Prestwick St Nicholas was founded in 1851 — one year after Prestwick Golf Club, its neighbour on the same coastal strip. The two clubs share more than proximity: many of the founding members of Prestwick were also St Nick's members, and the two clubs played on adjacent ground before each settled into its own routing. St Nick's is sometimes dismissed as the junior partner in this arrangement, which misreads the club's character. It is a serious links with a 170-year playing history that doesn't need its neighbour's Open Championship connection to justify itself.
The course is short by modern championship standards — par 69, around 6,000 yards from the white tees — but 'short' is the wrong word for what a round here involves. The fairways are tight and defined by fescue rough that grabs anything off-line. The greens are small and set at angles to the prevailing wind. And the routing crosses and recrosses the Glasgow-Ayr railway line in a way that no modern course designer would propose, that would be rejected by any health and safety framework created after about 1970, and that has worked since 1851 because it has always worked. There are moments on this course where a train passes within fifty yards of a tee shot. It adds nothing to the golf and takes nothing away.
The 1st hole, played across the railway toward a green in the dunes, defines the experience in the first five minutes. The 6th and 11th are the holes regulars discuss. The closing stretch back to the clubhouse is tighter than most visitors anticipate from the early holes.
Visitor green fee is £75–£95 depending on season. This is demonstrably the best-value links in Ayrshire for what you receive — a 170-year-old seaside course of genuine difficulty, maintained to a standard that would credit courses charging twice as much. A five-minute walk between clubhouses links St Nick's to Prestwick Golf Club. Play both in a single day for around £230–£280 total; the contrast between the two routings — one built for Open golf, one not — is informative.