The post I made these two key gear changes for links golf | I Tried It appeared first on Golf.

The post I made these two key gear changes for links golf | I Tried It appeared first on Golf.

There is no purer golf than links golf, and it’s a completely different game than what we’re used to here in the States.

Every July for the past four years, my father, a few friends and I have ventured to the Scottish Highlands for the week after the Open Championship, where we play some of the best courses that area has to offer, like Royal Dornoch, Nairn, Golspie, Fortrose and more.

This year, we played 216 holes in eight days, might sound psychotic … because it totally is! But as much as a trip to Linksland is an examination of your physical stamina, it’s also an examination of your shot-making ability and how you set up your golf bag to take advantage of windy days and firm turf. For that, I made two key gear changes that helped me as I navigated around the highlands.

No. 1 – A ‘do anything’ driving iron

When you play that much golf in not that much time, not all of it is going to be good golf. But when I played my best golf was really when I was making good decisions off the tee and using a driving iron more often than not.

I’ve brought a 3-iron with me each of the five times I’ve gone to Scotland, even when a hybrid or 5-wood normally occupies that spot in the bag (like it does currently). The first time, I didn’t have one, so I simply grabbed an old Mizuno blade 3-iron from my dad’s basement, but after that, I ordered a Mizuno MP-H5 hollow-bodied 3-iron to serve as a driving iron when called upon.

Since then, I’ve always had 3-irons that were strong lofted (19 or 18 degrees) and with heavy steel shafts that matched the rest of my irons. I could never find a true utility iron with a lightweight graphite shaft that allowed me to get the ball speeds I needed out of it or control the flight to make it a legitimate option.

That was, until I was fit for the new Titleist U505 3-iron ahead of Titleist’s 2025 T-Series launch. I’ve detailed a bit of my fitting experience in my launch piece for the U505 and T250U, but it was eye-opening for me to effortlessly reach the high 150s for ball speed while being able to flight a shot anywhere from 120 to 70 feet apex heights.

Titleist 2025 U•505 Custom Driving Iron

U505 plays like an iron but performs like something more. From threading the needle off the tee to getting home from unfathomable distances, U505 gives players the speed and control to hit clutch shots with confidence.  Pure Muscle Look   A hollow high-strength steel body concentrates immense power in a pure package. Long-Range Speed  A new forged L-Face design heightens ball speed and launch to take on distant targets with confidence.  Consistent Performance  Improved Max Impact Technology helps generate consistent launch, speed, spin, and carry to expand your shotmaking ability. Controlled Trajectory  Split high-density tungsten produces optimal CG with high stability for more forgiving shotmaking. Iron Set Blending The U505 and T250U feature a player-preferred profile with minimal offset, allowing you to blend into the top end of a mixed setup seamlessly.

$279.00 from Fairway Jockey

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I turned to my fitter in disbelief after my first swing with it.

We ended up going with a 20-degree head (3-iron), going two degrees flat to match my irons with a Project X HZURDUS 80 HY 6.5 shaft, which is nearly 50 g lighter than what I have in my irons. Normally, that would have scared me, but now I have an iron that I can flight through multiple windows and carry 240 yards with relative ease. I added a few strips of lead tape to the head just to get the swing weight to match the rest of my clubs (D4-D5).

At Nairn, one of the most fantastic driving courses I have ever played, the 3-iron came in handy. With the prevailing breeze at Nairn, seven of the first nine holes play into the wind. Seemingly every hole has at least a pair of bunkers that dictate a precise placement of the tee shot.

The carries are around 260 to take the bunkers out of play, but with every mistake magnified into the wind, trying to bust a driver over those bunkers can lead to disaster.

Irons

But with the 3-iron, whether I intentionally try to lower the ball flight or not, I find a much flatter trajectory. I could hit shots that would still carry out 230 or 240 into the wind, and I didn’t have to change my swing or setup.

That kept me short of the bunkers and then I had an open shot to run my ball up on the green. Even if I left myself a longer approach, being able to use the ground on the second shot made the approach feel shorter.

Conversely, I could get a downwind hole like the short 10th at Fortrose and Rosemarkie — a place where a driver or mini driver might go over the green and into the gorse — and I can step on one and flight it higher, use the wind and leave a ball just short of the green.

It’s truly a do-anything kind of club, earning the “utility iron” name.

No. 2 – A versatile wide-soled wedge

The day-to-day conditions in Scotland pose a unique challenge for wedge shots. The turf is crazy firm, yet the sand in the bunkers is very soft and heavy.

A narrow, low-effective bounce wedge might make sense for shots around the greens where you’re trying to clip one and get it over a ridge or hump, but they could also dig very easily in the sand. A wide-soled wedge would be great to add forgiveness and height to your shots out of the bunkers, but it could make it hard to create consistent contact on the fairways with the leading edge higher off the ground.

I typically play the Vokey SM10 WedgeWorks V Grind, which is a high-bounce but still versatile wedge grind for players who are a little steeper. It’s been a great fit for me this year, but it never left my travel bag across the pond, because as soon as I hit one shot with my Vokey K* (pronounced Kay-Star), I knew it would be perfect.

Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks SM10 K* Grind Custom Wedge

The K Grind has a long-standing place in the Vokey lineup, originally crafted by Master Craftsman Bob Vokey with input from top players. Known as the ultimate bunker club, its wide flange and subtle camber create a forgiving, smooth surface, ideal for sand shots. The K* Grind represents an evolution of the original K, designed in response to feedback from today’s players who seek versatility on firmer courses. It’s based on the Low Bounce K, with modifications like heel-to-toe relief for open-face shots and pre-wear to reduce digging on square-face shots. This new design allows the club to sit closer to the ground when opened, improving greenside performance while retaining the reliable bunker play of the original K Grind. The K* Grind is available in 58° and 60° lofts (RH only) with a Raw finish.

$225.00 from Fairway Jockey

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The Vokey WedgeWorks K* has been growing in popularity on the PGA Tour in recent years and has been in the bags of the last two winners.

The grind starts from the low bounce K-Grind wedge, which has a wide, smooth sole and adds a steeper pre-wear to the leading edge and trailing edge relief on both the heel and toe.

Why did this work so well for me in Scotland? Well, the added bounce to the leading edge of the sole helped me slide on top of the firm turf, while the relief on the trailing edge allowed me to play from all kinds of different club face locations.

Wedges

Thankfully, the club still has a wide sole, which made it so much easier to blast the ball out of the super soft sand in Scotland.

I really never had the issues of taking too much sand like I have in the past in Scotland, and I was able to clip the ball on chip shots like I never had before over there.

For my game, it was a perfect match to the conditions.

Bottom Line

These two clubs are not additions for my everyday golf bag; in fact, I may only pull out the K* for my next trip overseas or Bandon Dunes or another place like that.

But now I have 16 clubs I like, allowing me to choose the best 14 for whatever challenge the next day is going to provide. For me, that’s not just a worthy investment — it’s a game-changing one.

Want to overhaul your bag for 2025? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

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The post ‘How is it possible?’ Father, son deliver 17 million-to-1 golf moment appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘How is it possible?’ Father, son deliver 17 million-to-1 golf moment appeared first on Golf.

Part of golf’s appeal, its magnetism, is that on any day you can tee it up and do something extraordinary. Any one swing — with the elusive combination of tempo, feel and timing — can create magic with nature as its backdrop.

Jim Rohrstaff knows the feeling. The moment. He has lived a lifetime in golf. From his days as a club professional to his current role as a partner at Legacy Partners, where he develops golf courses and communities. The Kalamazoo, Mich., native is a golf lifer.

But experience can’t prepare you for a lightning strike — when the golf gods deliver something so rare that you might be the only person on the planet to have experienced it.

Rohrstaff and his family — his wife Kara and sons Blake and Eric — are on a nine-day, six-course golf trip in Scotland, playing the hits from Nairn to Castle Stuart and Royal Dornoch. Day 4 of their journey saw them arrive at Cullen Links, an Old Tom Morris original that found its way onto the Rohrstaff’s radar courtesy of the No Laying Up podcast hosts.

“The vibe was very, very strong when we got there,” Jim Rohrstaff told GOLF.com via phone from Scotland. “It was a good day to be at Cullen. Stunning, stunning day.”

Cullen Links was originally formed in 1870, with Old Tom Morris mapping out the original nine-hole design. In 1905, “the shortest true links in the world” expanded to 18 holes. It currently plays at just over 4,600 yards and is a par 63 with 10 par threes and one par five. The Rohrstaffs saw Cullen as the perfect course to use as their entry point into the Highlands.

But even Old Tom Morris wouldn’t have anticipated the golf kismet that awaited the Rohrstaffs.

Jim started the day by driving the first green and two-putting for birdie. The family floated along the seaside edge of the Moray Coast, enjoying the quirky links test Morris derived 155 years ago.

Both Jim and 18-year-old Blake, a 4 handicap, made double bogey at the par-3 seventh. Blake’s brother, Eric, who is somewhat new to golf, hit his 6 iron to 25 feet and rolled in the long putt for birdie. Golf.

Next came the 280-yard par-4 8th, a three-story walk up to the tee box and two swings crafted by the golf gods.

“I brought driver and 3 wood,” Jim Rohrstaff said. “Blake just brought the driver. I had the tee and I said I might hit 3 wood.”

Some good-natured father-son ribbing from Blake — “that’s not enough for you” — followed, and Jim decided to hit driver.

With some helping wind off the right, Jim hit a smooth, held-off cut driver toward the green. He watched as the ball sailed over the greenside bunker on the left, landed in the rough, and took a healthy kick to the right onto the putting surface.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s going to be really good there,'” Jim said. “I watched it hop right and then stopped watching it.”

Next came Blake, who pegged it and told his dad he would “hit the bullet” driver.

Blake laced his tee shot. It landed on the front left part of the green, went past the hole but then started to come back.

Oddly enough, being a par-4 and their first time here, Jim and Blake didn’t think much about tracking the balls the whole way. They saw them land, then went back down the stairs to meet Kara and Eric, who teed off and then hit their approach shots. Kara missed the green while Eric landed 25 feet from the pin.

As the family arrived at the green, the search for Jim and Blake’s balls started. But there was only one ball on the putting surface, and that was Eric’s.

“I walk up, and I’m in the left rough, just above the bunker, and I look around for a second. It’s wide open. I’m like, where the heck’s my golf ball?” Jim recalled. “So I’m looking around a little bit, and because there’s only one ball on the green, and I’m like, well, where the heck am I? I thought, you know, I’m either on the green or I’m here on the left side and got stuck in the rough.”

Jim walked back to the bunker he carried and checked. No ball. Blake’s ball, which should have been on the back of the green or just off, was also not in sight.

That’s when Eric, looking for his brother’s ball, walked past the cup and made a golf discovery that will become a story in the Cullen clubhouse for years to come.

“Oh, well there are two here,” Eric said, looking in the cup.

“He’s like, there’s two balls,” Jim said while laughing. “And he wasn’t excited at all. He’s like, there’s two balls right here. And we’re like, ‘shut up.’ So of course, we go walking over there, Kara’s got her phone out, and, I mean, I started hopping around like an idiot. And we just, we just kind of went nuts. And it was just, it was, and I’m still a bit shell-shocked.”

Jim Rohrstaff and his son, Blake, had both made an ace on the 280-yard par-4 eighth at Cullen Links — a 17-million-to-one chance.

“That was my 11th hole in one,” Jim said. “That’s Blake’s first one. I’ve obviously never had one on a par 4. So, I mean, it was just the silliest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen, heard of or experienced on a golf course. It was nuts.”

“I didn’t really connect the dots at first,” Blake said. “I heard Dad say there was a ball in there, and I thought it was just his. And he was like, ‘No, we’re both in here.’ And I started going monkeys as well.”

The Rohrstaffs immediately took sips of their birdie tequila, a family golf staple, and then phoned the clubhouse to tell them of what had happened and inform anyone there that the whiskey was on them once they finished their round. When they arrived at the clubhouse, golf fate had one more twist for the Rohrstaffs. The bartender, Kenny, recognized the Tara Iti Golf Club logo, the Rohrstaff’s home club in New Zealand, and his daughter, Madison, had caddied for Kara several times at the club. A celebratory FaceTime with Madison followed, and then the dozen or so people in the Cullen Links clubhouse joined the double-ace party with the Rohrstaffs.

When Jim went to bed that night, long after the family party had ended, he still couldn’t believe the cosmic events of their day at Cullen.

“I tell you, I laid in bed all night running it over in my head,” Jim said. “Okay, how could that even happen? How is it possible?”

He thought about the stories of the blind par-3 at Lahinch and how caddies used to stand on the other side of the dune and put balls in the hole when they were tipped generously. But on this day at Cullen, no one helped the Rohrstaffs; it was just golf, in all its magnetic brilliance, delivering a moment that is now family lore.

“I still can’t get my head around it. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard of, and if I weren’t there, I wouldn’t believe it myself,” Jim said.

That’s golf.

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The post Why this iconic Scottish course wants to ban cows and sheep appeared first on Golf.

Rumpled ground and ruminants.

Ask an avid golfer about Brora Golf Club, in the Scottish Highlands, and they’re bound to mention both.

Home to a highly regarded links, Brora doubles as grazing land for livestock. Its distinctive features include tussled fairways and greens ringed by electric fences to keep sheep and cattle off.

For many visitors, the animals are central to Brora’s charm. But locals often take a less romantic view.

Brora members, in particular, who play the course year-round, are well-acquainted with the downsides of holes that serve as pasture. And in a recent vote, they came down firmly: time to rid the course of beasts with cloven hooves.

“We are very much aware that there are people who see the sheep and cows as an integral part of the Brora experience,” says past club president Andy Stewart. “But as locals, we are also probably more attuned to the impact those animals have than are people who play the course just once a year.”

The livestock ban, which will require court approval before it is enforced, was not a snap decision, Stewart notes. To better understand it, a century-plus of context is required.

Founded in 1891, Brora operated as a 9-hole club until the early 1920s, when the noted architect James Braid redesigned the course into a full 18. The land, owned by the Duke of Sutherland, fell under Highland law which required that it be shared with crofters, the rough Scottish equivalent of tenant farmers. Those crofters tended horses and, as decades passed, an increasing number of cows and sheep. As early as the 1910s, the club mounted the first of several campaigns to set aside the property for golf only. But those efforts came up short. In the 1960s, electric fences were installed around the greens, and life and golf went on, bringing other changes.

For one thing, Stewart says, the livestock at Brora grew larger and more plentiful, with a population of some 25 beefed-up cows and a sheep count that swelled to some 250—several times more than there had once been. By 2017, when Stewart assumed the club presidency, the club’s relationship with the crofters had become strained. In the eyes of many members, the crofters were allowing more animals on the land than the shared-property rules allowed, while violating a prohibition against feeding their livestock on the course. (An attempt to reach Scotland’s Crofting Commission, which regulates and promotes the interests of crofting in the country, was not immediately successful).

The resulting problems were unsurprising. They ranged from trampled bunkers to hoof-prints in fairways that worsened in the winter when rain softened the turf, among other unpleasantries. Cows are cool as on-course extras. They’re less delightful when your ball lands in their dung.

Travel

“There have been many times when members, myself included, have been out on the course with shovels at five in the morning,” Stewart says.

In 2019, the club determined that enough was enough. It dug into its coffers and purchased the land. Soon after, Covid hit. But with lockdowns in the past, the membership revisited the livestock issue. When the ballots were tallied, around eight weeks ago, the decision wasn’t close.

More recently, as word of the vote has leaked into the ether, reactions have been mixed. On Golf Club Atlas, the online architecture forum, one commentator worried that the course would become less playable if sheep weren’t around to trim the rough. Stewart says that isn’t a concern. The club has purchased new maintenance equipment that is more than capable of filling in.

“The animals do not do as good a job as some people think,” Stewart says. “Probably the reason no clubs are rushing to put sheep on their own courses.”

Besides, the livestock ban is not a done deal. The crofters will still have a legal say, and barring a settlement, the matter will be adjudicated in Scottish land court, most likely six to nine months from now.

If Brora gets its way, Stewart understands that the club might hear some gripes. But among golfers who play the course the most, he is confident that those will be minority voices. There are too many upsides to being free of livestock, including the potential to add fairway bunkers from Braid’s original design that were never built out of fear that they’d stomped into ruin by ruminants. The goal, Stewart says, is to present Braid’s work in its full glory for members and visitors alike.

“This is one of the world’s great links and it has always been our wish to get our course back,” Stewart says. “We want to play to greens that don’t have electric fences, and without special rules like what do you do if your ball winds up in cow shit. They don’t do that at the Masters or the Open Championship.”

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The post Bent grass greens in Scotland? This Walker Cup host was my favorite course in 2023 appeared first on Golf.

There is simply no better putting surface than the smooth fescue greens that you typically find on some of the best links courses in the British Isles.

They’re not the fastest in the world, they can’t be given the huge slopes and undulations of great UK greens and heavy ocean breezes that are native to the linksland. But well-kept greens in Scotland are arguably the most pure. The ball rolls out with no bumps or kicks. You don’t need to acclimate to the speed as much as you just know it.

At Nairn Golf Club, a highland club near Inverness, Scotland, that holds the distinction of being the northernmost Walker Cup host, you get a similar feeling. The greens putt like glass and it seemingly takes no effort to get the ball to the hole.

Nairn was my favorite new course I played in 2023.

Even on the dreary, wet and rainy day we played Nairn, the final round of an eight-round jaunt across the pond to Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, the greens were firm and fast. They were faster than any other greens we played in 208 holes over the trip and there was a simple reason why.

Instead of fescue-putting surfaces, Nairn has grassed their greens with a strain of Bent, the type of grass more commonly found on courses in the northern United States and, notably, Augusta National. While it’s not the exact same type of grass you’re used to putting on (we’re talking brown-top Bent as opposed to creeping Bent) and they still can’t get to 13 on the stimpmeter, the blend of grasses at Nairn no doubt make for a wonderfully smooth putting surface.

Nairn General Manager Paul Mills said the course manager, Richie Ewan, led an effort over the last decade to convert the greens at the 1999 Walker Cup host site to more native grasses, which include brown-top Bent.

“I think there was a spell where they were a little bit more receptive than what they perhaps require,” Mills said.

The conversion was done in consultation with the R&A, and Nairn later added the 2021 Amateur Championship to its resume of tournaments hosted. The process was done over time and resulted in greens which are composed of about 70 to 80 percent Bent grass.

Nairn has huge greens with mostly subtle undulations, but the typical speed is around 9.5 on the stimp that can be pushed to 11, Mills said.

The greens really shine on poor weather days like when we visited GOLF’s No. 62 course in the U.K. and Ireland, keeping up a smooth roll and quick pace.

The course itself has undergone a few routing changes since Andrew Simpson laid out the original links in 1887. Old Tom Morris, James Braid, Ben Sayers and more recently Mackenzie and Ebert have all put their stamp on the track.

Most of the holes run out and back a stretch of coastline on the Moray Firth, east of Inverness, but it switches back on itself several times. For the most part we played the front nine with the breeze before feeling like the back nine was nine million miles long.

The 13th hole is where the course veers inland, into more parkland area as you climb up to an elevated green at the par-4.

Travel

However, when you turn back toward the sea for 14th, you’re greeted by one of the most spectacular examples of a Biarritz I’ve ever seen (pictured top). Playing 224 yards from the back tee, the 14th rubs downhill to a green guarded by four devilish pot bunkers. The definitive swale in the middle of the green isn’t so much sunken into putting surface as the rest of the green is risen around it. There are steep slopes on both the front and back sides.

We were lucky our pin position was in the swale, meaning we could actually play chips long of the cup and bring them back off the slope.

The course finishes with a drivable par-4, two medium-length two-shotters and finally a classic links par-5 where the fairway necks in the landing zone, forcing you to thread a needle between three bunkers with your tee shot to have a go at the green.

When you finish, be sure to take some time in the clubhouse and perhaps tour some of the vast collection of artifacts and memorabilia the club keeps as Mills was so graciously able to do for us.

When you leave, there are plenty of other courses to play in the area too as Castle Stuart and Nairn Dunbar are both within 20 minutes. Drive an hour and you’re certain to stumble upon another highland gem like Dornoch, Golspie, Tain, Moray, Fortrose and so many more.

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The post The 13 best golf courses in Scotland | GOLF Top 100 Courses in the World appeared first on Golf.

The post The 13 best golf courses in Scotland | GOLF Top 100 Courses in the World appeared first on Golf.

If you’re craving a getaway abroad and seeking a destination where you can play a high number of GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World in one trip, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better destination than Scotland.

The home of golf seems made for jaw-dropping courses, with a varied landscape that includes mountains, lochs, woodlands and sandy beaches. And the best part? Even the private courses are generally accessible to the public in some way.

GOLF’s latest ranking includes a total of 13 courses in Scotland, which surpasses the number in Ireland (six) by seven and England (10) by three.

Unsurprisingly, the Old Course at St. Andrews is Scotland’s top-ranked course, coming in at No. 3, followed by Royal Dornoch, which leaped two spots to crack the top 10 this year.

Scotland boasts an impressive three courses in the top 12 with the inclusion of Muirfield, and four in the top 18, with Trump Turnberry’s Ailsa.

Check out the list of all 13 Scottish courses in GOLF’s Top 100 World ranking below.

The 13 best golf courses in Scotland

3. St. Andrews (Old Course) (St. Andrews, Scotland)

10. Royal Dornoch (Dornoch, Scotland)

12. Muirfield (Gullane, Scotland)

18. Trump Turnberry (Ailsa) (Turnberry, Scotland)

30. North Berwick (West) (North Berwick, Scotland)

40. Carnoustie (Championship) (Carnoustie, Scotland)

56. Cruden Bay (Cruden Bay, Scotland)

63. Prestwick (Prestwick, Scotland)

65. Ardfin (Isle of Jura, Scotland)

66. Royal Troon (Old) (Troon, Scotland)

86. Kingsbarns (Kingsbarns, Scotland)

89. Castle Stuart (Castle Stuart, Scotland)

97. Machrihanish (Campbeltown, Scotland)

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The post Honor boxes, single-lane roads and epic views: Golf on the northern tip of Scotland appeared first on Golf.

The post Honor boxes, single-lane roads and epic views: Golf on the northern tip of Scotland appeared first on Golf.

Here we are on a trip to golf’s Mecca, Scotland, and we’re already in one of the golfiest parts of the country: the Highlands.

What would make us drive an extra two hours north on tiny, single-lane roads for just nine holes?

Durness Golf Club was worth every bit of the journey.

Located about three hours north and west of Inverness, the Highlands’ largest city and cultural capital, a sign outside the golf course proudly proclaims Durness as mainland Britain’s most north-westerly nine-hole course. Its story begins with one thing: the drive.

The Journey

They say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey and Durness was no exception.

We started our drive from Dornoch, our home base on this Scottish vacation, and about 30 to 40 minutes into our two-hour jaunt, we turned onto road A838. One lane from there on out.

There were passing turn-offs every couple hundred feet, but some of the corners on this road made the hair on the back of your neck stand up out of fear. Who knows if another driver is whipping around in the opposite direction.

As hard as it was to give the road your undivided attention, the surroundings demanded it equally (thankfully, I was not driving.) The biomes ranged from rocky mountains to grassy plains to lakes to sand beaches.

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I’ll be honest, it might be my job, but it’s very difficult to capture the beauty we saw on that drive in words and even some pictures. I encourage you to click through the photos above.

The setting

Durness is a small village with a population of less than 350 people, according to Scotland’s 2011 census.

But on the day we arrived, the road (singular) was packed for the Durness Highland Games. We didn’t stay long enough to spectate, but there’s always next year.

The golf course was a stone’s throw away from town. At the base of a big hill and along a rocky cliff sat the small clubhouse, no bigger than a two-bedroom apartment, with the words “Durness Golf Club” adorning the side.

The view from the clubhouse was spectacular, staring straight to Balnakeil Bay Beach and farther out to the North Sea. The peninsula to the north and slightly east looked like it could one day contain a larger, 18-hole course. But such a construction effort seemed herculean in this remote locale.

At the front door of the clubhouse was an honor box, the first one I had ever seen in my life. There was no one inside the clubhouse which housed just two locker rooms and a small dining/picnic area.

The instructions written on the “honesty box” were as follows: “Lift the Lid! Inside you will find green fee tickets, plastic envelopes and scorecards (with map of course on back). Fill in a ticket, put in an envelope with appropriate fee and post through the Letterbox (That is the slot above box!) Many Thanks. Enjoy your golf.”

Later, we met the club secretary, Lucy Mackay, who, when onsite, runs a small merchandise operation out of a closet in the clubhouse. And these aren’t the £40 hats and £100 shirts you might see elsewhere in the U.K. I purchased a very snug beanie for just £15.

The club’s website instructs visitors to email Mackay to arrange tee times. How simple is that?

The course

Durness Golf Club is just nine holes, but there are two sets of tees for each color on every hole for when you loop the course a second time. Some are just a little shorter or longer. Others completely change the angle of the hole and make for an exciting twist.

When you play the 1st hole, it might give you the impression the trip to this course really was more about the journey than the destination. It’s a short par-4 that plays around a large hill to a green that’s significantly uphill.

The next eight holes, though, could be on any other top course in the world and no one would bat an eye.

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The course is just 2,753 yards from its longest tees and features six par 4s (none longer than 408 yards), a par 5 and two par 3s. Despite most holes being inland, the incredible rolling terrain made the perfect setting for a golf course. This was a course that was more so found than designed. No major earth-moving operation here.

The most impressive hole from the bunch was the 8th, a short par-4 which played straight back down the hill, toward the water with the green perched just feet from a cliff. Following it came the 9th, a 150-yard par 3 that played over the cliff to a green just below the clubhouse. The 9th’s alternate tee stretches to nearly 200 yards, and often plays into a breeze.

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Mackay said the course was designed by three locals and opened for play in 1988 on land now owned and leased to the club by the Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

For those who make the trek, it’s well worth it — not only for GOLF’s No. 12 nine-hole course in the world — but the entire journey itself. We were exhausted by the time we turned back toward Dornoch, another 18 holes in our future. Our only regret was leaving town without enlisting in the Highland Games.

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On a calm cloudy morning last fall, course designer Tom Doak was stationed on one of the high points of a new course he is building next to Castle Stuart, the four-time Scottish Open site in the windy and wonderful Scottish Highlands. From what will be the approximate location of the 2nd tee — the course isn’t scheduled to open until 2025 — Doak looked down a grassy slope toward the Castle Stuart, a stately and recently restored tower house that has stood sentinel on the banks of the Moray Firth since the 1620s.

“We could have a par-3 with the green over to the right in front of the clump of trees,” Doak said, motioning toward a swath of pasture to the right of the castle. “But it’s into the wind and lots of times it’s going to be just a beast of a par-3, and we sure don’t want to start with a really hard par-5 into the wind and a really hard par-3. So we’re thinking about where the flag is back there — we’re about 260 from there — it could be a short par-4 instead. People who are scared of hitting too close to the castle grounds can bail away to the right.”

When building golf courses on Scotland’s ancient sod, it’s difficult not to bump against history — if not incorporate that history into the design itself. Doak knows this well, because he knows Scotland well, his first visit coming back in his post-grad days in the early 1980s when fresh out of Cornell he spent a stint caddying at the Old Course and studying the golfing treasures of Great Britain and Ireland, an education that would serve as the underpinning for his approach to course design.

The yet-to-be-named Castle Stuart sister course won’t be Doak’s first Scotland credit — that distinction belongs to his work at the Renaissance Club, about 200 miles south, in North Berwick — but it does represent another first. Last June, Castle Stuart was acquired by Cabot, the hard-charging Canada-based golf-resort development company whose international portfolio now includes properties or properties-in-progress in Nova Scotia; Saint Lucia; British Columbia; Central Florida; and, yes, Inverness, Scotland. Doak’s course is Cabot’s first original design in a part of the world where — given the deep reserve of mouthwatering golf already on offer — it can be difficult to turn heads.      

“That’s where you’ve got to have a good sense of what the character of Scottish links really is,” Doak said. “The good thing about trying to do this in Scotland instead of in Florida is, if you’re ever not sure, you drive right over there, or drive up north, and go have a look at a few other courses.”

Royal Dornoch. Nairn. Brora. Tain. Golspie. They’re all within a 75-minute drive of Castle Stuart. So too is the delightfully quirky design at Fortrose and Rosemarkie, which dates to the 1790s and sits on a wind-whipped peninsula that juts into the Moray Firth just across the way from Castle Stuart. These rumpled, exposed links don’t ask for a different style of golf than is played stateside — they flat-out demand it.    

“I still think that we as designers have a hard time visualizing people hitting the ball along the ground the way they do over here and really designing an approach for landing the ball 20 or 30 yards short of the green and feeding off something to get it in there,” Doak continued. “We all talk about it like we do that, but I don’t see many modern courses where you would want to hit those shots. The more we can get that here, the more it will feel like a real Scottish golf course.”

Cabot Highlands, as the property is now called, has much going for it, perhaps first and foremost its location. For American golfers, a Scottish Highlands golf expedition might sound like an exotic trip that requires multiple flight transfers and a five-hour bus ride on rolling, sheep-strewn roads. Truth is, if you fly direct to London, Inverness is only another 90-minute hop from there. And when you touch down in the Land of Nessie, your journey is all but done, with Cabot Highlands just a 5-minute drive from the airport. Indeed, when it comes to top-shelf resort golf, few destinations offer a shorter tarmac-to-tee commute.  

When the Doak course takes flight, Cabot Highlands’ owners believe their property will become a bonafide gateway not just to the Highlands golf scene but also to the Highlands many other activities. Golf and hiking. Golf and fly fishing. Golf and Nessie hunting. Golf and exploring Inverness. (If you do make it into town, book a table at Rocpool, a chic brasserie in the city center that serves up beef carpaccio that melts on your tongue and seafood so fresh it tastes like it just leapt out of the River Ness.)   

Lodging at Cabot Highlands is scarce, but the resort has plans to expand its accommodations. There are three neatly appointed guest houses — Golf Lodge, the Farmhouse and the Castle Cottage — each of which can house up to eight residents. On a recent visit, I bunked in the charming Golf Lodge, which has floor-to-ceiling windows in the main living space that look out on to the 15th fairway of Castle Stuart and, beyond that, the frigid waters of the firth. You can enjoy your morning latte on the patio as you look out at the Gil Hanse and Mark Parsinen test that awaits you.   

Castle Stuart, which ranks 77th on GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World list, opened in 2009, the brainchild of the late Parsinen, an American developer who also built Kingsbarns, just down the road from St. Andrews. Like Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart is not a “classic” links but more of the nouveau variety, by which we mean it doesn’t feel like it was built 200 years ago, because, well, it wasn’t. Take the imposing wall of gorse lining the left of the 1st fairway — that’s not native to the site, it was planted there. The fairways are forgiving off the tee, and the greens generous in size, but there’s still endless variety and need for strategic thinking.

The first three holes play hard against the firth, as do 10 and 11. But the rest of the course sits on higher ground, with the holes tacking back and forth so you can never get comfortable with the wind. The par-3 4th plays back inland with the course’s namesake serving as a handsome backdrop behind the green. My favorite hole is the firth-lined par-4 10th, where the tee sits high above the fairway, offering one of the most arresting vistas on the course — and also one of the nerviest tee shots. There’s plenty of room to land your drive but overcook it and your Srixon might well go swimming with the salmon.

One of the property’s other most memorable lookouts comes not on the course but in the clubhouse locker room, where bathers can take in the majesty of Castle Stuart from strategically placed windows in the showers.

What will Doak’s course do for Cabot Highlands? Presumably what Pacific Dunes (also a Doak design) did for Bandon Dunes, or Cabot Cliffs did for Cabot Cape Breton — i.e., quickly turn the destination from a nice-to-visit into a must-visit. Doak still has much work to do on his assignment but his overarching mission is simple: don’t try to do too much.  

“People come to Scotland to play a variety of golf courses, and they’re all seaside and the links factor into a lot of them, but the featuring is very different from one of them to the next,” he said. Of his Cabot project, he added: “I don’t think we have to be overly concerned at the beginning that we’re trying to make it really different than [the existing course], as long as it feels like it fits in Scotland. Whether it’s a little more like this or a little less like this, I don’t think will make any difference.”

To Cabot Highlands, though — and Highlands golf at large — the course is likely to make a big difference.

Green fees at Castle Stuart range from $255-$330. Stay-and-play packages start at $440/night per guest. Reservations can be made here.

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The post A Scotland golf trip in the harsh depths of winter? It has its benefits appeared first on Golf.

The post A Scotland golf trip in the harsh depths of winter? It has its benefits appeared first on Golf.

When you’re on a pre-dawn train bound for St. Andrews hoping to get lucky and play the Old Course, anxious thoughts pop into your head. How do I get from the station to the course? Will there be any tee times left when I arrive? Was starting the day with a triple espresso after eating Indian last night a tragic mistake?

It’s an early-winter Tuesday morning, and I’m in the middle of a grand experiment designed to answer a simple question: Is it worth trying to play winter golf in Scotland?

The joys of summer Scottish golf have been documented ad nauseam. But it’s getting harder and harder to actually take that version of the bucket-list trip. The game’s growing global popularity and the post-lockdown travel boom have made it seriously challenging to get on Scotland’s most famous courses.

The Scots still welcome foreign visitors and are always eager to share their world-class tracks. But these days, demand far outstrips supply. In January 2022, Royal Dornoch announced that the club would stop accepting visitor bookings for the rest of the year.

If you’re lucky enough to land a tee time on one of Scotland’s epic courses, the greens fees aren’t as reasonable as they used to be. The current high season rate on the Old Course is £295 (roughly $365). Far less than Pebble Beach’s $595 fee, but not exactly a weekday round at your local muni, either.

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So when I found out I’d be traveling to Edinburgh earlier this winter, my golf-addled brain immediately began trying to calculate if it was worth bringing my clubs.

The potential pros of winter golf in Scotland were easy to figure:

• Offseason rates on airfare, rental cars and hotel rooms
• Availability of tee times
• Increased buying power thanks to the weak British pound
• Fewer tourists
• A truly authentic Scottish golfing experience

The con list was shorter but potentially joy-killing:

• Fewer daylight hours to play
• Winter course conditions
• Nasty weather

That last item was my biggest concern. It would be great to cross a few more legendary tracks off my list, but how good would that feel if I was slogging through conditions more suited to the Iditarod?

Then again, Scotland’s weather is always unpredictable. I once played a brutal, bone-chilling round there in horizontal rain and gale force winds, a truly fugly afternoon that left me wondering, “Is walking hypothermia a thing?” And that was in June.

That was also more than 25 years ago, and the planet is getting warmer. Thanks to climate change, it was at least possible that a winter golf trip to Scotland wasn’t a completely insane idea. And if I could get on a few celebrated courses at nearly 50 percent off? Only a fool would pass that up.

At least that’s the rationalization I sold myself as I paid the airline fee to check my golf bag.

Once committed, I set my sights on the Home of Golf. The St. Andrews Links Trust offers winter packages, and golfers can always try entering the daily ballot to play the Old Course. But those options are only available for two or more players. As a single, my only option was to show up early at the Old Course on the day I wanted to play and hope to score a tee time.

(Pro tip: The Old Course closes every Sunday and occasionally for scheduled events and winter maintenance, so make sure it’s open on the day you want to play. You can check the calendar here.)

In the high season, hopeful singles typically wait in line all night at the starter’s Old Pavilion. But I was guessing that in winter the line would be much shorter. If I could get to St. Andrews by 6 a.m., maybe I’d have a shot at getting on the course.

If that didn’t work, I could always play one of the other quality tracks in town. But who wants to schlep all the way to the birthplace of the game and settle for the Jubilee Course? I’m sure it’s great, but have you ever heard anyone bragging they played it?

The streets were empty when I left my Edinburgh flat at 4:30 a.m. The crow circling overhead felt like a bad omen, and when I got to Waverly Station, none of the cafes were open. Then my train was delayed by a signal issue. Hot start!

Things started to turn once I arrived at Leuchars, the closest train stop to St. Andrews. Turns out, you can hail a taxi there before dawn. From there, St. Andrews is less than 15 minutes away. If that drive doesn’t get your blood flowing, tell the cabbie to head straight to the town cemetery and start digging you a new home.

It was still dark when my taxi passed the R&A Clubhouse, but the lights outside the Old Pavilion were on. As we rounded the bend, my heart skipped — there were just a handful of people in line.

On paper, at least, I had a shot.

Trying to get on the Old Course was a no-brainer. The bigger problem I had in planning the trip was deciding which of the hundred or so other great courses in Scotland I wanted to experience.

I had four days to play and a cheap rental car for three of them (£50 a day for a good-sized automatic, roughly a third of what you’d pay in the high season). But the short days and significant distances between Scotland’s best courses meant that I had to be selective.

Since I was starting the driving portion of my trip in Edinburgh, I set my sights on the famous courses in East Lothian, less than an hour to the east. Muirfield was my number one pick there, but outside play is booked months — if not years — in advance there. Cult favorite North Berwick wasn’t taking visitors, either. So I happily settled for its less famous but still excellent next door neighbor, Gullane No. 1 (No. 49 on GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the UK and Ireland list).

A true championship test, Gullane No. 1 has hosted professional tournaments, elite amateur events and final qualifiers for the Open Championship. Despite the course’s lofty pedigree, scoring a tee time was easy. After a quick internet search and a £113 credit card charge, I was in. A great deal for the course where Rickie Fowler won the 2015 Scottish Open.   

I had just one one concern — the club’s website clearly states that greens fees aren’t refundable unless the course is closed for bad weather. Bad weather happens all the time in Scotland, but actual course closings don’t. Unless there was a hurricane, I wasn’t getting my money back.

The drive to Gullane along Scotland’s Golf Coast is one of the most stirring in the game. But as I pulled into the club, my excitement turned to worry. Thick, dark clouds filled the sky, and the wind was blowing hard even by local standards. I started thinking this off-season boondoggle was ill-conceived.

But as soon as I teed off, the sky began to clear. I never saw a drop of rain or felt more than a two-club wind, and the temperature stayed in the comfortable mid 50s. In Scotland, that’s not a bad summer day.

Overnight rain made the course play long, but it was exceedingly fair. East Lothian is said to have the finest golf turf in the world, and the course argued that convincingly. There was no need for winter rules or hitting off fairway mats. Over the last six holes, the scenic track glowed under in the dramatic low winter sunlight. It was like playing in a Rembrandt landscape.

I took it all in with two young Irishmen, also first-timers on the course. A delightful threesome, and we finished in less than four hours. New friends, spectacular lighting and a fun, fast round on a world-class course. That day alone made schlepping my sticks to Scotland worthwhile.

The drive north from Gullane did not inspire hope for the two rounds I’d planned on the coast near Aberdeen. Rain started falling as I crossed into Fife, and by the time I arrived at the St. Olaf Hotel (£132 for two nights), the storm was howling.

I was staying in the shadow of Slains Castle, the gnarled ruins that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. The wind that slammed against my window all night made it impossible to sleep, far more annoying than any vampire.

But just as the sun came up, the sky started to clear. One of the great things about links courses is that they drain almost as quickly as the weather changes. Any concerns I had about playability were put to rest when I pulled into Fraserburgh Golf Club (No. 97 on GOLF’s list) for my 9:30 a.m. tee time.

Fraserburgh hadn’t been on my radar until a golf-nerd pal recommend it. No one I know has actually been there — including my friend — but it’s the world’s seventh oldest course. Golf has been played at Fraserburgh since at least 1777. The club has started marketing itself more, so the rest of the world is finally discovering it — and with good reason.

The course does not excel at first impressions. From the clubhouse, all you can see are the 1st and 18th holes, a pair of flat, boilerplate par-4s as lifeless as Dracula’s victims.

But those two holes are the only problem with Fraserburgh. The other 16 holes are pure ecstasy.

The fun starts at the 2nd, a challenging par-4 that climbs to the top of Corbie Hill. From there, the brilliant next 15 holes spread out before you, winding through majestic dunes like the ones you play in your dreams.

Tom Doak says Fraserburgh’s four par-3s are as good as any in golf, and the par-4 13th inspired the 9th hole on Gil Hanse’s Rio Olympic course. And talk about a killer a killer back nine… well, eight. If golf courses were 16 holes long, the world would be beating down Fraserburgh’s door.

I played alone in three and half hours but spent at least 20 minutes of that taking pictures. Hitting off a fairway mat didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the course one bit, and the club itself is warm and welcoming.

At the bar afterward, I met a local fisherman who plays to a three. He told me Fraserburgh is as good as Cruden Bay, its world-famous neighbor 30 minutes south. There’s a lot of members’ bias there, but if you’re hiking to this staggeringly beautiful corner of the world to play Cruden Bay, you’d be a fool not to add Fraserburgh to your list.

And if you catch the course on a day like I did — low 50s, light wind, plenty of sun — you’ll start thinking that for the winter rate of £43, Fraserburgh could be the best bargain in golf. Their cheese toastie is pretty damn good, too.

After Gullane and Fraserburgh, I figured my good weather karma was due to run out. But when I woke up the next morning, the sky was clear and windless. For a moment I wondered if I was still in Scotland.

My hotel room overlooked Cruden Bay’s famous links. With the sun rising over the towering dunes and waves crashing in the distance, it was entirely reasonable for a middle-age man to think, “I will never need Viagra.”

Cruden Bay’s brilliant, quirky routing (No. 20 on GOLF’s UK list; No. 63 on GOLF’s World list) became famous outside Scotland in the 1990s and quickly became a must-visit. It’s a favorite of Doak, Pete Dye and just about everyone else who has sampled its eccentric charms. A golf buddy who has played more great designs than anyone I know calls Cruden Bay “a perfect golf course.” Just looking at it, I knew he was right.

Despite the course’s enduring popularity, getting on couldn’t have been easier. I fired off an inquiry email, and the club wrote back with a tee time right away. Seventy-five pounds was a small price to pay to play one of the best links on the planet, and just in case the weather was dicey, they wouldn’t charge me until the day of play.

After a quick warm-up, I teed off alone under a brilliant blue sky. Walking down the first fairway, I found myself doing something unfamiliar — removing layers.

The temperature quickly reached the upper 50s, and the wind stayed flat all day. A few holes in, I joined up with two members, excellent players who couldn’t have been more welcoming. They showed me around the course, kept me out of trouble, and eagerly shared stories of the club and its history.

One of the great joys of playing in Scotland is discovering how ridiculously friendly everyone is. Playing with locals is a welcome reminder that the best part of the game is time spent with friends, both old and new.

The course was in great shape and a joy to play. Those adjectives that are used to describe it — quirky, demanding, stunning, hypnotic, awe-inspiring — Cruden Bay is all that and more. Some things in life live up to the hype.

The day’s only blemish was discovering that the 14th, a famous par-4 with a bathtub green, was closed. In its place we played a strong and scenic replacement hole. This is a hazard of winter golf in Scotland — you will occasionally find a temporary green or other seasonal course adjustment.

Then again, I was playing a world-famous course for a discount rate while the rest of the world was freezing or at work. [Cue the world’s tiniest violins.]

I arrived at Cruden Bay hoping the course would live up to its reputation. I left wondering how the hell it had been undiscovered in the first place.

My St. Andrews taxi hadn’t even stopped when I pulled out my wallet and asked to pay. Then I dove out of the cab and sprinted to get in line at the Old Pavilion. I tripped over my golf bag only once.

Queuing in the dark for a spot on the Old Course creates a glorious energy. You’re all strangers but also like-minded golf nuts, giddy at the thought of playing the nearly 500-year-old masterpiece. The combination of sleep deprivation and a lifetime of anticipation is a hell of a drug.

After all the stress and delay, there were only three golfers ahead of me. One had been waiting since 3:30 a.m., and the other two arrived at 6. The next hour passed quickly, full of friendly conversation and nervous laughter. We were grateful for the heaters under the Old Pavilion’s eaves, but the benches went unused. Everyone was too excited to sit.

The dawn that broke over the famous beach was sudden and extraordinary, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a flurry of activity. The greenskeeping staff began setting up for the day, and an affable woman came out to take coffee and breakfast orders. Eating a bacon and sausage roll in the shadow of the R&A Club House slaps.

The staff couldn’t have been more welcoming. Everyone knows you’re trying to fulfill a dream and does their best to make that happen. I knew from the ballot results roughly how many slots were available that day and figured I’d have at least an hour to warm up. But five minutes before the course opened, a last-minute scheduling snafu landed me in the first group of the day.

With no time for stretching or even a single practice putt, I paid my greens fee and raced to the first tee. That shot of adrenaline made me only more nervous. Was I going to be the first golfer to vomit on the steps of the R&A?

But as luck would have it, I was playing with three locals. Longtime friends with strong games, they excelled at playing fast and giving each other the needle. I was quickly welcomed into the club.

The course looked fantastic and was in great condition for that time of year. The greens were a little furry, and in a few bunkers the sand was more like dirt. But I never saw any casual water, and every one of the famous greens was in play.

My caddie was terrific and told stories of looping for John Daly. The call to come to work and carry my bag had saved him from a day of shopping with his wife, so he was almost as happy as I was to be there.

And it all cost only £135.  I was experiencing the most mythical links on the planet (No. 1 on GOLF’s UK and Ireland list; No. 3 on the World list) for the price of a cookie-cutter resort course back home.

My new friends and I played quickly and laughed constantly. The round was fast, fun and over much too soon — like losing your virginity with a soundtrack by Peter Alliss. It would be hard to have more fun on a golf course.

We never saw the sun that day, and the temperature stayed in the low 50s. Not ideal, but nothing to complain about, either. The bad weather held off until the last two holes, when we were pelted by a cold, hard rain that gave us a taste of what could have been.

Was it as perfect as playing the Old Course on a long summer day and walking up 18 in the gloaming? Of course not. Was it one of the best golfing days of my life? Absolutely. 

When I got back to Edinburgh that night, there was snow on the ground, a good reminder of how quickly the weather can change there. The next time I try to pull off four winter rounds, I doubt Mother Nature will be so cooperative. Better lucky than good, right?

But even without all that weather good fortune, I’d still argue it’s worth giving offseason golf in Scotland a shot. In many ways, it’s the most distilled version of the game. The tough conditions self-select people who truly love the sport, and since you’re always chasing daylight, you have to play quickly. That’s good for your score and your head. 

You also know that course conditions won’t be perfect. But no matter what you encounter — weird bounces, muddy lies, temporary greens, scruffy fairway mats — if the weather holds and you get in all 18, you’ll feel like you got away with something. For once in your life, you’ll be thanking the golf gods instead of cursing them.

Would I do it all again? Put it this way: My wife has always dreamed of spending the holidays in London. I’m going to try to talk her into Christmas in St. Andrews.

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The post This 6,000-yard Scottish delight is a must-play on any Highland journey appeared first on Golf.

The post This 6,000-yard Scottish delight is a must-play on any Highland journey appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to our “Where I Played” series, in which a GOLF staffer runs through a recent day at a course you might play in your future.

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Many know Inverness as the gateway to the Scottish Highlands. Immediately adjacent to its airport, the northernmost major airport in the country, is Castle Stuart. Farther along the south shores of the Moray Firth, you’ll find buddies trip staples like Nairn and Moray.

Head north, deeper into the Highlands, and you’ll come to Royal Dornoch, as well as Tain, Golspie and Brora.

Those are all great. But we are here to talk about the course you can spot while landing at the airport, just across Rosemarkie Bay on a peninsula marked by an eye-catching lighthouse.

Fortrose & Rosemarkie Golf Club is not new (far from it) like the famed Castle Stuart, which is just three miles away on the other side of the bay but a 30-minute drive to reach. In fact, it claims to be the 15th oldest golf course in the world. There’s a reason it’s lasted since the 1790s.

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The land is perfect. There’s water on both sides of the course, which sits on less than a hundred acres of land. Had this location existed in the United States, it surely would have been developed into housing or something else, but in a country where the community revolves around the golf course, legendary designer James Braid laid out a beauty.

Braid’s redesign of the course leaves a roughly 6,000-yard par-71 from the back tees. Fortrose is a throwback, but one worth it.

The club was a late add to our Highland journey this past June. We decided to play it as our final round before our departing flights from Inverness the next morning, coming down from Brora, where we played our morning round after spending much of the past week in Dornoch.

For our 10th round in seven days, the flat canvas was a welcoming walk, but it still had enough elevation changes to keep it exciting. (For reference, after walking 72 holes in 48 hours, finishing up with Fortrose, my 67-year-old father didn’t complain a peep!)

The first three holes are short- to medium-length par-4s with water down the left. You work your way out to the end of the peninsula, toward Chanonry Point and the lighthouse. Gorse frames the fairways on these simple holes with interesting green complexes.

The round really begins on the crazy par-5 4th. At 497 on the scorecard, the better player might feel like this should be an easy birdie. Wrong. The fairway is interrupted some 250 yards from the tee by a drop-off and native grasses before it starts up again about 50 yards later and winds back to the green. The green is guarded by massive mounds and ditches to the front and left.

Then you come across my favorite hole, the 133-yard par-3 5th (main photo). The Moray Firth and the Highlanders’ Museum is behind you as you hit over Ness Road, which bisects the entire golf course. As for the green? Good luck. It’s tiny — about the size of the desk I’m typing this story from.

The rest of the front nine runs along the shoreline until the par-3 9th turns back, uphill, toward the clubhouse. While the back nine weaves through the front and across Ness Road, it still provides the same enjoyment as a waterfront outward side.

The course has everything you want in a links experience, from stunning water views to quirks like pot bunkers, mounds, gorse, and the road coming into play. It’s a challenge anyone from a professional to a beginner can enjoy, too. Times are available for 2023 at Fortrose & Rosemarkie and will cost you between 80 to 90 GBP (about $90-100) during the peak season of March through October. Juniors are charged less than half that rate.

Of course, when we finished our 185-hole adventure, the pub was the perfect spot to enjoy a Tennent’s. It was almost as satisfying as the course. Almost.

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The post A new Jack Nicklaus course is coming to Scotland. Here’s what you need to know appeared first on Golf.

The post A new Jack Nicklaus course is coming to Scotland. Here’s what you need to know appeared first on Golf.

In How New Golf Courses Are Born, we look at the people and places behind some of the newest destinations in the golf world. First up, Ury Estate, near Aberdeen, will be part of the first residential golf community in Europe branded with Jack Nicklaus’ name.

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Jack Nicklaus has long had a special connection with Scotland and the Scots. All three of his Open Championship wins came on Scottish soil — two at St. Andrews and another at Muirfield, after which he named his home course in Dublin, Ohio. 

In 2005, the Golden Bear became the only living American to appear on British currency, with the Royal Bank of Scotland featuring him on the five-pound note. 

Now, that bond is about to become even stronger.

Nicklaus’ latest course design — at Ury Estate, outside Aberdeen, in northeast Scotland — is nearing completion, with plans to open in late 2024. 

The Estate acts as the gateway to Royal Deeside, a scenic, pastoral area which includes the famous Balmoral Castle, widely thought to be the late Queen Elizabeth’s favorite residence.

The course at Ury, which traverses rolling countryside and has an ancient castle as its centerpiece, will be the headline attraction of a new Nicklaus-branded real estate community featuring three separate developments with roughly 500 homes.

It also will become the first residential golf community in Europe to be branded with the Jack Nicklaus name.

“Here we are just south of Aberdeen in Stonehaven with the beautiful castle on the hill,” Nicklaus said. “You stand up there with the castle, and you see the bay and the water. It’s a pretty view and pretty area, with great tradition.”

“A stunning piece of property in one of the great golf areas in the world,” added Dirk Bouts, a senior design associate for Nicklaus Design, which is an affiliate of GOLF.com. “And it’s not what most people would expect from Scotland, where they think it’s got to be a links golf course along the sea.”

A Nicklaus design in Scotland? It just feels right. 

“The Scottish people have always been very nice to me,” Nicklaus said. “I guess they like somebody who excels at what they do, and I’ve excelled in Scotland. Anytime you win at St. Andrews, you’ve got to play some pretty special golf, and it’s a very special feeling. Bobby Jones always said that your golfing resume is not complete unless you have won at St. Andrews. I won at St. Andrews and I’m proud that I won again at St. Andrews.”

Nicklaus joined the Ury team through the vision of the property’s developers, John Milne and John Forbes, known locally as “Little John” and “Big John,” respectively, with whom Nicklaus first toured the site in 2008. Now, that vision is becoming a reality. The course has been actively under construction throughout this year; the design team is currently shaping some holes and finalizing others so that they can drain them before the winter.

The parkland design, measuring 7,300 yards with views of the sea, circles the castle, part of which will become the clubhouse.

“Jack made sure that the golf course relates to the castle as much as possible,” Bouts said. “He also maximized the use of the existing river and burns, incorporating other features like existing walls and bridges, playing through treed areas and open fields and, of course, taking advantage of the magnificent views all around.”

There will be great variety in holes, each taking advantage of the existing features so it fits seamlessly into the existing landscape. There also will be plenty of room to play, greens will be gently contoured and the bunkers will be small — with the goal of making the course playable for all skill levels. 

Ury Estate will feature a Nicklaus-branded collection of homes as part of the community, the first of its kind in Europe. While Nicklaus Design has designed more than 435 golf courses in 46 countries, fewer than 10 of those properties have been selected to brand the real-estate offering as well, which speaks to the special nature of Ury’s setting.

“We are trying to create not only a golf course, but a way of life around what we’ve done, what I’ve done,” said Nicklaus, who was honored at this year’s Open with honorary citizenship at St. Andrews. “If we can do that within the community, participating in the growth and feeling of the community, that is what we like to do.”

“Ury Estate is a unique development, which is set to become one of the world’s most prestigious golfing destinations” said Karen Smith, the Ury Estate sales and marketing director. “As the first Nicklaus-branded residential development in Europe, we are delighted to be creating the opportunity for people to buy or build their dream home neighboring the course.

“This luxury lifestyle experience, with family homes located in a stunning natural setting, affords a spectacular panorama of the Aberdeenshire countryside and coastline.”

The course won’t lack for drama, either. 

“A real walk in nature,” said Graeme Webster, the course project manager. “It’s almost going to be therapeutic with the wonderful views you will get on each hole. It will look like a golf course that has been there forever.”

The course, Webster said, is long and challenging enough to be tournament-ready, but with the shorter tees, it also will be a fair test for less skilled players. 

“To me,” Webster said, “that’s the mark of a great golf course.”

About 45 minutes from Dundee and about two hours from Edinburgh and Glasgow, Ury Estates is ideally situated.

“It’s a really nice location for visitors coming from overseas,” Smith said. “You can golf at Gleneagles within two hours, the Old Course within an hour and 15.”

There’s one other nice bonus, too. 

“We don’t get as much rain as the rest of Scotland,” Smith said. “It’s a lovely part of the world.”

For more information on Ury Estate, click here. 

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