16-04-2025
Ardfin Estate Golf Club: Scenery meets scale in Scotland
Ardfin Estate Golf Club: Scenery meets scale in Scotland
If judging golf courses were a beauty contest, I just found Miss World.
Located on Jura – a rather remote island in Scotland's southern Hebrides – Ardfin Estate Golf Club is not only making a big splash in the golf course rankings, it is attracting golf course architectural aficionados from all over the world. For good reason. If your measure of great golf is based not just on course character but on its sheer beauty, then there simply may be none equal to Ardfin.
Monterey's 17-mile coast? Pedestrian. Tasmania and King Island? Stunning, but not quite wow enough. Bandon Dunes? Great sights, but an even better experience. Old Head? Breathtaking views, but more Saharan from an architectural standpoint.
To my eye, Ardfin – perched on a rocky expanse looking southward with jaw-dropping views of the Scottish mainland and the neighboring island of Islay – eclipses them all.
At the working estate dating back to the early 1800s, Jura House – the property's centerpiece manor house – and its grounds went through a series of owners until being purchased in 2010 by Australian hedge fund manager Greg Coffey.
With essentially unlimited funds, Coffey set about modernizing and converting the compound into his own private getaway. The sheep and livestock were sold off. The manor and residences that had housed the Jura staff were completely redone into upscale guest houses brimming with rustic luxury. The botanical gardens, once public, were closed off. A shooting range, kennels, helipad, tennis courts, harbor and even a cinema were added.
The business model was to offer a getaway for a few people at a time at truly sobering prices. The one proviso is that the owner is not in residence at the same time. It is understood that if Coffey makes an unannounced visit, all guests are politely and quite firmly asked to leave.
'The accommodations and dining facilities rivaled any 5-star hospitality experience,' said Matt Lyons, a recent visitor and Golfweek's Best course rater.
That's all and well for well-heeled travelers looking for an escape, but Coffey needed to enhance the recreational aspects of Ardfin. Adding golf seemed the Scottish thing to do. Enter fellow Aussie Bob Harrison, a longtime associate of Greg Norman Golf Course Design and the brains behind the highly acclaimed and private Ellerston Golf Club in New South Wales, among many other courses. Harrison's marching orders from Coffey were to make a bold course of championship caliber punctuated with jaw-dropping panoramas. Harrison overachieved, and Ardfin now ties for No. 38 on Golfweek's Best ranking of top international courses outside the U.S.
Ardfin Estate Golf Club unlike anything
To some degree, the course at Ardfin defies classification. Not heathland, parkland or links, the 18 holes hug a rugged upper coastline of rocky moss-covered scree, occasionally dipping down to low-lying peat bogs more common to moorland layouts.
What is decidedly uncommon in Scottish golf is Ardfin's massive scale. Stretched out, the course shadows the coast for two and a half miles. For reference, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort hugs the Pacific for just over three miles ... for five golf courses. At Ardfin, a strenuous eight-mile walk is, fortunately, well masked by nonstop views.
Don't expect firm and fast. Unlike most Scottish courses, Ardfin tends to play soggy because non-rainy days in the Hebrides are the hen's tooth exceptions. Much to their chagrin, Harrison and Coffey learned early that there isn't one grain of sand on Jura. All the sand used for course construction had to be barged in, all arriving at the one pier on the island. As a result, the imported sand was used strictly in bunkers and to build green pads.
'The softness, which makes the course play long, along with the dense and wild gnarly surrounds, team together to make this one tough hombre,' said well-traveled golfer Paul Rudovsky, who has played Ardfin.
That toughness is apparent in benign conditions. When it's raining horizontally with a 'freshening' 25-knot breeze, forget it.
Ardfin starts near the manor with the early holes marching due east up a bluff and along a ridgetop. The tone is immediately set for an invigorating walk and demanding play. Directions reverse at No. 4 with a strong par 5 that features a blind tee shot, a metered forced-carry and an aerial approach over a string of guarding bunkers.
A short, sternly uphill par 4 paralleling a North Berwick-like ancient rock wall reaches a high point on the front nine affording (drum roll) more spectacular vistas. The course continues, reaching a gate behind the seventh green. There you find a curious routing decision by Harrison.
10 miles of coastline at Ardfin
With 10 miles of coast and seven barrier islands to work with, Coffey and Harrison could have laid out the 18 holes most anywhere, but they choose to break the course in two between the seventh and eighth holes, requiring the golfer to walk a quarter mile across the sweeping front lawn just below the Jura manor and through the walled gardens. An old tool shed/greenhouse serves as an unattended halfway house where a golfer may grab a drink and snack before continuing.
The spectacular eighth hole awaits – easily one of the world's great short par 4s. Cut into a hillside, it features a serious slope from right to left with a small gorge cutting across the hole just where a drive would likely land. A stone wall and walking bridge front the gorge. The combination of tee shot and approach calculus offers the player a rich array of options, assessments and decisions. Challenge the wall and gorge for a short shot in, lay back for a full shot or go for a heroic carry over the gorge, which might just set you up for an approach putt around a bunker and down a sweeping slope. These are just a few of your options. There is even an avenue to drive the green in one, although this small green – which clings to a cliffside perch – is a perilous one-shot target.
Ardfin proceeds west, gently descending for a stretch at coastal levels. Adjacent to 12 tee – on a narrow peninsula jutting out to the Irish Sea – sits the Boat House, another food-and-beverage stop and a welcome respite on the Ardfin journey.
You play the 200-yard, par-3 12th back over the water to an elongated, angled and elevated green. Continuing on with the sea on your left the entire way, two more holes are played alongside the ruins of a long-ago farmhouse and livestock pen, then over a blind and crossing burn. Turning back at 15 tee, you finish (usually directly into the wind) with a par 4-5-4-5 combination that will test the best. Long and into the wind is not enough for you? Well, those last four are also gently but continuously uphill, climbing back to the compound's central grounds – as if you need to be more bloodied.
As an experience, Ardfin may be unparalleled. From getting there, to the spectacular golf, to the CEO-like dining and accommodations, to the 'anything you want' pampering, Ardfin is undeniably unique. There is a timelessness to the entire island. Soaking in the views from the magnificent central compound, you can easily conjure visions of marauding Norse in their Viking longships and the stern Scots defending their island homes in 'Braveheart' fashion.
'Ardfin must be viewed both as a course and an experience,' said Golfweek's Best rater Harris Kaplan, who visited Ardfin shortly before this author. 'This course is right to take its place as one of the best in the world.'
Losing a ball or two at Ardfin is to be expected. Perhaps a few more. A reported tale I hope is more fairy than real is that a foursome with 'relaxed' handicaps recently teed off at Ardfin on a blustery day. They walked off No. 18 with 94 fewer balls in their collective bags – that's nearly two dozen per player. I can't imagine carrying 24 balls in my bag for a Scottish round, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I, too, lost a few at Ardfin.
'If you are able to carry your body across these finishing holes, you will have enjoyed one of the greatest modern courses in the U.K. and perhaps the world,' Kaplan said.
George Orwell spent the last three years of his life on Jura finishing his classic '1984.' He wanted to escape the urban pressures and surround himself with unspoiled solitude, offered in very few places more perfectly than Jura. Orwell undoubtedly passed by the Jura House on his way on and off the island. As the total population of Jura was only a few hundred and Orwell was an acclaimed author, it would not be hard to believe he also spent time at Jura House, maybe for dinner with Tony Riley-Smith, the brewmaster and manor owner in the late 1940s.
Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) was not a golfer and likely wouldn't have thought twice about a golf course on Jura. But it would be impossible for Eric not to have enjoyed the island's fabulous setting, as do lucky golfers at Ardfin some 85 years later.
Getting to Ardfin Estate
The adventure of getting to Ardfin Estates is as much a part of the experience as the destination itself. Nestled on the Isle of Jura, Ardfin is a haven for those daring enough to traverse its rugged yet breathtaking path. From the Glasgow airport, it's only 50 miles away as the crow flies, but that turns into a six- to eight-hour journey. Leaving Glasgow, you drive three hours through the lower highlands skirting Loch Lomond; through the quaint lakeside towns of Luss, Tarbet and Inverary; along the shores of Loch Fyne before arriving at the intermediate stopover of Kennacraig. From there it's a two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride (reservations are critical) to the Lower Hebrides andPort Askaig on Islay. From there, you will need to wait for the small four-car ferry (runs daily but only as needed), which will take you on a 10-minute crossing to Feolin – an unattended boat ramp – on the Isle of Jura. Your last leg is a 20-minute drive along a one-lane road (with occasional passing cutouts) to the Jura House compound and Ardfin's golf course.
