Hipsters at Gleneagles? Got it in one

Itook a swing and missed. Had anyone seen? “Don’t worry,” chirped my instructor, Calum. “Let’s try again.” I held the golf club how I’d just been taught – two knuckles of the top hand visible, pinky of the bottom hand curled in a specific spot. “How does that feel?” Calum asked. The grip felt about as natural as laughter in a library. “Yep, feels fine,” I lied.

I was at Gleneagles – one of the world’s most celebrated golf hotels – which is dazzling from a multimillion-pound refurbishment. When I first heard that its new owner was Ennismore – which runs the trendy Hoxton hotels in London (Holborn and Shoreditch) – I was surprised. I had just that week devoured a Dirty Bird burger to the sound of countrygospel music at the Hoxton Holborn hotel’s Chicken Shop. How would this hipsterish vibe translate to the hallowed corridors of Gleneagles?

Ennismore has wasted no time in taking a sledgehammer to Gleneagles’ image as a closed club for Ryder Cup fans and the “tweed brigade”. The idea is to replace it with something more fun that appeals to a wider customer base – including plebs like me who snigger at the term “bogey”.

Truth is, I have coveted golfing prowess since summers at my grandparents from the age of six. I would get jealous when my grandad went off all day to play golf with his pal. By my early teens I’d lost interest. Maybe it’s because my grandad has since passed away, but the desire to play has crept back.

Late-20-something novices like me are in expert hands at Gleneagles. There is also a big emphasis on making women welcome at its golfing academy. It has even launched an annual Ladies Open for all abilities. It’s all very hi-tech too – after a few failures to hit the ball, Calum and I headed to an indoor studio where he recorded my swing. He then played this back on a computer – my club was too down-facing, which is why it wasn’t reaching the ball. Back on the range, we analysed and adjusted the face of my club constantly. It was intense but effective: I was thwacking balls with reasonable accuracy by the end. Next came putting, and I was pretty good. “You are giving me a run for my money,” praised Calum, with a flash of mischief in his eyes.

The revamp of Gleneagles is dramatic and total. Take The Century Bar, where the mood is Mediterranean palace meets Roaring Twenties drinking den – think pastel Ionic pillars, and Art Deco lamps upholstered in classic-Chanel black and cream. At the mosaic-tiled bar, I sipped the signature whisky cocktail lit with gunpowder from the shooting school. It was surreal: men with tweeds (there are still some) and Swiss-watched wrists talking credit default swaps in the sort of scarlet cuddle chairs that would feature in a cover shoot for Vogue.

Another space that has been glammed up is The Glendevon, where G8 leaders chewed the fat over African debt in 2005. It has been transformed into a swanky space for afternoon tea – all feather-framed mirrors and antique silver tea sets on loan from the British Museum. Spruced-up bedrooms still have their share of beige cashmere, but there’s also a sprinkling of Shoreditch-style design – my bed was footed with a green velvet luggage trunk, drawers resembled vintage filing

The grand golfing hotel is refashioning its glamorous past. Sherelle Jacobs gets in the swing

cabinets and the desk had the kind of curiously shaped bronze-brushed lamps that you would find when rifling among the vinyl on Portobello Road.

As much as the overhaul of Gleneagles is about moving forwards, it’s also trying to recapture a golden age. When Gleneagles first became a hotel in 1924, it was dubbed the playground of the privileged – not just grand but frivolous, hilarious and ahead of the times. The hotel’s opening was the first BBC live radio broadcast. The estate was as famous for its sprung ballroom, swing bands and chiffongowned belles as it was for golf.

Nowhere is this aspiring direction clearer than in The American Bar. Here, mixologist Lulu – a diminutive woman with phonebox-red lipstick – has raided the archives to come up with a menu of Twenties cocktails. “You simply must try Sabath – with port, espresso and cognac,” Lulu exclaimed, while pouring me one of her zany recipes and topping it with a wild flower from the golf course. “I also love Welcome Stranger with Swedish punch. I had to brew the punch bit myself, mind you. It went out of production in the 1950s.”

The first aristocratic visitors to Gleneagles came in the summer to shoot grouse, so I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to shoot clays here. I felt a tad out of place next to the pros in the waiting lodge – until I was put at ease by the child of a fellow guest who, on spotting the stuffed ducks mounted on the wall, shouted “wicked”. My lesson revealed a new-found talent for

Hot shots: clay pigeon shooting is part of the programme at Gleneagles, which has undergone extensive refurbishment