Gleneagles (King's)

I returned to the King’s course at Gleneagles in April 2018 just a little over a decade after I first fell in love with it.

The reason for this more recent visit was to play in their popular Spring Open. A card and pencil competition off the white tees in the early season was deemed a good idea… at least during the winter planning months!

The unique and brilliant routing of the King’s course over dramatic and undulating moorland meant that even though ten years had passed it was still possible to vividly recall every hole before stepping onto the tee.

The layout and land forms certainly have something about it. There are so many fantastic driving holes you will never get bored from the tee and the approaches into the wonderfully located green sites are equally pleasing.

Clean bunkering, plenty of width and an array of colours, which any artist could only dream of having on their palette, greet you at Gleneagles. And if the internal beauty of the course is to be admired then the external views are its equal. Golfing at Gleneagles is an uplifting experience.

The putting surfaces weren’t at their best, hardly surprising that just a couple of weeks prior they had been under snow, but this did not detract from the sheer quality of the course.

I’m not overly a fan of the opening hole with its steep incline to a sloping green but it gets us to the best of the golfing terrain and from then on Gleneagles is at its brilliant best.

The outstanding holes on the property in my view are the hidden-green third which is quickly followed by the brutish par-four fourth, thanks largely to the diagonal ridge that runs in front of the green and deflects anything left of centre down to well below the level of the green. The ninth is a real treat too with a seemingly dubiously positioned marker post to aim at (albeit it is in the correct place) before playing across (or from within) a deep valley to a ledge green.

On the back nine and the par-four 13th is probably the standout hole, “Braid’s Brawest”, with a demanding drive and another excellent approach shot. One is not quite certain of what lies down the undulating fairway except for a glaring bunker at the perfect driving distance; laying back to avoid this leaves a long approach. The green on the 15th is also worth a special mention with a severe slope from front to back and a basin to the back-right.

The set of one-shotters are truly wonderful and display Braid at his very best. The volcanic nature of the fifth, the green complex at the eighth, the grandiosity of the 11th and the quaintness of the delicate 16th all add up to a delicious feast of varied and taxing short holes.

There are only two par-fives on the property (holes 6 and 18) and with the exception of the drive at the last they are perhaps the weak link of the course… but both are far from poor and add to the eclectic mix that the King’s has to offer.

The King’s at Gleneagles is a match for all but a handful of inland courses in the British Isles. Indeed, if I’m not golfing at the seaside in Scotland I can’t think of anywhere else that I’d rather be.

Read the review of Gleneagles (Queens) here.