Dalmahoy is now part of the De Vere group of hotels and therefore takes advantage of their points based membership system.  As the hotel is also on site it is a course that does seem to get a lot of golfers playing it but it does suffer from that age old problem of resort golf courses; lack of respect.  As with its sister course at the Carrick I was not overly impressed by Dalmahoy (East) both in terms of the course and its condition  

During 2013 Scotland has had an excellent summer and many parkland courses are in immaculate condition (Lanark & Duddingston for example) however Dalmahoy wasn't.  It looked like a course that had many people playing but few caring about the place.  The fairways were pock marked with divots where people hadn't bothered to replace them, pitch marks were left unrepaired on greens and some greens in very poor condition especially given our weather recently.  I felt sorry for the course as I would hope that fellow golfers treat every course as if it was their home course but clearly that isn't the case.

If you take away the aesthetic issues I still wasn't impressed by the course.  The front 9 in particular is, in my opinion, best described as bland.  The only real protection for the course was the length.  The back 9 is significantly better with some pretty holes and better tee box positions.  On the front 9 there is little to fear with a driver in hand for most of the holes - the back 9 has some tricker driving holes and what seems to be a more strategic set of holes.  I particularly liked the run of holes from 12-14 and thought 17 & 18 were strong finishing holes.

However even though the back 9 was good the front 9 and general poor condition of the course does make me wonder why the course has been ranked so highly.  When you consider that the brutal but beguiling Irvine (bogside) is ranked lower than this course it does call into question the ranking.  

This discussion was had on twitter and the generally view was that the course has the "potential" to be an excellent addition to the various Edinburgh golf courses but investment was needed.  For me, it is ticked off the list and if I was looking for an inland course to play in Edinburgh I would pop down to Duddingston instead.