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My Scotland Adventure…Royal Dornoch

We continued our Scottish adventure on Tuesday with one of our most anticipated days of the trip: 36 holes at Royal Dornoch.img_2691

The debates rage on over which is the best course in Scotland…and the world and Royal Dornoch is always in the mix. Some rate the Old Course as the best but the history of The Open and Old Tom has as much to do with that as the course itself. Royal Dornoch usually sits right behind the Old or in the top spot among many course raters and serious golf fanatics.

And Royal Dornoch has been memorialized by Lorne Rubenstein in his “A Season in Dornoch” which had both of us salivating at the chance to stay and play in Dornoch. George had made an early morning tee time at Royal Dornoch but after some serious thought I called and booked a replay in the afternoon.

Certainly it would be pushing the limits of our old, creaky bodies but I was sure we would be fine as adrenaline and a little single malt would fuel our late afternoon eighteen.

The plan was to play our eighteen in he morning, have lunch at the club, take the short walk back to our rental and put our feet up for a bit. Then the late eighteen would have us back to the club house in time for another meal among the Royal Dornoch regulars. We both hoped our legs wouldn’t fail us.

The morning at Royal Dornoch was a bit overcast, the typical Scottish gray that we had been missing for most of our trip, and a little wind would give us the real links test we so desired.

The staff at Dornoch were friendly and obviously very familiar with dealing with first time visitors. With a good course guide in hand and some insights (and wisecracks) from the gray bearded, kilt wearing starter we headed down the first fairway ready for a great day.

And Dornoch gave us just that.

It’s a rollicking trip over some of the loveliest linksland in the world. The wide fairways gave you a wide target off the tee but the humps and hillocks were likely to steer your ball towards any of the many bunkers that lay in wait. And as usual, many of these bunkers are a challenge to get out of and are sure to cost you a stroke or two.dsc00908

You know you’re on a special piece of land when even if you weren’t playing golf you’d enjoy the walk. And Dornoch is a glorious walk.

The course rises and falls over dunes and hills with great views of the Dornoch Firth and the beach below.

They are celebrating their 400th year of playing golf along these links this year and you get the sense that this rumpled landscape hasn’t changed much over the last four centuries. Except for the greens of course.

As much excitement as the course offers off the tees and on the approaches it is the greens that can really get your blood pumping. Donald Ross was born in Dornoch and after working with Old Tom Morris in St. Andrews returned to Dornoch as the Professional and Greenskeeper.

He then left for fame and fortune in the United States as he had a hand in over 400 golf courses during his career. And those famous inverted saucer greens? He first saw them here at Dornoch and what a challenge they are.

We made our way over the course wide eyed at the vistas offered from the tees and more excited by each and every hole.dsc00911

Once again we were out as a twosome and this was the first time we may have felt the pressure of the Scottish pace of play.

Now, we are not slow players…not by a long stretch and when you’re playing a historic, championship course like Dornoch for the first time it requires a little more time for us first-timers. Just standing on the tee, checking the course guide can add a minute to each hole so somewhere on our front nine we started to feel the need to play quicker. Granted, it was a “twosome only” morning and the players behind us were closing in but we never held them up but still…our internal golfer told us to hurry up. And I think it effected our game.

This is where I wished we had been paired up with a member or a regular that knew the course. At this point we had played nine rounds, all by ourselves. It would have been nice to have some local knowledge from someone familiar with the course or just to have some Scottish company.

But we played on as a twosome and certainly had a grand time and even found time for a wee nip or two from the commemorative flasks George had ordered for us.

The course was lovely as was the lunch at the clubhouse which is filled with tons of various trophies, medals and other memorabilia from 400 years of golf at Dornoch.

We made the short walk to our rental and rested up for another shot at Dornoch a little later.

After a short break we headed back to the pro shop and had the chance to meet our Scottish brother as we checked in for our afternoon round.

Andrew Skinner is the pro at Royal Dornoch and his dad, Willie was the pro for forty years before Andrew followed him into a dream job. Now, to our knowledge Andrew and Willie are no relation to us but I’d like to think that somewhere a few generations back our ancestors may have crossed paths. (My paternal grandfather was from Aberdeen.) Andrew was friendly enough and we chatted about what a great course that laid outside his door.

Before we teed off for our second round at Dornoch we had decided to mix things up and play a two man scramble. I thought I may have fun playing from further down the fairway by using my brother’s drive. On the tee the starter remembered us from the morning and gave us a heads up on the groups ahead of us. He said he they were all from Glenmorangie, the distillery that Dornoch has a promotional deal with and “they didn’t look much like golfers.”

No problem, we were there to just have fun and it was then that I had what may be the highlight of my trip.

Dornoch’s first tee sits in front of the pro shop and restaurant and you have to hit over a well traveled road that sits right in front of the tee box. Mostly it’s beach goers and hikers that are heading to the water but there is the occasional car that makes the trip and there are always at least a handful of people milling about.

The starter wished us well and Big Bro may have let his draw become a little too close to a hook and had his ball head well left.

I quickly teed mine up in the hopes of getting it over quickly and without making a fool of myself and let loose with a solid drive heading down the left side of the fairway curling back into the center. “Good ball” exclaimed the starter from behind us and I picked up my tee, gave him a nod and headed triumphantly down the fairway.

As we walked ahead I told George that my trip was now complete…I got a ‘good ball’ from the starter at Royal Dornoch. We laughed. That’s some good stuff.dornoch-starter

The goal of our scramble was to break 80. We had no delusions about something in the low 70’s…George is good but heck this is the big leagues. So we wanted to card a 79 to call our extra eighteen a success.

And we played well, one over par after three, two over after six and after a slip or two and a birdie at the ninth we were two over as we headed back in.

Long before that we had caught up to the Glenmorangie outing and it was obvious that these were guys here on business and were given the chance to play one of the world’s greatest courses, so they did,

None of them had their own clubs and all had rentals nor did they have any golfing gear like a sweater or rain gear or umbrellas. And that cost them when it started to rain, somewhere about our seventh or eighth hole.

They played on not seeming to mind, after all what are you going to do, walk in, heck you’re soaked already.

We played up to them at the halfway house and chatted a bit. Yes, they were with Glenmorangie, no they had no gear, yes they were having a ball and would we like to play through. Certainly we would and oh, they were all from Pittsburgh, go figure.

Now, this was the first time in eleven days and ten rounds of golf that we had any rain. And it did rain hard for a bit and it wasn’t as much fun as all our sunny, dry days but it’s Scotland it rains. And we needed a taste of it.

George broke out his new rain jacket but I managed with my wind-shirt and new Gustbuster umbrella, there wasn’t much wind.

We blamed the rain for our poor play over the back nine, four straight bogeys but came down the long par four eighteenth at eight over par. We needed a bogey for our goal of 79 but on a 450 yard par four that was no easy task. And our legs had given out a few holes ago.

But George, the trooper that he is laid a nice drive out in the fairway and then hit another good shot to the green..or so we thought. We dejectedly found his well struck ball in a hidden bunker short of the green. But all was not lost. I had hit my patented slice well right of the bunker into the rough but it was playable.

We both took a shot at the green, he was short and I hit it well past the pin. But we were on in three and a two putt would clinch our dear 79. Big Bro came through with the clinching, bogey putt and we had our cherished 79. It was fun, rain and all.

I stopped in to see Andrew and told him he had one of the best jobs in the world and he didn’t disagree. He was happy we appreciated his course and of course we came in again to drop a few hundred pounds on pro shop souvenirs. I bet he liked that too.

We had dinner upstairs among the members and watched the groups we had played through stagger in, maybe an hour after we had. nicklaus-badge

We rested our weary legs and, checked out the Dornoch trophy case with the mammoth Carnegie Shield that is competed for each year by the members.

Our table was near the window and on a column next to our table there was a photo of a group of golfers and a letter thanking Andrew and his crew for their hospitality and a wonderful round of golf.

It was from the Golden Bear himself, Jack Nicklaus.

And I reached into my pocket and felt the Jack Nicklaus Badge, the trophy George and I play for each round.

Life was good in Dornoch even with a little rain.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Sounds like a great day. I am lucky enough to be a member at Dornoch so you should have called! As you probably know there is a lot of great golf in that part of the world. Check out my recent blog about Brora for a sample sunstonelinks.scot/blog

  2. Thanks Kenny, enjoyed Dornoch so much. Our week there included Fortrose & Rosemarkie, Brora, Castle Stuart, Dornch, Nairn and Tain. And we loved them all!

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