South Ayrshire Council has approved a £5 million investment in public golf, including the renovation of James Braid’s Belleisle Golf Course in Ayr.
The council operates seven publicly accessible courses on Scotland’s west coast, from Troon Links to Girvan, and has more than 5,000 Golf South Ayrshire season-ticket holders. The investment comes at a time when many other local authorities have closed courses, and the announcement describes it as one of the most significant recent investments in public golf in Scotland.
At Belleisle, the plans include upgrading the bunkers throughout the course, installing new irrigation, building new tees and reinstating the public putting green. The project will also improve the clubhouse and add a self-contained “golfpod” with the latest golf simulator technology, within Belleisle Park. One green will be relocated to improve safety in a busy area, and some holes will be renumbered so that the round begins closer to the clubhouse. Otherwise, Braid’s routing will stay intact.
The design work is being overseen by Pangaea Golf Architecture, which has roots in Scotland and the US, and is led by founding partners Stuart Rennie and Jeff Danner. Rennie will lead the project, which begins immediately and is due to be completed in time for the course’s centenary celebrations in 2027.
He said Braid’s “beautifully resolved parkland routing has stood the test of time and is fully intact today”, but that the bunkering has “changed significantly from the original plans”. The course now has a range of bunker shapes and styles, and some issues with subsoil contamination. All the bunkers will be renovated for consistent playability, restoring some of Braid’s design intent. Pangaea has a copy of a hand-drawn Braid masterplan and old photographs of a more naturally shaped bunker style. Some of the original bunkering was designed for the ground game of a century ago, so the strategy will be kept, with placements adapted for the modern game.
Pangaea has worked with South Ayrshire Golf Services, irrigation designers Irriplan, agronomy consultants Turfgrass and visualisation specialists Golfgraffix to prepare the technical design documents. Alliance Leisure is the development partner delivering the project for the council, with Thomas Johnstone, Bellrock and Carrick Sports Construction.
Rennie said he and Danner had been working with the council for the past couple of years. Braid is thought to have had a hand in more than 400 layouts, and Rennie, a member at Royal Troon, said Belleisle is “possibly the first we have come across” with such a natural style of bunkering.
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