Hit it and hope: Machrie's blind seventh hole.

One of the best parts of a Scotland golf vacation is experiencing courses that are very different than here in America. Because many of them were built before the advent of modern earthmoving equipment, quirky holes with blind shots abound.

If you want to play the quirkiest, blindest course on your Scotland golf vacation, head to the southwest coast and the Machrie Hotel & Golf Links. First laid out in 1891, the Machrie Golf Links is a monument to the blind shot. Of the 34 or so full shots you’ll play at this par-71 layout, on nearly half of them, you can't see your target.

One of the most unbelievable is the seventh hole, a 395-yard, par four. The tee is tucked away in a little hollow on low ground. From there, the fairway is nowhere to be seen, but an overgrown foot path works its way up a 40-50-foot high dune some 150 yards straight out.

The hidden fairway awaits on the far side of this grassy pyramid. Reaching it calls for a forced carry of no less than 190 yards (though you had best hit your 220 yard shot into the ever-present wind). A solid drive clears this mountain and plunges into a rumpled fairway along and above Laggan Bay, where miles of deserted beach sweep away toward the horizon and the Atlantic Ocean.

Having surmounted the giant sandhill, you’d think you’d be rewarded with a clear shot to the green. No such luck. The green and the flagstick are also out of sight, just beyond a low rise. All of this is enough to make one think the course designer had taken a tour of the area’s eight whiskey distilleries before planning this fun, but bizarre, routing.

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