Dunaverty Golf Club

Dunaverty Golf Club sits at Southend, ten miles south of Campbeltown and as close to Northern Ireland as Scotland gets on its western mainland coast. Founded in 1889, the course occupies cliff-top links ground above the Atlantic — 4,799 yards, par 66, and in clear conditions with Northern Ireland visible across the North Channel from the upper fairways. The drive to Dunaverty from Campbeltown takes 30 minutes on a single-track road through the most remote section of the Kintyre peninsula; the road passes the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse, one of the most dramatic locations in Scotland.

The course is short by modern standards, but the par 66 is not the point. The point is the location — at the absolute end of a peninsula that hangs south from the western Highlands and ends ten miles from another country, with the Atlantic on three sides and the Firth of Clyde to the east. Very few golf courses in Scotland offer this kind of geographic extreme. Dunaverty is one of only a handful that combine genuine remoteness with a functional, maintained links and a visitor green fee that reflects the economics of a small club rather than a destination resort.

Green fee is £35. Booking by phone. The course is included in the Campbeltown golf-and-whisky itinerary as the optional fourth day: a round at Dunaverty, lunch at the Muneroy Tearoom in Southend village, and the lighthouse walk back makes a complete day. For visitors who have come as far as Campbeltown to play Machrihanish and Machrihanish Dunes, the additional 30-minute drive for Dunaverty is the logical extension of the logic that brought them here in the first place.