Dunaverty Golf Club Course Review

Dunaverty Golf Club Course Review

GF Round: £20-£35wd, £25-£40we; Day: £30-£50wd, £25-£55we
Par 66, 4,799 yards
Slope 97
GM Verdict – A short course with a magical setting that you’ll remember for its never-ending views and unusual square-shaped greens.
Favourite Hole – The par-4 17th is about as tough a test as you’ll find on a course of this length thanks to its potentially long approach over a wide burn.

Dunaverty lies at the southern end of the Kintyre Peninsula and you can fly to Campbeltown (ideal for Machrihanish Golf Club and Machrihanish Dunes) from Glasgow in 20 minutes or take a couple of short ferry hops to drastically reduce the road mileage. But even if it takes some three hours from Glasgow Airport, nothing beats driving up the A82 past one of the UK's most exclusive clubs at Loch Lomond, turning onto the A83 with its magnificent mountain scenery, and then finally taking the road south out of Lochgilphead with its stirring lochside and ocean views.

Distinguished by its unusual, square-shaped greens, the stunningly located course at Dunaverty Golf Club provides a delightful links experience, running along the shoreline with dreamy views out over the sea and up into the surrounding hills. There are seven short holes and a solitary par 5 in the course’s modest, but endlessly enjoyable, 4,799 yards. You can see as far afield as Ayrshire and Northern Ireland on a clear day but dominating the more immediate vista from many holes is the imposing Dunaverty Rock headland. Nowhere is this more prominent than on the short par-4 3rd, which plays from a tee overlooking the beach and is eminently drivable downwind, one of several par 4s you could knock it on in the right conditions.

But despite a potential wealth of birdie chances, the course bites back too from time to time via rocky outcrops, gorse, the beach and the odd blind shot. And then there’s the 17th… a real shock to the system late-on demanding a long approach to a shallow target across a wide burn that fronts the green before flowing on out to sea. Club up, would generally be the advice here! If you are lucky enough to visit on a still day, you might expect to score well. You may not, of course, but fun is what we play for, isn’t it, and courses like Dunaverty deliver that in abundance.