Killermont Course

Glasgow Golf Club’s course at Killermont was laid out by four times Open Champion Old Tom Morris in December 1903 and was the last 18-holes course he designed.

It has subsequently been modernised by James Braid (1924) and David Thomas (2002-05), but the line of play on the North bank of the River Kelvin, and the green sites, are still as conceived by the ‘Grand Old Man.’

Braid, five times winner of the Open Championship, moved tees back where possible, adding around 325 yards to the course, altered the contours of some of the greens and added quite a number of bunkers as well as altering existing ones.

Before becoming a course architect Thomas, like his predecessors, had been a professional golfer of distinction, finishing twice as runner-up in the Open Championship and playing in four Ryder Cup teams. He and his son Paul have been responsible for the major bunkering programme which started in late 2002, reshaping many of the existing bunkers, removing some and adding new ones to take account of modern conditions and equipment.

The B-listed, neo-classical mansion house which became, and still is, the Clubhouse was built in 1805, although the earliest printed references to Killermont date from around 1580. The house and estate had been owned by the Campbell-Colquhoun family for more than 150 years before being leased by Glasgow Golf Club in the autumn of 1903. It has been described as “the best listed building in Bearsden, a very handsome late Georgian country house of 1805 with very few external alterations to affect its character.”

One of only three known portraits of Old Tom Morris hangs within the Clubhouse. It is by H Jermyn Brooks, a London artist who exhibited in the Royal Academy and National Portrait Gallery and, according to Golf Illustrated at the time of its purchase in 1908 “is considered an excellent likeness of the St Andrews golfer.”