Powfoot Golf Club

This is a lovely course, more modest than some links in the area and on the west coast. There is less shaping of the fairways and course but it’s a pleasure to play with plenty to keep your interest. Good condition. Slick greens and punishing rough in the strong winds today. I hope to be back

Great course - putting conditions fantastic. Lovely little gem in Dumfries

Great course. Wide fairways. Good challenge for all levels of golfers

Very Friendly and helpful, from everybody we met from the Pro to every member.

Happy to come back again.

Condition of the course was really good. Notably quick greens and nice bunkers. Good layout with some interesting holes. Will be back at some point

Wonderful course, great weather and helpful

Pro shop.

Have driven past this course on the A75 many times. This time decided to stop and give it a go and I was not disappointed. Glorious sunshine and a strong breeze - lovely. The pro shop was shut but staff in the bar very friendly and helpful. Course in immaculate condition. Fairways like billiard tables, semi rough playable and even in the rough there was opportunity to get back in play. Greens very fast - and interesting contours! Initially I thought it was a bit pricey - but actually given the quality of the course it was worth the money.

From the friendly welcome I was expecting a wonderful experience.

The weather for mid March was unbelievable. The course was a wonderful links course and although you had to use a mat or take the ball to the semi rough you still got the links experience of the ball running and sometimes getting a bad bounce. Being links, the pot and greenside bunkers were a challenge, yes I experienced both. The members were very friendly and helpful as they pointed out where to play. It will play much harder when the rough grows up!

Yes it was a wonderful experience and I will definitely play again when I am next in the area.

First time playing here after hearing great things about it, nice course but all the rough was cut right down so the only hazards were the gorse bushes, it played really well as the fairways were bone dry and the greens were in really good condition given the time of year, it’ll be a different beast come summer, not sure if I’d come back as there’s better in the area, staff were super friendly and the few folk I spoke to outside the clubhouse, would recommend playing it just to tick it off the list

Always enjoy coming back to powfoot. Course is always in great condition all year round and staff and members always welcoming

Good course with fairly tight fairways lined with rough and gorse. We enjoyed our round and found member’s friendly.

The greens are very lumpy bumpy

We liked the coarse overall

But there obviously doing work on the greens

Which we weren’t told about

Great day playing the course yesterday. Had a nice breakfast before we started and the staff in both the clubhouse and club shop were really friendly. The greens had just been worked on so made them hard to play but the course was in brilliant condition. Really enjoyed the round and would recommend playing if near by.

Enjoyed the experience however golf cart was more expensive than the golf

Middle of summer does not serve food after 4pm

I found that a bit strange

As a member of another club you are not allowed to enjoy the facilities without playing a round of golf I was staying on a camp site next to the course people I spoke to were wanting to visit the club but were not allowed unless they play a round Powfoot a missing good revenue might to rethink there strategy unless they are making plenty of cash already

Powfoot has to rank among the solid courses in Dumfries & Galloway area, and after playing here today, I definitely found it worth the visit. If you’re seeking an interesting challenge, this layout won’t disappoint, as among these eighteen is a mixture of some relatively tight fairways and some rolling ones, raised and often undulating greens, the occasional steep falloff(s) around a green, plentiful pot bunkers, abundant gorse, and frequent swathes of long rough. There are eight short par-4s–all well under 400 yards–and five long ones ranging from 403 to 442 yards. Unsurprisingly, the course slopes at respectable numbers: 126 from the yellow tees and 129 from the whites; its course rating is 69.5 against par of 71.

The course starts with a bland par-4 opener (its key threat being OOB right), but improves markedly at the par-5 second, where an undulating fairway heads directly at the ocean, ending, at its green, with a long seaside vista. The third, called Shore, is top-notch. It may not instill a foreboding feeling from a first look at the tee–it seems just a straightaway hole–but maybe it should. Ideally, your tee shot will run through the hollow in the landing area, while the second must be played to a green with hazards lurking both front (a pair of bunkers) and back (OOB, which also threatens the hole’s entire right side). Shore also boasts terrific ocean views.

The sixth is a short but demanding par-4 (index 3), a dogleg-right studded with five bunkers in its landing zone. The sixth feels immersed in gorse, as do the eighth and eleventh holes later on. On the outward half, you’ll also encounter the bunker-laden seventh hole, a short par-3, where no less than eighth traps lie greenside. Hole nine finishes the front with a flourish. This 403-yard par-4 sports not only a famous (infamous?) World War II bomb crater, pinching the fairway some eighty yards from the putting surface, but also an astonishing green that looks as though it could be a site for skateboarders or, if it were covered in snow, for skiers. Accordingly, someone dubbed it the “halfpipe,” perhaps after (s)he four-putted the green.

The inward half here doesn’t match the front side, but it has its share of interesting but also grueling holes. The opening tenth–at stroke index 2–leads the way over its 428 yards, a fairly straightforward but well-bunkered hole with a pair of staggered traps in the landing zone. The splendid sixteenth, named “Ryehill,” features a sprawling fairway playing substantially uphill to a plateau green, a green which slopes back to front and tends to make three-putting a snap for the unwary. Much like the tenth before it, sixteen will be a pitiless hole to golfers whose tee shots wander too far from the short grass. The fourteenth, a nice par-5, and the fifteenth, a 200-yard three-par, also sport fine elevated green complexes, their putting surfaces well fortified by large falloffs.

Conditions:

Course conditioning was first-rate in all respects, especially around the finely manicured and very smooth greens.

Some Conclusions:

The long par-4s are what drive the central challenge of this layout, so to some extent long hitters have an advantage on these five stringent holes. Still, straight hitters will be rewarded with pars if they can play the numerous short holes with care throughout the round at Powfoot. The par-5s are manageable here, while the three par-3s are good holes that may offer birdie opportunities. All in all, this a balanced course with a variety of looks and difficulties on eighteen distinct–and often nicely offbeat–golf holes. The putting challenges are also diverse enough. A weakness in James Braid’s design concerns the almost invariably straight fairways; only one that I can think of (the sixth) was appreciably doglegged. Powfoot provides a links-like feeling, though many of the holes have a more predominant parkland character. The course is quite scenic and I found myself frequently admiring the views.

The first order of business here for most players, though, will simply be to keep the ball in play–and out of the whin–off the tee. If you’re prone to a hook or a slice, your day likely will feel like a long one. For the low-handicap player, who should find this course moderately difficult on a calm day, any day with moderate winds will otherwise provide what might be described as an added layer of toughness to the eighteen. So, while this is not the kind of layout that beats you over the head mercilessly on a couple of stretches of tough holes, it instead may slowly eat away at your desired score should your game begin slipping.

Service in the clubhouse was excellent and definitely welcoming; the golfers I met on the course, including my playing partner, were very friendly. Before the round, upon reading some of the summaries in the course website’s “Hole Guide,” I was laughing out loud at some of the writer's understated and effective witticisms. Great stuff! If only more clubs would present their course’s strengths, as this does, with a similar sort of self-effacing humor.