Guys, Machrihanish will *never* be a "tourist destination" as such. The locals would love it if it were, but it ain't gonna happen unless the new course turns out to be worth a 9 or 10 rating on the Doak scale. (The land is good, but I doubt it's THAT good.) So Tom, it doesn't really matter which choice you make, IMHO.
As for the Sound of Kintyre apartments, they consist of refurbished military housing for the airbase - the houses themselves look nice enough on the outside, but they're surrounded by barbed wire fences and are nowhere near the golf course (rather, they're quite near to the 9th hole of the current course, but you have to drive nearly all the way back into Campbeltown and then along the road to Machrihanish to get to the clubhouse). Caveat emptor and all that...
Cheers,
Darren