Paul_Stewart
Tour Rookie
Which is 200 miles from Carnoustie and if any satnav tells you the B840 is a road worth using, it's 20 miles of single lane road with passing areas.
But the journey down the Mull of Kintyre to the legendary Machrihanish course is worthwhile even if you do have to fight the urge to sing that awful Wings song from 1977. Why couldn't it be called "Live and Let Die Peninsula"?
Machrihanish is a true links course, blind shots everywhere and the wind blowing off the sea to affect even putts and chips. From the famous first shot across the sea, to the blind approach to the second, this is why you make the lonely pilgrimage to the middle of nowhere to play the course.
Towering dunes line the fairways, and in the case of the par-4 7th, form the fairway as you wonder where the heck you go for either the tee shot or the approach. The course planner is irrelevant when playing the likes of the uphill and then downhill par-5 10th and then you turn for home for the final seven holes just trying to hang on to your score.
Consecutive par-3s at 15 and 16 are unusual although the latter is a full 3-wood or driver at over 230 yards. And then you have the wonderful elevated tee shot at 17 albeit one with out of bounds left and heavy rought right.
Machrihanish would be overwhelmed if it was not in such an isolated location. You can reach it by plane, or a two-ferry trip via the Isle of Arran, or you do the long drive down the A82 as I did. But it is sure as hell worthwhile and with the new Machrihanish Dunes completed (review to follow of that monster), then this is another great course worth ticking off.
I played it late on a Wednesday evening following a members' competition and was round in three hours carding a miraculous 72 shooting -1 on the back nine into the wind. Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut or two.
But the journey down the Mull of Kintyre to the legendary Machrihanish course is worthwhile even if you do have to fight the urge to sing that awful Wings song from 1977. Why couldn't it be called "Live and Let Die Peninsula"?
Machrihanish is a true links course, blind shots everywhere and the wind blowing off the sea to affect even putts and chips. From the famous first shot across the sea, to the blind approach to the second, this is why you make the lonely pilgrimage to the middle of nowhere to play the course.
Towering dunes line the fairways, and in the case of the par-4 7th, form the fairway as you wonder where the heck you go for either the tee shot or the approach. The course planner is irrelevant when playing the likes of the uphill and then downhill par-5 10th and then you turn for home for the final seven holes just trying to hang on to your score.
Consecutive par-3s at 15 and 16 are unusual although the latter is a full 3-wood or driver at over 230 yards. And then you have the wonderful elevated tee shot at 17 albeit one with out of bounds left and heavy rought right.
Machrihanish would be overwhelmed if it was not in such an isolated location. You can reach it by plane, or a two-ferry trip via the Isle of Arran, or you do the long drive down the A82 as I did. But it is sure as hell worthwhile and with the new Machrihanish Dunes completed (review to follow of that monster), then this is another great course worth ticking off.
I played it late on a Wednesday evening following a members' competition and was round in three hours carding a miraculous 72 shooting -1 on the back nine into the wind. Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut or two.
