Adventure Golf; Golfing Scotland’s Northern Highlands
Given their location the golf courses in the Northern Highlands of Scotland are generally less known, less visited and less expensive than others further south and closer to the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There are also some great sites to visit for the golfing traveller, many of them serene and devoid of crowds.
There the popularity of Scottish links golf courses with growing numbers of American golfers have led to more crowded courses and higher green fees.
But the scenic attractions of this wild and empty corner of Scotland offer an added bonus for those travelling golfers making the one hour flight from London to Inverness.
Here are a selection of courses to visit:
1. Tain: This is a course designed by legendary Scottish golf course designer, Old Tom Morris.
It’s a short and tight course with Morris’s signature blind holes including the 11th hole, known as The Alps.
2. Fortrose and Rosemarkie short and tight links set on a peninsular.
3. Golspie: Another traditional seaside links
4. Brora: classic out and back links designed by James Braid.There are no fairway markers as per traditional links.
Heavily contoured fairways with alot of rough off the tea and blind holes.
5. Nairn: Another Old Tom Morris course skirting the coastline
6. Dornoch: The most expensive, and still the best, course in the Highlands – much in demand – it has become somewhat of a factory for visiting American golfers. A new 14 million dollar clubhouse embellishes the corporate look
7. Cabot Highlands – Previoiusly Castle Stewart, recently rebranded. Expensive and difficult but a beautiful setting.
I’m between the rounds why not take some time off the and visit the following:
* Dunrodin Castle: The ancestral home of the Duke of Sutherland, this French baroque and gothic influenced pile was apparently designed by the architect of the Houses of Parliament in London.
* Culloden Battle Site: A moody and evocative site where the Jacobite uprising against the Government led by Bonnie Prince Charlie came to a bloody and violent end in 1746. Thousands died and mass graves are marked by cairns identifying the clans of the tartaned Scottish warriors who perished here .
* Fort George: Evocative seaside fortress established by the British Government after the defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1746.as a defensive bastion against a possible French sea invasion from the north.
* Lochness: Scotland’s most loch is a short drive from Inverness.
And check out these pictures of some of the tranquil coastline in the far north you can visit in between the rounds.
Destination: Scotland
