Our PEI golf sampler also included a 30-year-old favorite of the Charlottetown crowd, as well as the island’s newest course, located just 10 minutes from town. The former, Stanhope Golf Club, zigzags 6,600 yards across a hillside overlooking scenic Covehead Bay. Wind off the water constantly buffets its unassuming, open fairways. Every approach shot and many putts are memorable and sometimes maddening, because the undulating cloverleaf greens are set in bowls created by steep greenside mounding.

Fox Meadow Golf and Country Club, designed by Rob Heaslip and playing to 6,836 yards, opened last spring. When we played it, the course was open and forgiving because the rough of clover and crown vetch had yet to mature. But the many crowned greens and constantly swirling winds make nearly every approach shot interesting.

During our visit, we stayed up the coast from the Brudenell River Course at the new Inn at Spry Point, which occupies an isolated spit of land. Our only regret was the brevity of our stay, as we found this small hotel to be the epitome of comfort, service and ambiance. In its candlelit dining room we lingered over entrees such as almond-crusted salmon with a creamy dill sauce and desserts made with fresh local blueberries.

People of Scottish descent make up the largest ethnic group on PEI, and it takes little curiosity to discover evidence of these roots. The island has an official dress tartan, a school for aspiring bagpipers, town names like New Glasgow—and a selection of golf courses that would make the Scottish forefathers proud