Before commencing with this description of Royal Dornoch Golf Club we feel that, in the interest of full disclosure, we should admit a small bias towards Royal Dornoch. You see, after playing all of the wonderful links courses of Scotland and Ireland, Mike chose to join Royal Dornoch as an international member, a choice that speaks as much about the special people and town of Dornoch as it does to the truly spectacular Scottish links golf course at Royal Dornoch Golf Club.
Royal Dornoch Golf Club is located near the center of the small town of Dornoch in the Highlands of Scotland. In our experience, with the possible exception of Gullane and St. Andrews, we are not aware of any town where the championship links course and golf club are such an integral part of local life. A walk through the town, with its pleasant assortment of hotels, restaurants, pubs and other shops, is likely to result in many interesting conversations about local golf events and the happenings at the golf club.
At the club itself, the visiting golfer is greeted with a warm Highlands welcome in the simple yet comfortable clubhouse, where golfers gather in the bar area upstairs overlooking the first tee of the championship course at Royal Dornoch Golf Club, in our humble opinion, the finest links golf course in Scotland and Ireland. Out on the course, the golfer enjoys the short but tricky par four 1st hole and the demanding par three 2nd, with its diabolical plateau green, yet it is when the golfer makes the walk through the gorse bushes between the 2nd green and the 3rd tee, revealing the full splendor of the course on the linksland below him, that he realizes just what a special day of golf lies in front of him. It is from this spot that the golfer fully appreciates the magnificence of Scottish links golf, as before him lies a panorama of gorse covered hills, sea grasses waving in the breeze, the North Sea breaking gently on the beautiful sand beach, and, most importantly from the golfer's perspective, a stunning series of links golf holes that looks as if it has been a part of this natural landscape for ages.
Starting on the 3rd tee, the golfer plays three straight par fours, each of which is a great hole in its own right and reveals why many believe that Royal Dornoch possesses one of the greatest set of greensites in all of golf, with large greens that are often undulating and raised above the fairway, requiring precision on approach and recovery shots. After playing the short par three 6th hole, with its narrow plateau green tucked into a hillside of gorse, the golfer climbs the hill to the 7th tee and another stunning view of the sea and golf course.
Upon turning back towards the clubhouse at the 9th tee, the golfer is rewarded with three holes set as close to the sea and beach as any in Scottish links golf. Included in this stretch is the 450 yard 11th hole, set between the beach and the gorse bushes on the right and climaxing in a narrow but long (at least 50 yards) green. While the remainder of the course is a series of good to great links golf holes, the highlight is the famous 440 yard par four 14th hole (named “Foxy”), a slight dogleg left where the golfer is required to avoid a large dune along the right side off the tee and is then faced with a long second shot to a spectacular plateau green where, depending on the course and wind conditions, may require the golfer to play a bump and run shot or a high spinning shot. In any case, the golfer who holds the green with his second at Foxy will cherish the memory for a lifetime.
With a bit of bias yet an air of enthusiasm, we highly recommend Royal Dornoch Golf Club for inclusion in the itinerary of your next Scottish golf trip.
For more information on Royal Dornoch, please visit their website at www.royaldornoch.com.
