (per person, two-player trip)
- Flights (return Glasgow Prestwick): £140
- Hire car (split): £165
- 6 nights Premier Inn (split): £255
- 8 rounds of golf: £980
- Caddies + tips (Prestwick, Turnberry): £130
- Hire clubs delivered: £140 (we hired)
- Meals (£55/day average): £330
- Local sundries (yardage book, beach parking, etc.): £40
Total: £1,840 per person
What we'd change
If we did this again we would:
- Skip Royal Troon Portland. Decent round but rendered forgettable by playing it after the Championship in the same day. Would save £70 and a knackered evening.
- Add Dundonald Links. A modern links between Gailes and Irvine, £165, hosted multiple Scottish Opens. Better than Glasgow Gailes if budget allows.
- Stay one night at Turnberry. Resort-guest rate drops the Ailsa to £450. One night at the hotel costs around £300 in shoulder season. Net saving: £100 plus the experience of an evening at the property.
- Drive south for one night to Galloway. Southerness is 90 minutes south of Turnberry, £85 a round, top-100-Britain links nobody on a typical Ayrshire trip ever sees.
What we'd do the same
- The Premier Inn in Troon. £85 a night with parking, walkable to everything, no fuss.
- Wee Hurrie for fish and chips on arrival.
- The Royal Troon combination day rather than splitting it.
- Hiring a caddie at Prestwick.
- Playing Glasgow Gailes on the way out.
- A non-golf day midweek. The legs needed it. The trip needed it.
Notes to self for next time: book Turnberry at least four months ahead in shoulder season. Drew at Prestwick — request him by name. The Italian on the Troon Esplanade is the better Saturday evening option. The chip in the windscreen at Prestwick: photograph the car on collection.
Also in the Almanac
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