West Lothian Golf Club

West Lothian Golf Club sits on Airngath Hill between Linlithgow and Bo'ness, on ground the club's own history traces through half a dozen names - Argad, Airngoth, Irongath and, best of all, Glower-ower-em, for the commanding stare it holds over the Forth Valley. The original nine holes were laid out by Willie Park Jnr, twice Open champion and one of the first great course architects, who praised the hilltop turf as yielding 'to the tread like a Persian carpet'. The site is genuinely ancient: greenkeeping work here has turned up stone coffins, Bronze Age jewellery and a stone axe now in an Edinburgh museum, and the 8th is still called the Coffin Green.

The modern course is Fraser M. Middleton's work - retained in 1975 to lay out a new course across 148 acres, opened for play in August 1979 - which fixed what the club itself admitted about the old layout: too short, too many blind holes. Today the Airngath course plays 5,371-6,243 yards at par 71-73 depending on tee, with the shorter Kinglass course and the 9-hole Cadell layout alongside, so the club effectively offers a full day of golf at three different sizes.

For visitors the value is strong for the view alone: £45 for a weekday round, £55 at weekends, £70 for 36 holes if you want to make a day of it on the hill. From the summit the panorama runs from the Campsie Fells to the Forth bridges - the sort of outlook coastal courses charge three times as much to look at from sea level.