ARGYLL AND AYRSHIRE, SCOTLAND | The ancestral home of golf has an undeniable magnetism. Golfing pilgrims are drawn to the myriad Scottish links like moths to porchlights. Year after year, we crowd to the fabled courses in the Kingdom of Fife, the links-strewn shores of East Lothian and the trophy sites along the Ayrshire coast – all readily accessible from the principal airports in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Heartier golf explorers aren’t turned off by the long stretches of comfortable motorways that lead toward the Highlands and Royal Dornoch or Aberdeenshire and the likes of Cruden Bay.
Only the truly adventurous, however, are willing to take the long and winding roads less traveled to the furthest reaches of the Argyll peninsula and ferry-accessible islands that boast their own fair share of incredible links. Uncrowded and welcoming, places such as historic Machrihanish and its modern neighbor, Machrihanish Dunes near the Mull of Kintyre, The Machrie on the sweeping, whisky-laced Isle of Islay, and the beguiling Shiskine on the lush Isle of Arran, prove the journey is worth the effort. Fill an itinerary with hidden gems along the way such as Dunaverty and Carradale and cap it back on the mainland with tried-and-true Prestwick and Western Gailes, and you’ll realize the rewards of being there far outweigh the challenges of getting there.
It’s why six of us packed ourselves and our sticks into a Mercedes V-Class Long van and made our way up and around Loch Lomond and down the long and winding road (yes, the same one Paul McCartney sang about for the Beatles) along the Kintyre peninsula to Campbeltown to begin our adventure. We shared a High Ranachan farmhouse near McCartney’s own High Park Farm that featured easy enough access to Machrihanish as long as we kept the van off the shoulder that immediately dropped off into a deep ditch. (Fortunately, our landlord happened by and summoned a BIG tractor to pull us out.) We enjoyed the luxury of Another Place lodging and dining overlooking the redesigned Machrie links we had practically all to ourselves. We enjoyed the convenience of the Kinloch Hotel in Blackwaterfoot just a walk away from the magically quirky 12-hole Shiskine. We experienced rain and sunshine and wind and calm – sometimes all in the same round.
