Southerness is the best golf course in Scotland that you've likely never heard of.

About 70 miles due south of Glasgow, you’ll find the expansive territory of Dumfries and Galloway and the best undiscovered course to play on your Scotland golf vacation.

This area is relentlessly beautiful, with all the natural features for which Scotland is celebrated, such as misty, blue hills and dramatic seascapes. Tourists come, but not in significant numbers. Nor is it a Mecca for golfers, since there are no famous courses here.

However, there is one course of championship stature, Southerness Golf Club, that you should make a point of playing if you find yourself in this part of the country.

Over the last 20 years, the course has hosted the British Ladies Stroke-Play Championship, the British Youth Championship and twice held the Scottish Amateur Championship.

Laid out in 1947 by Philip Mackenzie Ross, the architect of Turnberry’s glorious Ailsa links, Southerness measures only 6,554 from the back tees. That’s scarcely long on the face of it, but par is only 69 and of the five par-3s, two are 215 and 217 yards and often require a fully swung driver when the wind is up.

In addition, of the 11 par-4s, eight range from 405 to 467 yards. So, merely keeping the ball out of the heather, gorse, bracken and sand is not enough. You must belt it on just about every tee.

Nowhere is this more true than on the altogether splendid 421-yard, 12th hole, an emphatic dogleg right that plays into the prevailing wind and straight toward the sea. The long second shot is aimed at a semi-blind green sitting atop what appears to be a small shelf stoutly defended by bunkers and mischievous humps. Just beyond the green, the ground tumbles down to the beach.

The 12th hole, like the course itself, is among the strongest in all of Scotland.

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