An iconic country estate set beneath the beautiful Ochil Hills, Gleneagles has been a luxury destination for nearly a century.
Located just one hour from Glasgow and Edinburgh airports and with its own railway station, Gleneagles offers the perfect retreat for those looking for relaxation, fun and adventure. Three championship courses have established Gleneagles’ reputation as a golfer’s paradise but the hotel offers so much more than golf. The 850-acre estate epitomises the natural beauty for which Scotland is famed and offers guests a glorious playground of country pursuits and activities. Whether you come to golf, fly a Harris’ Hawk, ride horses, play tennis, go off-roading, train gundogs, shoot game, fish, enjoy Michelin-starred dining, or relax in an award-winning spa, Gleneagles offers a world of unforgettable experiences.
Front of The Gleneagles Hotel
Gleneagles has also been voted ‘Best Golf Resort in the World’ for an unprecedented sixth successive year by readers of Ultratravel, the Telegraph’s luxury travel magazine, and visitors to the telegraph.co.uk website.
Readers were asked to vote for their favourite travel experiences in 19 categories, with Gleneagles taking the top golf award ahead of Pebble Beach Resorts and Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, USA; St. Andrews Links, Scotland and La Manga Resort in Spain.
Bernard Murphy, Gleneagles’ Managing Director, commented: “We continually strive to offer all our guests an industry-leading experience and prestigious awards such as this – voted for by our customers – underline the quality of our world-class golf facilities and the dedication of the whole Gleneagles team.”
This latest accolade comes as the 850-acre Perthshire estate prepares to host two significant events over the next two years, The 2018 European Golf Team Championships and The 2019 Solheim Cup. The award also coincides with the completion of a detailed renovation project on The King’s and The Queen’s courses.
The King’s Course, the #1 inland course in Scotland (Golf Monthly Top 100 Courses Ranking, 2017), which will celebrate its centenary in 2019, has been taken back to James Braid’s original design vision last year, and similar work was undertaken last winter on The Queen’s Course.
The King’s Course hosted the first informal Ryder Cup match between Great Britain and the USA, with a strong British team, which included James Braid, winning 9 points to3. It also hosted a famous match between the ‘Big Three’ of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player in 1966.
Gleneagles – Queens Course
The course underwent an extensive development programme in 2016, which included taking the fairway cut lines back to the original James Braid design, alongside a comprehensive bunker refurbishment programme designed to aid drainage and further enhance the aesthetic design of the course.
All the holes have evocative and pithy Scottish names. For example, the fifth, “Het Girdle” (Hot Pan), is a challenging par 3 with trouble everywhere except on the green, while 17th’s name, “Warslin’ Lea” (Wrestling Ground), reflects the difficulty so many golfers have had with this long, sweeping par 4.
Originally a nine-hole layout, the James Braid-designed Queen’s course is now one of the finest par-68 golf courses in the UK.
Threading through high ridges on the north and west sides of the estate, the Queen’s golf course cuts through a woodland setting, with lochans and ditches as water hazards, as well as many moorland characteristics.
A number of the world’s best golfers, as well as great names from the entertainment and sports world have played the Queen’s course, including Seve Ballesteros, Sean Connery and the only man to have ever hit a golf shot on the moon – astronaut Alan Shephard.
Opened for play in 1993, The PGA Centenary Course (formerly known as the Monarch’s Course) is a Jack Nicklaus-designed layout and his first creation in Scotland.
The course hosted The 2014 Ryder Cup, which Europe won 16½ – 11½ and will host The 2019 Solheim Cup.
The Century Bar inside Gleneagles Hotel
Jack Nicklaus has described the course as “the finest parcel of land in the world I have ever been given to work with.”
The tees are graded at each hole in five stages, with the course measuring 5,322 yards from the red tees, up to nearly 7,300 yards from the back tees – making it the longest inland course in Scotland.
Gary Silcock, Director of Golf at Gleneagles, added: “Following completion of the work [on the King’s and Queen’s courses], our courses are in fantastic condition for the 2017 golf season.
“The experience customers receive when they visit continues to be second to none and, with three critically-acclaimed 18-hole championship courses to choose from, Gleneagles remains, quite simply, a golfer’s paradise.”
For further information about Gleneagles and its current golf and stay and play packages, visit: www.gleneagles.com
