Course History:

Golf has been played on this links since the year 1616 when Sir Robert Gordon claimed expenses of £10 and £12 for the purchase of golf clubs and balls in his role as tutor to his young nephew, the 13th Earl of Sutherland.

The club itself was founded in 1877, initially as a nine-hole course until Old Tom Morris was invited to extend the layout in 1886. However, the main influence on the development of Royal Dornoch came from John Sutherland who was both well known as a player (having won The Open Championship in 1892) as well as the secretary of the club for almost 60-years. In collaboration with J.H. Taylor, he was responsible for several revisions as well as being a pioneer of greenkeeping and course maintenance.

Sutherland was self-taught in the art of greenkeeping and gradually refined Old Tom’s handiwork. The influential Sutherland would become Dornoch’s own “father of golf,” writing articles for the London Daily News and Golf Illustrated and representing the club at events such as the 1909 Amateur at Muirfield.

In 1964, Herbert Warren Wind, one of America’s greatest golf writers, wrote an article in the June issue of New Yorker Magazine titled, “North to the Links of Dornoch,” which would be hugely beneficial to raising the interest of Royal Dornoch in America.

HWW wrote: “The same remoteness explains the unique position that Dornoch has long held in golf: for over a half-century it has been regarded as one of the outstanding courses in the World by men close to the heart of the game, yet few have ever played it.”

Part of the allure of Royal Dornoch is that it has stayed out of the limelight and mainstream tournament golf—much like Pine Valley in the US. But most of all, it lies in the wonderful village of Dornoch with some of the friendliest people in all of Scotland. It has an air of peacefulness and tranquility, and it makes me want to spend a month there every summer.

Course Review:

Royal Dornoch is necessary for every lover of links golf. It is often mentioned along with Royal Troon, Prestwick and Ballybunion as the top four true classic links golf courses. In that same 1964 article Pete Dye had said to Herbert Warren Wind.

“No other links has quite the ageless aura Dornoch does. When you play it, you get the feeling you could be living just as easily in the eighteen hundreds, or even the seventeen hundreds. If an old Scot in a red jacket had popped out from behind a sand dune, beating a feather ball, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye.”

I think the best way to describe Royal Dornoch is that it gives you the pleasurable excitement of links golf that Alister MacKenzie spoke about. In my opinion, it indeed has a magical aura to it, being unique, joyous, and challenging at the same time. How can you miss with the beautiful dunes—created by mother nature—the Moray Firth/North Sea and the mountains of the Highlands in the distance? Those are the combination of views that you get in the Scottish Highlands.

After lunch in the clubhouse, complete with a couple display cases of antique hickory clubs, we took advantage of the couple golf of nets that sat around the back of the clubhouse. Very few links courses have full ranges, but it sure makes a difference being able to loosen-up with 30 or 40 full swings to get the kinks out.

Scooter and I were paired with a couple younger Americans from the Atlanta area who had two caddies looping for them—a chain-smoking, tanned, gruff Scotsman and a young Italian that was living the dream caddying at Dornoch for the summer. I enjoyed chatting with him about making fresh pasta, and our favorite sauces.

We were seven or eight rounds into our trip and decided to mix things up and play a two-man scramble. I’ll never forget the Scotsman—who wore his emotions on his sleeve, to say the least—looking down at ball and tee right next to it in the middle of #1 fairway, his eyes widening.

“For a minute thar, I thawt yuu were fightin’ a case of the Shanks, lad! he said.

The first hole, aptly named First, is as gentle of a handshake as a beginning hole could be. It was not a precursor of the beauty and toughness of the holes ahead. The yardage book put it quite succinctly: “In the beginning…draw breath and enjoy the clean score sheet and all the possibilities that lie ahead. Choose now to take one step at a time and enjoy what that step holds.” That was great advice, and it did not last long! It got difficult really quickly.

The stretch of holes from numbers two through eight is certainly up there with the best in all of golf.

Number 2, Ord, is a tough par-3. As Tom Watson once said: “the hardest shot in golf is the 2nd into the 2nd at Royal Dornoch.” Hilarious, but so true! Scooter and I played it as a par-4, or tried to anyway, and double-bogeyed it—playing a two-man scramble!! We hit our tee shot short and right of the front right bunker, and it got worse from there. Four is a great score on this hole. The green is long and narrow front to back. There is no good miss other than playing it like a par-4 and coming up just short/middle and hitting a good chip for a possible par putt. Ord is definitely up there with the best par 3’s in Scotland.

As you approach the 3rd tee, Earl’s Cross, take your time and soak it all in as it is one of the best views in all of links golf. As they outlined in the yardage book: “The course opens before you. Sea, hills, sweeping fairways. Pause to admire the natural beauty around you and appreciate what the Creator and humans can do together.”

It is a beautiful, difficult par-4 at 413 yards. A dogleg left, with no view of the green off the tee. Play your drive to the left side of the fairway and it will feed down to the right, giving you a good look on the approach shot. The green is bunkered short left and right, and your miss is short left, or even anywhere short.

Achinchanter (#4) and Hilton (#5) are both par-4’s running along the top ridge of the course, with green (turned yellow in Spring) shrubs lining the top left side, and gorgeous dunes to the right that fall down to the Sea. Both with fantastic green complexes—with plenty of pot bunkers guarding them. Then you come to Number 6, Whinny Brae a par-3 at 161 yards, is visually intimidating and a Royal Dornoch gem. You shoot to a plateaued green that slopes down the hill left to right, and is not wide, but long front to back. A huge, cavernous pot bunker fronts the right side, and a steep twenty-five-foot slope lies in front of it the length of the right side of the green. Pick your poison, step up and hit a golf shot!

Number 7, named Pier, has one of Mother Nature’s best vistas on the course. Again, from the yardage book: “A hole with a feeling of being ‘on the edge!’ From the back tee look backwards, from the forward tees, look out. Take a moment to savior the sheer beauty of creation—then think of your part in it. What beauty do you add to this World.?”

Number 8, Dunrobbin, is very unique. It has a split fairway, upper and lower, with a large drop-off dissecting it. The infinity view from the top tier is fantastic and it is at this point that you are the farthest out, with the Moray Firth to the right and in the distance the mountains of Sutherland.

 At this point the course makes a turn back inward away from the mountains for the loop back toward the clubhouse. Number 9, Craigliath, the first par-5, and only one of two, is 529-yards and runs along the beach to its left. The next two holes, Fuaran (par-3, 146-yards) and A’chlach--meaning rock or stone--(a long par-4 at 446-yards) run in the same direction along the beach, lined by beautiful yellow bushes and gorse (in the spring) along the right side.

The next best stretch of holes (12 through 16) begins with Sutherland, the last par-5 on the course at 535-yards and is the creation of the father of the course, John Sutherland. It heads back toward the shelf above the dunes, and bends right to left, with the green only visible after your drive. It is a narrow fairway, with all the bunkers lining the right side. The green has one deep pot bunker short right. Any shot carrying that bunker is fine, just avoid left and long left with your approach shot.

Number 13, Bents, at 171 yards is the last par-3. It is dotted with six pot bunkers lining the sides of a bowl-shaped, accepting green. It plays with the prevailing left to right cross wind—I think it is a very pretty hole.

Then comes the 14th, Foxy often called the most natural hole in golf—is an eye-catching, rumpled, double dogleg-like fairway, that meanders along to an elevated green that is menacing!! With drop offs on 3 sides, it is reminiscent of the CB MacDonald-like, Doak-recreated greens at The Lido (Sand Valley/Wisconsin). The hole is nothing short of brilliant.

Just when you think you are in need of a fun, short two-shotter, along comes Number 15, Stulaig, at 322 yards, heading back toward the Firth.

The last of this stretch is High Hole, a par-4 of 401 yards. It climbs up from the beach higher toward the clubhouse in the background. The green is huge, and trouble lines the left side of the hole with a deep quarry left of the driving area. Do not miss a quick rest at the bench left of the green and take in the panoramic view back out toward the Firth and course/mountains.

As you stand on the tee of the par-4 18th, Glenmorangie, meaning the Glen of tranquility, you feel like you have gone to friendly battle with one of the finest courses in the World. In addition, you have seen views that are like no other in the links golf. A warm, calm feeling comes over you as you head off the green, and up to the 19th hole. In our case, it was over to the front lawn of The Royal Golf Hotel, to hold court in the Adirondack chairs and reminisce about the good shots and bad.

Royal Dornoch is a wonderful course in so many ways. It is a classic, old-school links course that was shaped by Mother Nature. Its routing and views are incredible, and it leaves no wonder that it is in that upper echelon of links courses. Mother nature’s great routing, memorable holes, shot values, greens complexes…it checks all the boxes.

Not all links courses are associated with the town that they reside, but in this case, the course and the town are ‘joined at the hip.’ You have a warm feeling in your soul from the experience. It leaves you wanting to come back. For me, as I said earlier, I cannot wait to spend a month in Dornoch and play the course as much as I possibly can!

Course Rating: A resounding Albatross! A must-play for everyone at least once in your lifetime. I could play it every day and not get tired of it. Upper echelon links course, along with Troon, Prestwick and Ballybunion