TAXItravel

Glasgow is Scotland's largest city and as you would expect there is a diverse range of golfing venues on offer in the city and its environs but there is also a proud tradition of golf with references to the game being played in Glasgow going back as early as 1721.

With a good road network, it's possible to get quickly out of the city and there is no shortage of splendid golf courses to choose from.

The closest to the city centre is Haggs Castle, which staged the first Scottish Open in 1986, but if it's history you want about 25 miles south of the city is Lanark, which claims to be the 25th oldest club in the world.

Perhaps more interesting is that it can put one over the Open Championship. Originally a six-hole course, members still compete for the Silver Claret Jug, which was introduced in 1857 three years before the first Open.

Not far from there at Biggar the hilly, moorland course of Leadhills is the highest in Scotland at 1,500 feet above sea level.

And another first is at Westerwood Hotel, Golf & Country Club, an undulating moorland course with many water hazards. Opened in 1989, its designer was Seve Ballesteros - with a little help from Dave Thomas – and was the first course in the UK by the Spanish maestro.

Others worth a visit are Cathkin Braes, East Renfrewshire, which enjoys magnificent scenery and panoramic views over Glasgow and the Clyde Valley to the Campsie Fells to the north, The Glasgow Club at Killermont whose clubhouse, a former stately home built around the time of Trafalgar, houses a trophy collection that cannot be bettered anywhere, and Pollok, which was laid out by Dr Alister MacKenzie, the designer of Augusta National.