West Kilbride Golf Club

About the club

Old Tom Morris was a phenomenally successful player in his day, but there was not a lot of money in tournament golf at the time, nor were there the kinds of endorsement deals that support pros and former pros today. So when Morris's championship days were drawing to a close near the turn of the last century, he naturally turned to design, and was fortunate to do so at a time when the game was enjoying a boom. One of his many layouts from this period is West Kilbride, which shares with better-known clubs like Turnberry and Troon beautiful ocean panoramas of the Isle of Arran and Ailsa Craig with the mountains beyond. As always with classic layouts, the terrain shapes the holes here, for which reason there are only a trio of par 3s and just a pair of par 5s, with most of the rest being distinctive par 4s.