Playing the Course
The King’s Course, opened in 1919, is a masterpiece of golf course design, which has challenged the aristocracy of golf, top professionals and amateurs alike. James Braid’s plan was to test players’ shot-making skills over the eighteen holes.
You’ll find out all about it with your first approach shot. If you’ve driven straight and long from the tee, you’ll have what looks to be a simple pitch to the elevated green. But you must use the correct club, because the shot is always a little longer than you think, with the wind over the putting surface often stronger than felt from the fairway. And if you don’t make the severely sloping green, a bunker yawns twenty feet below.
It’s certainly one of the most beautiful and exhilarating places to play golf in the world, with the springy moorland turf underfoot, the sweeping views from the tees all around, the rock-faced mountains to the north, the green hills to the south, and the peaks of the Trossachs and Ben Vorlich on the western horizon.
As golfing legend Lee Trevino remarked ‘If Heaven is Gleneagles, I hope I can get a tee-time’
Kings Course, Gleneagles
Readers of Celebrated Living, the luxury magazine for American Airlines, voted the King’s Course 6th in their Platinum list of International Golf Courses.
All the holes have evocative and pithy Scots names. For example, the fifth, “Het Girdle” (Hot Pan), is a challenging par 3 with trouble everywhere except on the green, while 17th’s name, “Warslin’ Lea” (Wrestling Ground), reflects the difficulty so many golfers have had with this long, sweeping par 4.
Location:
Kings Course, The Gleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland, PH3 1NF
Stay at Gleneagles
Golf Courses in Central Scotland
Accommodation in Central Scotland
