18Players Account Manager, Mike Robertson, details the exciting project that we have just undertaken with the Ayrshire course

Western Gailes is a club that sits very close to my heart. Not only because we are lucky enough to work with Douglas and the team on their social media channels, but it is also very much one of my favourite courses in the world. A beautiful links equally matched by the traditional, charming clubhouse. Not to mention those amazing locker rooms.

Booking a tee time here should be a pleasure, but visitors far and wide had to do so from a website that was showing its age and barely even showed the course. Small images, bounds of text and old-fashioned drone videos – the sort that start at the tee and end abruptly at the green. They just didn’t do the course and club justice.

18Players were commissioned to start work on a project that involved a brand-new website, on-course and in-clubhouse photography and a suite of new videos. I took this as our chance to really show off the Western Gailes that I know and love.

This is how we did it.

Website

We wanted the course to do the talking. Big images and videos fill the screen with no distractions or cluttering menu headers. This is what I would want to see as a prospective visitor and discerning golfer. We are trying to capture people’s emotions and make sure site visitors know exactly what to expect from this world-class course. In keeping with the club’s tradition, we kept the site neat and clean. There are no longer endless columns of text. Because of social media, modern website users expect to scroll on one page, without having to click through multiple pages. We built the course section on one page, so a user can easily scroll through 18 beautiful images, similar to how you would do on Instagram. Now you REALLY want to play the course…

Videography

Western Gailes is the epitome of VIEWS with those dramatic dunes and the sea beyond to your right on the stretch from the 4th to the 13th. Video is the ideal – in fact the only – way to show off the course and leave you desperate to play it.

There were two new, unique videos:

  • If you know, you know. This was our love letter to Western Gailes. All the best views mixed with all the quirky clubhouse artefacts and of course, the locker rooms. This is a promo video that the club use on the website and social media.
  • Lappock/Sea. A deep dive into holes 6 and 7, up there with the best back-to-back holes in golf. A mix of ground and drone footage practically help you walk the holes. It is rare to get such an intimate look at such stunning holes.

18 Hole Promo Videos

Before booking to play a new course, I always look at the holes online and so often I am greeted with a mundane flyover of the hole – straight from the tee down the fairway to the green. There is no depth, no sense of how the hole is played and certainly no sense of the contours of the greens.

Our goal was to completely re-invent this style of video. We created 18 individual promo videos with an eclectic mix of footage consisting people playing the holes (including from the rough or bunkers – golf isn’t always played on the fairway…), aerial and ground footage. You get a feel for the entire course.

Photography

We know links golf. It isn’t illuminous green fairways and bright sunny skies – this is not what it’s all about to real golfers. Our timing with photography allowed us to show the course and clubhouse in a more raw and natural way. Multiple visits to catch different lighting also help their social media channels to pop.

We were so proud to have the chance to work with Western Gailes on this project and believe they now have a best-in-class website befitting of the club.

Take a look at https://westerngailes.com/ and contact us to hear more about 18Players and our work.

Mike Robertson, Account Manager at 18Players