They are expecting a full house for the Open at Royal Troon this year. Around a quarter of a million punters are expected to descend on the Ayrshire links over the course of the week. But if you cannot source a ticket at this late stage, do not despair, there is still one option: buy a property which actually sits in the middle of the course and which has just gone up for sale.
Blackrock House, which was put on the market earlier this week with Strutt & Parker, is well known to locals. The house actually predates the founding of Troon. “Blackrock cottages” appear in the original plans for the initial six-hole course design back in 1878.
It is certainly a feature of the course. You can’t miss it as you make your way out, early in your round, and then back again near the end. In fact, if you are lucky enough to have played Troon, there is a good chance your ball might have ended up in its back garden. In which case, you must take your medicine; the club’s Old Course scorecard specifies quite clearly that out of bounds includes “the gardens of Blackrock House off Crosbie Road. [A ball played into the gardens is not recoverable.]”
Blackrock House actually consists of two properties, only one of which is for sale. When the other half, No 16 Crosbie Road, was put on the market in 2007, Scottish newspaper columnist Tam Cowan joked that any prospective buyer would need £3 million in the bank. “One million for the house and two million to get the windows repaired every couple of days.”
You’ll only need half that figure to buy this one. For a mere £1.5million, you can have your own corner of golfing paradise. Hell, you could make that back in a few years on AirBnB. Can any of the corporate sponsorship pavilions offer four bedrooms, four bathrooms and views over five holes? Not to mention the Isle of Arran across the Firth of Clyde?
“The sale of Blackrock House is one of those rare times where you can safely say there isn’t anything else like this available in the world,” says Strutt & Parker’s Annabel Blackett. “Built before the Royal Troon Golf Club even existed, the home’s driveway meanders through the course and takes you into almost another world – a world which must surely feel like a dream for any golf fans!”
It depends on your view of what constitutes paradise, of course. When the other half went up for sale in 2007, the Telegraph described the house as “a sunroom for ogling the world’s best players as they slosh past in the rain.”
As is so often the case with house sales, the timing is down to unfortunate circumstances. The house was owned by David and Isabel Kelly, who bought it around the same time as Mark Calcavecchia won here in 1989. Together with their sons, Andrew and John, they watched the next three from their front lawn, including that epic duel in 2016 when Henrik Stenson beat Phil Mickelson. “I was standing on that wall,” Andrew Kelly told AP this week, pointing to the concrete wall that separates one side of the property from the par 5 16th green, where Mickelson’s putt for eagle stopped tantalisingly short and the crowd sighed.
David died two years ago at the age of 91 and Isabel passed away in the last month. Poignantly, her pass for this week’s Open hangs in a front window. Her old Honda, featuring a “wee dent” from a wayward ball, sits in the driveway.
“That’s why we’re selling the house,” Andrew Kelly added. “So this will be a bittersweet Open for us. We were going to sell it anyway, so we decided to put it on during the Open, as you can imagine it’s probably the best time to do it.”
There is still just about time to look for that £1.5million down the back of your sofa.
