New Galloway Golf Club

New Galloway Golf Club is a nine-hole course in the village of New Galloway at the head of Loch Ken, deep in the Galloway Forest Park. There is no useful comparison for the setting — a market town of fewer than 400 people, surrounded by the Galloway hills and the Ken-Dee valley, with a golf course that has been operating in some form since the late nineteenth century.

Nine holes, par 32, on moorland that rises from the village to a ridge with views across the Ken-Dee valley and the Galloway Forest hills beyond. The first three holes climb steadily; the middle section plays across the upper plateau where the wind arrives unfiltered from the Galloway Forest to the west; the final holes descend back toward the village through increasingly sheltered ground. The par-4 5th, played along the ridge with the Ken valley dropping away to the east, is where the location justifies the journey. The turf is firm in dry summers and honest at any time.

Green fee £18–£20, honesty box. New Galloway is not for everyone — the remoteness is genuine, the facilities are limited to a basic clubhouse, and the golf is modest. But for the golfer who values finding a course at the end of a road that goes nowhere particular, with no visitors in either direction and the hills as the only company, this is exactly what they're looking for.