Machrihanish Dunes

Few courses anywhere can claim what Machrihanish Dunes legitimately can: that its layout was determined almost entirely by nature rather than by a designer's hand. David McLay Kidd — the Scottish architect behind Bandon Dunes in Oregon — was brought in to develop this wild stretch of the Kintyre Peninsula, but his brief was extraordinary. The site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, meaning virtually no earth could be moved and no vegetation disturbed. The holes had to be found in the land, not carved from it.

The result is something genuinely rare — a links that feels prehistoric, as though it has always existed. The dunescape along Machrihanish Bay is dramatic and exposed, with the Atlantic pushing in from the west and the hills of Kintyre framing the inland edges. It plays nothing like a manicured modern course.

Machrihanish Dunes sits alongside its famous neighbour, the original Machrihanish Golf Club, one of Scotland's most celebrated links. Together they make this remote corner of Argyll a serious pilgrimage destination for anyone who cares about golf in its most elemental form.