Kilmarnock Barassie Links Review

Welcome to our review of Kilmarnock Barassie Links.

Introduction

Dating back to 1887, Kilmarnock (Barassie) Golf Club sits on the west coast of Scotland, just outside Troon (home of this year’s Open Championship).

The club has 27 holes and we played the Barassie Links, the Championship layout which, as the club’s website states, “presents a challenge for even the best golfer”.

I’m not the best golfer, far from it, and for the ordinary player, this a pretty stiff test. This course has recently hosted Final Open Qualifying, The Junior Open, R&A Boys Amateur and most recently R&A Women’s Amateur Championship. In other words, this is a proper golf course.

Our Kilmarnock Barassie Links Review

We played in mid-April, which on the west coast of Scotland means you can experience all four seasons in one day, and very often within the same half hour (links golf is hard, by the way).

With an afternoon tee-time, we got to the course early and enjoyed a spot of very reasonably-priced lunch in the clubhouse, which was warm and welcoming.

On this day, the weather was reasonably kind for the first 10 holes or so. Bright, with no rain but a persistent 30-40mph wind that adds an extra layer of difficulty to pretty much every shot, when you’re not used to it.

Another windy day in the west of Scotland

Barassie Links Front 9

The Barassie Links opens up with a narrow, 501 yard, par 5, with the railway track looming ominously to the right of the fairway. If you can avoid that, it’s a relatively straightforward hole.

The 2nd is a par 4, with a brook (burn?) running diagonally across the fairway at around 250 yards, meaning you can’t just automatically rip a driver down there, especially if the wind is behind. The safe play is a long iron or hybrid off the tee, leaving around 150 into the green. By the way, that brook is a lot wider than it looked on my GolfShot app, by the way.

The 3rd is a shortish par 4, which again asks for a decent degree of accuracy of the tee, with OOB all down the right hand side. And then we have the first short hole, the par 3 4th: just 149 yards but a tough shot to a slightly elevated green. Whatever you do, don’t miss to the left here. When the wind’s blowing, this is no picnic, but I did manage to find the dance floor and two putted for my first par of the day.

The 5th and 6th are both par 4s with the railway to the left and thick heather to the right, but both are opportunities to open the shoulders a bit with the big dog.

These are followed by the snaking 7th. This is a 504 yard par 5 which bends from right to left and then left to right, with a deep pot bunker guarding the front of the green. Very difficult for the ordinary player to get there in two, so play this one strategically and just to find the green in 3 (I didn’t).

The 8th and 9th are both dog-leg par 4s, and on the 9th I successfully managed to cut the corner, leaving myself only about 50 yards short of the green, resulting in a par and a front nine of 45 (+8) which I was pretty happy with, given the strong wind.

Barassie Links Back 9

By this point it had also started to rain, heavily. This brought the temperature down and so we now had the dreaded golf combination of cold, wet and windy. And the rain and the wind just kept on coming, and didn’t ease up at all until the 18th hole.

Heading to the 7th tee at Barassie Links (before the weather got bad…sound up!)

I’ll be honest, I can’t remember too much of the back nine because the conditions were just so difficult. It very quickly got to the point where everything was soaking wet and my hands were so cold I couldn’t fully close my grip on the club. Turns out this isn’t very conducive to good scoring.

Trebles on 10 and 11 wasn’t the ideal start to the back nine, which I finished 16 over par, resulting in a 96 (obviously finishing up with a three-putt on the 18th after finding my only green in regulation of the back half, when the rain had finally relented).

Summary

All I’ll say is, I’m sure this would be a beautiful course to play in anything approaching normal weather, but for a large chunk of that back nine it felt more like an SAS survival course than a round of golf with some friends. It was a proper grind.

We got through it, though, and sometimes that’s all you can do (but I will admit to wondering if we should head to Spain or Portugal for our next trip).

Course Details

Location: Kilmarnock (Barassie) Golf Club. 29 Hillhouse Rd, Troon KA10 6SY

Par: 72

Yards: 6491 (Yellows)

Slope rating: 137

Price: Summer £125, Shoulder £85, Winter £TBC

Contact: https://www.kbgc.co.uk/visitor-info/green-fees

Rating: 4/5

Thanks to Ayshire Golf Tours for their help with organising this trip.