Prestwick Golf Club

The Open Championship began here. On 17 October 1860, eight players contested three rounds of Prestwick’s twelve-hole links, and Willie Park of Musselburgh beat Old Tom Morris by two strokes to win the first Open. The course that day measured 3,799 yards, of which 578 belonged to the first hole alone.

Old Tom Morris was the club’s Keeper of the Green, Ball and Club Maker from 1851 to 1864, and he laid out that original twelve. Prestwick went on to stage twenty-four Opens, the last in 1925. Only the Old Course at St Andrews has hosted more.

What it asks of you

Prestwick is the argument against the idea that old golf is easy golf. The links has blind shots, humps, walls and bunkers that a modern architect would never draw, and they are there because the ground was there first.

The consequence for a visitor is simple: local knowledge is worth more than distance. Several tee shots are played at a marker rather than at a target you can see, and the correct line is not the obvious one. A caddie is not an indulgence here.

The other constant is the wind off the Firth of Clyde. On an exposed links, it changes the club by two or three, and the low running shot that the ground rewards is the shot most visitors have never practised.

What players say about it

This is a private club with visitor access, and there is a great deal of public material about it. The points below summarise what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The history is unmatched: the first Open was played here, and the course still runs over much of the same ground.
• The quirk is treated as the attraction rather than a fault, and reviewers who like old links love it.
• The clubhouse and its dining traditions come up almost as often as the golf.
• Conditioning is reported as very good, and the turf as genuine links turf.

What comes up against

• The blind shots divide opinion, and players who want everything in front of them find the course unfair.
• Visitor access is restricted to certain days and requires arrangement.
• Green fees are at the top of the Scottish scale.
• At 6,900 yards the course is not long, and a modern professional would not be troubled by the yardage alone.

Getting there and when to go

The club is in Prestwick on the Ayrshire coast, next to Prestwick airport and forty minutes from Glasgow by car or train.

The season is effectively year-round on a links, but May, June and September give the best combination of turf and weather. Visitor times must be arranged in advance.

Green fees

Visitor conditions are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, the club’s published history and the Open Championship’s own records for the 1860 championship, the field, the winner and the original yardage, and encyclopaedic entries for the twenty-four Opens. The opinion section summarises public reviews read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played this course, and this page is no substitute for a round. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.