Does the “rejuvenated” Machrie live up to the hype?

In an age when new golf courses are unveiled against a backdrop of hyperbole, fanfare and wide-eyed aspirations of “hosting a tour event one day”, there is something endearing about the modest manner in which The Machrie has relaunched itself.

Located on the Isle of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, golf has been played on the site as far back as the late 19th century, when Willie Campbell laid out the original course.

It survived for over a century, evolving with the times but never fully submitting to them, instead remaining true to what it was always intended to be: a classic links. Seventeen blind shots, open to the elements, large greens, pot bunkers, the works.

That’s not to say there wasn’t room for improvement but it looked unlikely that the full potential of the site would ever be realised after the property ran into financial issues around the time of the global economic downturn. That was until it was salvaged by Gavyn Davies and his wife Sue Nye.

Davies, a former chairman of the BBC, and Nye, a key figure in Gordon Brown’s Labour Government, took ownership of The Machrie – its course, its hotel and its land – in 2011 and have subsequently, quietly, transformed it.

The result? A triumphant Phoenix-like ascent from the ashes.

The course

Former European Tour player DJ Russell has completely redesigned the course, something that, by his own admission, “took years to plan”. The idea was to create something that was a throwback to the golden age of golf courses. “I wanted every hole to be an improvement on what had been there previously,” he told bunkered earlier this year.
Mission accomplished, in that regard.

Only seven of the original greens have been retained, as the course now weaves in and out of the dunes. The fairways are wide enough that only the most errant shots will be punished, not by mindless bunkers (there are surprisingly few such traps on the course) but by clever design. Get out of position and you will most likely find yourself ‘rewarded’ with a blind shot.

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I like that. There’s no hacking out of unimaginatively thick rough. There’s no losing balls in gorse bushes (surely the most overly penal and ugly ‘hazard’ of them all). Instead, you’ll have a shot – just not one you would choose. That’s punishment. Golf’s not supposed to be fair. That, though, doesn’t mean it’s meant to be unfair.

Whilst many golf courses misunderstand that basic premise, The Machrie gets it, and gets it right.

The lapping waters of the Atlantic Ocean have been brought into sharper focus with Russell’s new design – anybody who says they don’t appreciate a sea view on a golf course is a liar and for the watching – whilst the greens are large and littered with subtle borrows and breaks.

From what I gather, there are some who would rather the course hadn’t been changed and who preferred the quirky challenge of its forebear. Whilst sympathetic to those, I fail to see how it’s possible to view the new Machrie as anything other than a significant improvement. All of the elements that made its predecessor so popular are still there; they’ve just been refined in a way that makes the course a more tantalising prospect for the “drive and gouge” brigade. It is quintessentially, unapologetically “the way golf was meant to be”… and all the better for it. 

It is the equal of just about anything you’ll find on the Scottish mainland. I mean that, too.

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