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GLENEAGLES KINGS COURSE VIDEO

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As an exercise in design, the Kings Course at Gleneagles was surely one of James Braid's finest moments! What makes it even more extraordinary is that this and the neighbouring Queens Course were the five times Open Championship winner’s very first attempts at golf course architecture. The job must have inspired him - he went on to oversee the creation or modification of some 400 other golf courses.

It was a certain Mr Donald Matheson who first spotted 670 acres of desolate moorland in Perthshire’s Vale of Strathallan and proposed it for a new, palatial golf resort. The age of rail travel was booming and there was a demand for top-drawer destinations especially in Scotland, holiday choice for the rich and royal, let alone being the Home of Golf. A true visionary, Matheson’s conviction saw Gleneagles materialise from Scotch Mist so to speak, to become one of the greatest golf resorts in the world.

Equally daring was his choice of designer. At the time, no professional golfer had ever designed a golf course. Matheson took a chance in hiring Braid but once again, his gamble paid by the bucket-load. Braid created two supreme heathland courses that have over the past 90 years, tested professionals and amateurs alike.

One of the first impressions you get of the King’s course is that it seems to reflect its surrounding environment ‘in miniature’ - as if golfers were giants playing through the Perthshire glens and straths. The Kings Course offers such three-dimensional golf to an extreme. The first few holes climb and fall over a surging terrain encompassed with heather, gorse, bracken and indigenous pine and birch trees with the backdrop of Glen Devon and the peaks of the Trossachs and Ben Vorlich on the western horizon provide persistent visual delight.

There is some restraint at the 5th hole where distance and precision become requisite. By now you should have settled and become wholly appreciative of the faultlessness of this course and its setting. There are few more aesthetically pleasing golf layouts in the world, a seamless balance between asthetics and wholehearted golfing contest.

What is intriguing about playing the Kings Course is how Braid has framed most of the holes especially to make approach shots all the more exhilarating. This is where the five times Open Champion’s unique appreciation of the golf shot came in and why Matheson’s choice of a designer paid off so well. Club selection is everything on these approaches, firing into Sylvain arenas that are often visually difficult to judge.

It became Braid’s penchant to select a favourite hole from each of his designs and on the King’s he elected the 13th as ‘Braid’s Brawest’. From the Blue tees it plays blind to an undulating distance of 464 yards. A practical tee shot would avoid the large bunker on the left leaving a long, high-sailing second shot to a plateau green. Here the putting surface is beautifully framed by the surrounding scenery and slopes away from the fairway causing the ball to run away to the rear and beyond. It’s not always taxing though; there is plenty of fun to be found on holes such as the short Par 4, 14th where, at 260 yards, a birdie or eagle is clearly possible.

The 18th is remembered for the saddle ridge that only the mightiest hitters will clear! Then it is on to the green and home to all the comfort of Gleneagles’ Dormie House.

I would conclude that the Kings Course is one of the finest courses of its nature in the world. It really is exceptional and a worthy inclusion to help balance the surfeit of Scotland’s links.


Photographs & text © David J Whyte 2009