24 metres high, with 76 steps to the top, the Turnberry Lighthouse has marked the coastline in these parts since 1873. Rising out of the mists to greet ships for over a hundred years, this quintessential icon is one of Turnberry's most powerful charms. Originally commissioned by the Northern Lighthouse Board to warn passing vessels away from nearby Bristo Rock, the lighthouse is the oldest man-made structure on the Turnberry premises-with the exception of the remains of the 13th-century castle of Robert the Bruce that it marks.

The lighthouse was designed by David and Thomas Stevenson, celebrated engineers and part of the same family of the even more celebrated author, Robert Louis Stevenson. The initial plan to erect the lighthouse on the Rock itself proved too dangerous so Turnberry Point was chosen as the nearest practical site on the mainland. The foundations of the lighthouse stand in what was once the moat of Turnberry Castle, thought to be the birthplace of Robert the Bruce in 1274. The first light beamed across the waters on 30 August 1878, showing one flash every 12 seconds (now every 15 seconds) and, in line with every other lighthouse in the UK, was automated in 1986.

There is no greater symbol of the constancy of the game and the land it is played on.