Offshore oasis: The Shishkine Club.

The southwest region is home to some of the very best golf courses you can play on a Scotland golf vacation, and most people are content playing up and down the Ailsa coast at the powerhouses such as Turnberry, Prestwick, and Royal Troon.

If you’re a bit more adventurous, however, you may want to consider heading offshore to the more remote peninsulas and islands in the area, specifically, the Isle of Arran, where your courageousness will be repaid handsomely.

Arran is home to one of the very best kept secrets in all of golf, the Shiskine Club. Its 12-hole length alone makes it noteworthy, but considering it was originally designed by Willie Fernie, who did Royal Troon, and later redesigned by two-time British Open Champion Willie Park, Jr., it deserves special attention…and it does not disappoint.

The holes, with names like Crow’s Nest and Hades, are simply spectacular; quirky, cliff side affairs that afford panoramic views of the Kilbrannan Sound and nearby peninsulas. It is surely the finest 12-holer on earth and easily better than many 18-hole courses. The Shiskine Club, on the west side of the island near the village of Blackwaterfoot, is not the easiest place to get to (it requires a ferry ride) but would it really be a great, secret spot if it was?

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