Course review: Western Gailes Golf Club
Nick marks his ball on the 6th green overlooking the ocean.
I was really excited to play Western Gailes for the obvious reasons (top tier Scottish golf course, somehow missed out on playing it in our 6 months in Scotland in 2023, on the short list of best course that no one seems to talk about) but also because I had heard a great review of it by my friend Bryan. He came to visit Scotland to use up some untaken vacation and played a bunch of golf with us, and I was stoked to see the course he had spoken of so highly.
When we got off the course after finally playing it in September 2024, I sent Bryan an excited WhatsApp message. He briefly humoured me before asking “nice dude, but why? Never been there.”
So whoever raved about Western Gailes to me, and later had me associate that memory with Bryan, thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
The starter leaves his hut to join us on the first tee.
Western Gailes’ founding story resonates with me, a Vancouver-based golfer who spends ~5 months a year squelching around on soft, muddy soil while scratching my golf itch. In 1897 four Glasweigan golfers were sick of the muddy conditions they had to play on and hired a greenkeeper to set a course on a narrow spit of land between the Irvine Bay and the train tracks bisecting the coast of Ayrshire. It is an interesting twist on the out-and-back links layout, with the clubhouse sitting roughly in the centre of the routing and sending you north for 4 holes before turning you around south for 9, and then returning back to the clubhouse for 5 more. This routing flips you around in the wind more often than many, and with how variable the conditions can be in this part of the world it can be a real bear.
We had a quiet morning in Troon before heading to the course in the early afternoon for our tee time just before 3pm. The wind had been picking up all day, and by the time we teed off we were straight into a 20mph wind with gusts higher than that, removing any ego that was kicking around as I hit a roughly 165 yard driving iron off the first tee.
Nick climbs to a tee box while his caddie follows behind.
Western Gailes is a relatively subtle course in the Scottish tradition, without a huge number of dramatic features or holes that reach the upper levels of the quirk meter, but it does bring hole after hole of interesting and challenging architecture, with lots of variety in length of holes and subtle shifts in the direction that keep you slightly off balance even when you’re generally going in the same direction (and thus same wind) for a number of holes in a row.
A golfer tees off on the 4th hole.
A set of challenging par 3s are well guarded by bunkers and wind
Western Gailes is one of the healthy number of shirt and tie clubs in Scotland, where to sit in the actual dining room you will need to have packed some fancier gear than most bring on a golf trip, and it’s certainly a blue blood course with a green fee to match. That said, it comes in at roughly ½ the cost of its neighbour Troon and less than a quarter of the cartoonishly priced Turnberry, it is a relative value in Ayrshire. It may not be the course that you plan a trip to this part of the world around, but it just might be your favourite once your trip is done.
