The Complete Guide to Royal Troon

The short answer

Yes. Royal Troon's Old Course takes visitors on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday between 12 April and 7 October, and men need a handicap of 20 or lower, women 30. Base the trip in Troon: Prestwick, Western Gailes and Dundonald are within 15 minutes, and Turnberry is 35.

Visitors

Mon, Tue, Thu12 Apr–7 Oct

Handicap

20 men · 30 women

The Open

10 times1923–2024

Fly into

Glasgow (GLA)45 min to Troon

This guide is for the trip captain building an Ayrshire week around Royal Troon Golf Club. It runs through the club's ten Opens, five Old Course holes to study before your round, how booking works, two sights for a free afternoon, where to stay, and a five-day route that adds Prestwick, Turnberry and Western Gailes.

Royal Troon Golf Club history

The club is usually dated to 1878, though its own website doesn't give a founding year. The Open's account of the venue says the course took its current form in 1888. The 8th, the Postage Stamp, was designed by Willie Fernie, who won The Open in 1883.

The Open first came to Troon in 1923, and the Old Course has held it ten times:

• 1923: Arthur Havers, one shot ahead of Walter Hagen.
• 1950: Bobby Locke, who arrived as the defending champion.
• 1962: Arnold Palmer, by six shots.
• 1973: Tom Weiskopf, his only major.
• 1982: Tom Watson, after Nick Price led with six holes to play.
• 1989: Mark Calcavecchia, who beat Greg Norman in the first four-hole playoff.
• 1997: Justin Leonard, by three.
• 2004: Todd Hamilton, in a playoff with Ernie Els.
• 2016: Henrik Stenson, by three from Phil Mickelson.
• 2024: Xander Schauffele, by two, with a bogey-free 65 on the last day.

The name changed between the 1973 and 1982 Opens. The club's own history says it celebrated its centenary in that gap "and with it came a change of status," so the field in 1982 played at Royal Troon. The AIG Women's Open came here in 2020, and the club has hosted the Amateur Championship six times, starting in 1938.

For a 2027 trip, The Open is at St Andrews from 11 to 18 July, and the club's site lists no 2027 event that would keep visitors off the Old Course.

The holes to know on the Old Course

The Open's guide describes Royal Troon as two very different nines. The club's own hole pages describe each hole but leave the yardages blank, so the lengths below come from The Open's 2024 card, played from the championship tees.

1st, Seal

The club calls it a fairly straightforward opening hole. Drive straight or slightly right, away from the bunkers on the left of the fairway, and the second is a lofted iron to a green raised a little, with sand on both sides. The name is a chain of rocks off the shore, where the club says seals still bask.

6th, Turnberry

At 623 yards in 2024, the 6th was the longest hole ever played in The Open. The club wants a straight drive between the fairway bunkers, then a fairway wood aimed slightly left of the bunker on the right, which leaves a soft pitch to a long, narrow green framed by dunes. The name is the view south: the lighthouse at Turnberry marks the site of Turnberry Castle, which the club calls the childhood home of the Bruce.

8th, the Postage Stamp

You play from high ground over a gully to a long, narrow green set into the side of a big sandhill. Five bunkers surround it, and the one on the left is known as the Coffin. The club's advice is that there's no safe way to play the hole: the tee shot has to find the green. It was first called Ailsa, after the rocky islet you can see from the tee, until Willie Park Jr. wrote in Golf Illustrated of "a pitching surface skimmed down to the size of a postage stamp."

Its Open record runs both ways. Gene Sarazen made a hole-in-one here in 1973, at 71. The German amateur Hermann Tissies took 15 in 1950 after needing five shots to get out of a bunker, and Tiger Woods made a triple-bogey six in the final round in 1997.

11th, The Railway

The railway runs along the right of the hole for its whole length, and the club warns that a hooked drive is almost certainly lost in thick gorse. The long second comes into a green with the railway a few yards off its right side. It was rated the hardest hole of the 1997 Open.

18th, Craigend

The last green sits right in front of the clubhouse, with one bunker on the left and two on the right. Drive down the middle between the fairway bunkers. Bunkers short of the green catch a mishit second, and an approach that runs through can finish on the out-of-bounds path behind it. Craigend was the farm whose grazing land both of the club's 18-hole courses were laid out on.

Culzean Castle and the Burns Birthplace Museum

Two of Ayrshire's main sights are south of Troon, and both are in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. Check opening times and book on the Trust's website before you go.

Culzean Castle

Robert Adam rebuilt Culzean from 1777, on a clifftop above the Clyde estuary. In 1945 the 5th Marquess of Ailsa passed the castle and its grounds to the National Trust for Scotland, and an apartment was then made for General Eisenhower on the upper floor, which is the castle's link to the United States.

Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

The National Trust for Scotland officially launched the museum in Alloway in January 2011, and brought the village's Burns sites together with it: the cottage where the poet was born, the Burns Monument, Alloway Auld Kirk and the Auld Brig o' Doon.

Where to stay near Royal Troon

Stay in Troon. The town is 5 minutes from the Old Course, 10–15 minutes from Prestwick, Western Gailes and Dundonald, and 45 minutes from Glasgow Airport, so one hotel covers the week. Turnberry suits a group that wants a resort with two courses of its own, 35 minutes south.

• Marine & Lawn Troon

  Troon · beside the Old Course; sea-view rooms look over the 1st and 18th fairways to Arran

• Lochgreen House Hotel

  Troon · a country-house hotel in over 30 acres of gardens and woodland, open since 1988

• Trump Turnberry

  Turnberry · the Ailsa and King Robert the Bruce courses on site, 35 min from Royal Troon

Make Royal Troon Part of Your Trip

Choose when you want to travel, the courses you want to play and the style of trip that suits your group.

Plan My Royal Troon Trip ↗

Where else to play near Royal Troon

Troon sits in the middle of a run of links. Prestwick, Western Gailes, Dundonald and Kilmarnock (Barassie) are all within 15 minutes, and Turnberry is 35 minutes south. You'll find visitor days and booking routes for each course below on its golftripbuilder.com page.

• Royal Troon, Portland Course

  Same club

  The club's second 18-hole course, laid out on the same Craigend land as the Old Course. Its 2027 visitor fee is about a third of the Old Course's.

• 

  Prestwick

  15 min

  The club calls itself the birthplace of The Open Championship. Visitors play at set times from Sunday to Friday, Saturday belongs to the members, and you pay in full when you book.

  View Prestwick →
• 

  Western Gailes

  15 min

  Visitor times every day, widest on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, booked direct with the club. The handicap limit is 24 for men and 28 for women.

  View Western Gailes →
• 

  Dundonald

  15 min

  Visitors every day, with online booking and instant confirmation. Staying in its own rooms or lodges lowers the green fee.

  View Dundonald →
• 

  Kilmarnock (Barassie)

  10 min

  Visitors are welcome all year. Send a request on the club's visitor form or by email, then wait for the club to confirm the time.

  View Kilmarnock (Barassie) →
• 

  Turnberry Ailsa

  35 min

  Open to visitors aged 16 and over, with no handicap certificate needed. The resort prices tee times by date and time of day, and summer mornings cost non-residents the most.

  View Turnberry Ailsa →

For a longer trip, St Andrews is 2 h 25 min from Troon by road and East Lothian 2 h. If you add the Old Course at St Andrews in summer 2027, note that it has no ballot between 19 June and 19 July that year, the weeks around The Open. The East Lothian golf region guide covers the links east of Edinburgh, and the complete guide to Royal Portrush covers a Northern Ireland leg.

Your Royal Troon Golf Trip Starts Here

Play Royal Troon, Prestwick, Turnberry and Western Gailes from one base in Troon. Here's a sample five-day route to adjust to your own dates and group.

The order follows each club's visitor rules. Royal Troon takes visitors only on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, so it goes on the Tuesday, with Thursday as the fallback. Prestwick has no visitor times on a Saturday, and Western Gailes keeps its widest visitor times for Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The drive times below come from the same routing table as the course pages on golftripbuilder.com. They assume empty roads, so add time in summer.