Women's Scottish Open
Dundonald Links, Ayrshire

Why the Women's Scottish Open is worth attending

The ISPS HANDA Women's Scottish Open is co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA, and it lands the week before the AIG Women's Open — the women's major. In plain terms: this is the week the best players in the women's game arrive on the Ayrshire coast to sharpen up on links turf before the major. The field is deep, the golf is serious, and the prices are a fraction of what the men's majors command.

A full weekly ticket is £45 and a single day starts at £5. Under-16s walk in free with a paying adult, which makes this one of the most affordable ways in the country to put a young golfer three feet from a tour professional. There are no vast rope corridors and no grandstand pricing — you can follow a group around the whole links and actually watch them work.

Dundonald is a proper links — exposed, coastal, and at the mercy of whatever comes in off the Firth of Clyde. Late July in Ayrshire can be still and warm; it can also blow hard off the water and turn a wedge into a punched 8-iron. Both versions are worth watching, and the wind is exactly why the world's best come here to prepare.

Tickets

These are the official 2026 prices published by the championship, inclusive of booking fees. Unlike the men's majors, there is no need to estimate — and no need to spend much. Buy through womensscottish.com.

The Wednesday and the early rounds are the value pick for a family or a first visit — £5 on the gate, free for under-16s, and the players relaxed and approachable before the cut. Carers' tickets are available on request via the championship's ticketing team.

Dundonald Links

Dundonald Links sits at Gailes, on the stretch of linksland between Troon and Irvine that also holds Western Gailes and Glasgow Gailes. It was designed by Kyle Phillips — the architect behind Kingsbarns — and opened in 2003. The course has become a regular championship host: the Women's Scottish Open has been staged here repeatedly, the men's Scottish Open came in 2017, and it has held Final Qualifying for The Open.

It is a modern links but an honest one — generous off the tee, with the difficulty in the approaches, the greens, and the wind. The heather and the revetted pot bunkers do the punishing; the Firth of Clyde does the rest. Arran sits on the western horizon and Ailsa Craig further out to sea, the same view that frames every great Ayrshire links from Troon down to Turnberry.

For spectators, the closing holes and the par-3s give the best vantage points — a links built out across open ground means you can see a long way and reposition easily between groups, which is part of what makes a Women's Scottish Open day so easy to spend.

Getting there

Dundonald is one of the better-connected championship venues in Scotland. The two nearest stations are Irvine and Troon, both on the Glasgow Central to Ayr line with roughly four trains an hour and a journey of around 40 minutes from Glasgow. From either station it's a short taxi or shuttle to the course at Gailes; check the championship site for event-day shuttle details closer to the time.

By car, the course is about 24 miles south-west of Glasgow — roughly 40 minutes on the M77/A77 in normal traffic — with event parking signed from the A78 and A759. Glasgow Prestwick Airport is just 10 minutes away, Glasgow International about 30 minutes, and Edinburgh around 1 hour 30.

Stagecoach's service 10 also runs through Dundonald between Kilmarnock, Troon and Barassie, which is useful if you're basing yourself in the towns along the coast rather than driving to the course each day.