Ardfin

Ardfin may be the most dramatic thing built in Scottish golf this century: eighteen holes sculpted into the cliffs at the southern tip of Jura, opened in 2017 after a six-year design and build during which the Australian architect Bob Harrison visited the island 27 times and the construction crew drained fairways through peat and bare rock. The first eleven holes run along the clifftops and descend to beach level with Islay filling the horizon; twelve through fourteen play along the shore itself before the course climbs a ridge home to Jura House.

The catch is access. Ardfin publishes no green fee — not a high one, none at all. The estate takes bookings for The Quads, thirteen rooms converted from the home farm's buildings, and offers Jura House for exclusive use; golf is arranged around staying. Getting there is its own expedition: Loganair to Islay and a boat across the Sound, or the long road-and-two-ferries route that makes Machrihanish look convenient.

At 6,812 yards, par 72, it is a serious course as well as a spectacular one. Whether it is worth what it takes to stand on the first tee is a question with no published answer — which, one suspects, is exactly how Jura's owner likes it.