may15 freegolf

That’s right free golf for life is being offered to the first 100 buyers of a number of four star luxury holiday homes currently being sold in phase one of a new golf development at Machrihanish.

The £30m development on the Kintyre peninsula, which includes a new links golf course designed by world renowned architect David McLay Kidd, sits next door to the 19th century Machrihanish Golf Club created by “Old” Tom Morris.

The course, which previews later this year for property owners and opens to the general public next Spring, has already been hailed by leading aficionados of the game as a “must play course”.

The course created by Kidd, the 40-year-old Scot celebrated as the designer of the first Bandon Dunes course in 1999 and more recently the new Castle Course at St Andrews, has been carefully crafted among the environmentally sensitive dunes at Machrihanish.

Euan Grant, the former Keeper of the Green at St Andrews before taking up a similar post at Machrihanish Dunes, claims the mile and a half course along the windswept sandy links is just as nature intended.

“There are 33,840 golf courses in the world yet only 171 of them are true links courses,” said Brian Keating, the international businessman behind the multi- million pound project.

“We have created the 172nd links and the first of its kind to be built on the west coast of Scotland for more than 100 years.

“As an incentive to the buyers of the first eight cottages we are offering free golf for life,” he said.

The offer is part of a revolutionary idea being piloted in Kintyre which developers believe could transform Scotland’s holiday homes market and breathe new life into rural communities across the country.

The new development at Machrihanish Dunes golf resort near Campbeltown, which is planned to include three boutique hotels and a collection of luxury cottages, has developed a world-first in offering the four-star holiday homes as ‘seasonal freehold fractions’.

“A freehold fraction offers all the benefits of a completely furnished and professionally managed holiday home, in one of the most desirable golfing locations in the world, for four weeks of the year for ever from just £39,800,”

said Nicos Scholarios, Director of Fractional Estates Ltd which is handling the project.

“It is freehold, so each buyer will own 1/13th of the property outright, with a title that can be passed on to successive generations.

“If an owner doesn’t want to use their property at any time the cottages can be rented out on their behalf to provide a regular income and a return on their investment,” said Mr Scholarios.

The new Machrihanish Dunes will be a pay and play course, a feature which the developers believe will ensure a frequent supply of visitors looking for accommodation,” said Mr Scholarios.

The idea is intended to create year-round thriving communities be ensuring each cottage provides a holiday home for 13 owners who will own one week in each of the four seasons.