Troon

Links and the Firth of Clyde

The eighth hole at Royal Troon is a par-3 of 123 yards, the shortest hole in Open Championship golf, with a green measuring 2,635 square feet. It is called the Postage Stamp, and it has undone better players than you are likely to bring. The club sits in the town itself, founded in 1878, granted Royal status at its 1978 centenary, and it has hosted the men's Open ten times — Palmer, Watson, Weiskopf, Stenson, Schauffele in 2024. Five other courses ring the town on the same links land, three of them municipal and open to visitors, so you do not need a member to sign you in.

If golf is not the reason you came, the seafront is. Troon is built on a rocky headland pushing into the Firth of Clyde, with a wide sandy beach on each side of it: North Sands and South Sands, both backed by level promenade. The Ayrshire Coastal Path runs through, and on a clear day you look west across the water to Arran and Ailsa Craig. Windsurfers and kitesurfers use both beaches. For a walk with a view, climb the Ballast Bank — an artificial hill raised from the ballast that merchant ships dumped here, now a set of viewpoints over the harbour and the Clyde.

Eating at the Harbour

The harbour is where you eat. Scotts, at the Troon Yacht Haven marina on Harbour Road, is a waterfront bar and restaurant with terrace seating over the boats. The menu changes with the season and runs from freshly landed lobster to Scotch steaks, with share platters and bar nibbles; two courses come to £19.95 in the week, and food starts at nine in the morning if you want a breakfast roll before anything else. A pound from every cocktail goes to Ayrshire Cancer Support. Round at the harbour proper there is MacCallums Oyster Bar and, next to it, the Wee Hurrie chip shop.

Coal, Rails and Shipbuilding

That harbour is the reason the town exists. The Troon Harbour Act passed in 1808, and by 1812 the docks served the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway — Scotland's first railway, a horse-drawn line built to carry coal, on which passengers were charged freight rates by weight. By the end of the century Troon was among Britain's top ten coal ports, and the Ailsa yard built ships here until 2000. Fullarton House, the grand mansion of the Dukes of Portland, stood until 1966; its grounds survive as a public park, with stables, walled gardens, a doocot and an ice house.

Crosbie Church

Just inland lies the ruin of Crosbie Church. Its roof is said to have blown off on 25 January 1759 — the day Robert Burns was born — after which the building fell to ruin. The cemetery is older still, dating from around 1240, and served as Troon's burial ground until 1862.

Ferry, Rail and the Broon from Troon

Since March 2024 a CalMac ferry has run from the harbour to Brodick on Arran, a full day out. The train stops in the town on the Glasgow–Ayr line, and Prestwick airport is three miles off. Gordon Brown, the Lions forward, was born here in 1947 and never quite shook the name he was given: the Broon from Troon.