{"id":345,"date":"2012-05-13T02:23:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T02:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddesmith.com\/?p=345"},"modified":"2013-05-10T00:47:58","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T00:47:58","slug":"the-new-center-of-the-links-golf-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/345\/the-new-center-of-the-links-golf-world","title":{"rendered":"The New Center of the Links Golf World"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_346\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/05\/Heart-of-Links.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-346\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-346\" src=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/05\/Heart-of-Links-300x274.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"274\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-346\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machrihanish Dunes sits at the very heart of the links golf world.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t that long ago that Machrihanish was considered the end of road \u2013 if not the end of the world.\u00a0 People made the trek to the town for the golf or the beaches, but it wasn\u2019t a quick journey and when you were done enjoying the area you pretty much had to turn around and go home.<\/p>\n<p>Not anymore.\u00a0 Thanks to The Kintyre Express, a fast RIB that can whisk 12 passengers at a time from nearby Campbetown over to Ayrshire or Northern Ireland faster than you can play nine holes, Machrihanish is now at the heart of some of the best links golf on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>So now you can fly into Glasgow and do a loop that easily includes the robust pairing of Machrihanish GC and Machrihanish Dunes plus Ayrshire courses like:<\/p>\n<p>-Turnberry\u2019s Ailsa and Kintyre courses<\/p>\n<p>-Prestwick<\/p>\n<p>-Royal Troon<\/p>\n<p>-Dundonald Links<\/p>\n<p>-Western Gailes<\/p>\n<p>-Glasgow Gailes<\/p>\n<p>-Prestwick St. Nicholas<\/p>\n<p>My Golf Road Warriors comrades and I will be taking this route to get from Machrihanish over to Turnberry on the 4<sup>th<\/sup> day of our journey, and I\u2019m looking forward to the exhilaration of traveling over the sea.<\/p>\n<p>Going the other direction, you can fly into Dublin or Belfast, play the great courses of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and then hop over to Machrihanish.\u00a0 Some of the courses that could on that itinerary include:<\/p>\n<p>-Royal Portrush<\/p>\n<p>-Portstewart<\/p>\n<p>-Royal County Down<\/p>\n<p>-Castlerock<\/p>\n<p>-Ballyliffin<\/p>\n<p>Whichever route you take, you\u2019ll be able to have a go at some great championship courses and add to your trip the gems of the Kintyre peninsula in beautiful Machrihanish.\u00a0 Anyone who\u2019s ever done such a trip will undoubtedly tell you what a good idea that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t that long ago that Machrihanish was considered the end of road \u2013 if not the end of the&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/345\/the-new-center-of-the-links-golf-world\" title=\"ReadThe New Center of the Links Golf World\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[420357,420362,420363,420365,420366,420369,9,17],"tags":[104484,3122,1005770,141,464107,464326,420405,914,420407,464517,1005774,1005775,78870,1555],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-machrihanish-dunes","category-visitscotland","category-venues-scotland","category-machrihanish-gc","category-machrihanish-dunes-gc","category-grw-scotland","category-golf","category-courses-and-travel","tag-machrihanish-golf-club","tag-prestwick","tag-turnberry","tag-royal-portrush","tag-western-gailes","tag-glasgow-gailes","tag-prestwick-st-nicholas","tag-portstewart","tag-castlerock-gc","tag-ballyliffin-gc","tag-machrihanish-dunes","tag-dundonald-links","tag-royaltroon","tag-royal-county-down"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/05\/Heart-of-Links.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}