Where to stay & play
Properties in Scotland
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Archerfield Golf Club, East Lothian
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James's Shortlist
Courses worth the journey.
Carnoustie Golf Links
★★★★★Allan Robertson / Tom Morris · from £220
Carnoustie is not a course designed to make you feel good about yourself. The Barry Burn crosses the 18th fairway twice. The wind off the North Sea changes direction between the front nine and back. Jean Van de Velde's 1999 Open collapse in that burn is the clearest illustration of what the course can do to a professional golfer with a three-shot lead on the final hole.
Old Course, St Andrews
★★★★★Nature / Old Tom Morris · from £290
The Old Course is not a golf course. It's a place. The distinction matters — because when you stand on the first tee and look out over the shared fairways, the shared bunkers, the town visible along the entire left side, you're not about to play golf in the conventional sense. You're about to walk through six hundred years of the game's history, and the course is doing its best to make you feel every one of them.
Royal Dornoch Golf Club
★★★★★Tom Morris / John Sutherland · from £240
Royal Dornoch is the most underrated course in the world, which is something only people who've been there can say with confidence, because the people who haven't been there have never heard of it. It sits in a town of twelve hundred people on the Dornoch Firth, four hours north of St Andrews, and the entire golf world should make that drive.
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