Marcos
It’s customary for these type of threads to lead to lots of people giving advice for you to limit the amount of travel you do and I think you’ve managed to do that fairly well. The other type of advice is from folk telling you not to just play the big courses but try the lesser known/smaller courses as well. In the past I’d probably have been one of them.
I now appreciate however that when you are over you’ll want to play the best courses you can, and you will also have certain courses that you have always wanted to play, so go for it.
If however you are not stuck on those courses can I recommend Glasgow Gailes, now referred to as Gailes Links, as being better than Western even if you don’t see the sea. Hands up, I’m biased as a former member but it’s also the prevailing view of the locals.
Also in terms of the west coast courses, Prestwick St Nich’s and Irvine Bogside are both also worth a play. (Glasgow Gailes, Prest St N and Bogside are all significantly cheaper than Western and in this instance don’t be fooled in to thinking that price is an indicator of quality).
I wouldn’t say not to play Dundonald but it is a big modern course and therefore doesn’t really have the charm of say a more classic links. Still a good enough course. Also the Portland course at Royal Troon is a MacKenzie and worth seeing so if being sold a package at Troon I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss it because it’s the second course.
Niall