I've played Kingsbarns and Dundonald. Like night and day. Kingsbarns is the best engineering job I've seen in course design in Scotland (I've still to see Castle Stuart properly but from what I've seen on here I don't think it will match up in that sense). The course looks superb and plenty of WOW factor. If I had a criticism it is that once you've played it a few times it begins to pale, mainly I think because it lacks the challenge of other championship contenders. The fairways are wide open and the greens are a lot larger than most other links that you'll play, oh and its not a links either but then thats the brilliance of the engineering job that it looks like it is and mostly plays like it is.
Dundonald, well thats another bucket of mackerel. Frankly, given the site, a couple of hundred acres at least of flat sand on which to build anything you desired, the result is disappointing which is not to say that it doesn't have some good golf. It does but quite a bit of the design isn't links (push-up style/upturn saucer greens, forced carries onto greens where the approach shot was either a wood or long iron) and the off course mounding/landscaping is quite crude.
Why the difference ? Well firstly I think the client had a lot to do with it. Philips probably couldn't have got a better client than Mark Parsinen at Kingsbarns while the client at Dundonald only thought he was Mark Parsinen. The reality was something different.
Secondly, I suspect that Dundonald ran out of cash or at least the client decided enough was enough. On the other hand I suspect that Kingsbarns was the most expensive golf course built in Scotland up to that time.
Niall