The Machrie Golf Course, or "Golf Links", is located on Islay, in Scotland. The word "machrie" is a corruption of the Scottish Gaelicmachair, which means more or less the same as "links" did on the east coast of Scotland. The course is 6,254 yards long and is a links style golf course. Well before the recent redesign, it was rated 20th in Scotland by the web siteTop 100Golf Courses. The course was designed by Willie Campbell in 1891 and was intentionally made long, at least by 19th Century standards, to attract golfers to Islay. The course was unusual in that its layout crosses the dunes instead of running alongside them like most links courses do, which resulted in multiple blind shots. The Machrie Links hosted a famous match in 1901 between James Braid, John Henry Taylor and Harry Vardon for a prize of £100, reputed to be the largest prize of its kind at that time in the British Isles. Harry Vardon called Mount Zion, now the 17th hole, but originally the first hole, "the hardest hole I have seen". The links later hosted the Western Isles Open Championship in June 1935.
Major updates
The Links was acquired by Gavyn Davies and his wife Susan Nye, Baroness Nye in 2011; it had been placed in administration in late 2010. The course was redesigned recently, by architect DJ Russell, and reopened in May 2017. The overall rating by Golf World Top 100 in 2019 was 80.6%. The publication's review that discussed the significant design changes included this comment: "Russell’s routing has a much greater number of expansive views of the sea on the front nine. The internal out of bounds has also gone. Lots of the blind shots have too." After the redesign, the web site Top 100 Golf Courses rated this one as #21 in Scotland in 2019. In addition to the 18-hole Links, the facility offers a Wee course a covered driving range, a short game area and the Hebrides putting course. The new version of the Machrie Hotel, now managed by Campbell GRAY Hotels, has 47 rooms; it opened in 2018, replacing a predecessor, that was described as "dilapidated". The previous Machrie hotel had 16 bedrooms and 15 separate lodges. The Islay Golf Club is a privately owned club founded in 1891, and leases the Machrie Golf Links for its games.
