Royal Dornoch Golf Club: Part 2

The weather here in Bangor, Maine has improved and the sun is setting later everyday. Consequently, more activities both work and play, have occupied my time. So in the evening I’ve been either busy or tired and the result is my blogging has lagged behind. (How often do you get to write a sentence with two words with double g’s in it?) Back to RDGC.

The 4th, 5th and 6th holes at Dornoch all play along the slope of the raised beach. The fifth, much like the third, as a gaggle of bunkers down the right side and three bunkers right in front of the long narrow green. It’s only 353 yards but it’s one of my favorites on the course. Whinny Brae is the name of the par 3 sixth hole. Hook your shot left and your in the whins, go right and you're far below the green surface. You must climb to the raised beach to tee off on seven. It’s a straight away par 4 of 423 yards (yellow tee). The bunker on the front left of the green can be treacherous, trust me!

Eight plays out and off the raised beach back down to the lower level. At nine you turn and head for home on a par 5 with the North Sea at your left. A number of the inward holes play with ocean on your left, but some are separated from the water by grass covered dunes. Number 10 is a 145 yard par three with five bunkers fronting the green. Don’t be short. Eleven is a longish par four with a wide forgiving fairway. It is the last hole to play directly along the ocean until the tee box on 16.

Twelve is a challenging par five and thirteen an inviting par three. Then comes Foxy, the only hole on the course without a bunker, but it is still the second handicap (stroke index) hole because of the devilish raised green. Fifteen is a short par 4 with a massive mound in the middle of the fairway. If memory serves me correctly, it is where the slain Danes were buried after the battle in 1260 A.D. At 16 you tee off with the North Sea at your back and play uphill all the way, back on top of the raised beach. Seventeen is a bit like #8 in that you drive off the raise beach to the lower level. However, you must choose your line and club wisely lest you go through the fairway on this dogleg into the whins. The second shot is uphill over a patch of gorse to an immense undulating green. And finally Home, the eighteenth, gets you back to the clubhouse.

Don’t forget to go in and thank Andrew Skinner, the pro, for perhaps the most fun you’ve ever had on the golf course. Support his efforts by purchasing a towel, or hat or coffee mug. Then go upstairs to the lounge bar for a pint and a gaze upon the Carnegie Shield!

I was going to include some of my own photos here but instead I’ll just direct you to what looks to me like a newly redesigned website for the Royal Dornoch Golf Club.

A Taste of Scotland

It's 4pm on a Friday and although the pilgrimage is still over a year away, for the next 12 ounces, I'll pretend I'm in Scotland!

Much like Four Peaks Brewery's Kilt Lifter (the local Scotch Ale of choice) Sam Adams Scotch Ale is a very malty beer with a rich mahogany color and a creamy mouthfeel. It's a little smokey at first but finishes with a pleasantly acidic kick that wets your mouth and leaves you thirsty for more. Well done Sam, well done.

DLux of Arizona

Royal Dornoch Golf Club

In 2009 Golf Digest ranked Royal Dornoch Golf Club as the sixth best golf course outside the United States. Only three courses on the Open rotation were ranked higher. Yet Royal Dornoch Golf Club will never host the Open, even though the course is perfectly suited to do so. One might ask why not?

RDGC is in the Royal Burgh of Dornoch that only has a population of about 1250 people. The government district (county) of Sutherland has only 13,500 people. There are a few small hotels and some B&B’s. The fare of the local restaurants is very good, but there aren’t many from which to choose. So in spite of being one of the best golf courses in all the world, there is insufficient infrastructure to host a major championship. This is a tragedy!

I’ve not played every golf course outside the United States, and only one of the five on the Golf Digest list that are ranked above Dornoch. Now that I mention it, I haven’t played every golf course in the US. So my ignorance of world golf courses is clearly documented. However, if I weretold that I could play but one course for the rest of my life, without the slightest hesitation, I would choose Royal Dornoch. I’d choose it over all courses, Augusta National, Pebble Beach, you name it, RDGC would be my pick. I’ve played it four times. My best score is an 86, my worst a 92, never coming close to my handicap. It’s even worse when you consider that par is 70. I’ve had some sub-40 nine hole scores, but the other nine always got away from me.

My first time there was with my wife. I’ve never seen anyone so nervous when preparing to play golf. She understood the greatness of the course and felt unworthy. Her knees were knocking on the first tee, literally. The first is a straight, short par 4, only a little over 300 yards. All I can say it that wasn’t pretty. She duffed it down the fairway and reached the green after 11 swings. Thenext thing I know she blasted it past the green into the gorse bushes. I asked her what she was doing, and she responded “The starter said the 150 marker was yellow”. So was the flagstick! The second is a 165 yard par three with a treacherous green guarded by two cavernous bunkers, a much more difficult hole. She score a 3.

The third is a par four that plays to about 400 yards. The tee shot plays down hill to a fairway that is cantered left to right. It’s an incredibly beautiful view. However there is a line of fourfairway bunkers all in a row down theright side. You had better draw your tee shot into theslope. Two more fairway bunkers fame the view of the expansive undulating green that is guarded by two green side bunkers. This hole is etched in my memory, perhaps my favorite hole on the course.

Looking over old score cards I see that I’ve only parred it once, but it still one of my favorite holes at RDGC.

I think one of Suzie’s concerns during that first round back in October of 2002 was pace of play. She was so concerned about holding people up. There was an English couple in front of us and a foursome behind, two German couples. The English pulled away immediately, and once we finished the first, the Germans were left far behind. For the next 17 holes we were essentially alone on the best golf course in the world. Come to think of it, I don’t ever remember being rushed or running up anybodies tail on RDGC.

To be continued.....

DLux of Maine

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Nairn, Seaside Resort

The town of Nairn is in the Highlands, about 16 miles to the northeast of Inverness on the A96 highway. It is a seaside resort town with two golf courses, the Nairn Golf Club and the Nairn Dunbar Golf Club. Sort of like Myrtle Beach, only different. It isn’t the warmth that makes it a resort area, it’s the relative lack of rain. You see Nairn only gets 24.5 inches of rain a year. Here in Bangor, Maine it isn’t unusual for us to get a tenth of that in a single big rain storm. Though the average temperatures in Nairn are only in the mid-60’s Fahrenheit in July and August when the children are out of school, there’s a pretty good chance that it will be relatively dry, a big plus in the UK.

The Nairn Golf Club is a links course, originally routed by Archie Simpson and Old Tom Morris but later modified by James Braid. That sounds a bit like a broken record, doesn’t it. In the true spirit of links courses it’s an out and back affair. Many of the holes run east-west and are next to the Morey Firth, the arm of the North Sea that extends to Inverness. Only a few holes venture north and south, inland and slightly up and down hill.

We played it in 2007 and my memory is a bit clouded by time. I remember it as being very well maintained, the gorse was in bloom and the bunkers were deep. We played the yellow tees (they tell you which ones to play) and the twelfth is a par 4 that played 401 yards. I was pin high in two, but on the wrong side of a deep bunker on tightly mown turf. I intended to putt around the bunker so I would take no more than a bogey. However one of my fellow competitors urged me to take out a lob wedge and feather a shot over the bunker saying; “you got that shot!”. I took the bait and in the bunker it went. I descended into the sandy pit and hitched up my trousers, much like Arnold Palmer. That was the only thing that even remotely resembled “the King”. The first attempt to extricate my ball from the bunker failed. The ball rebounded off the bunker face and hit me, thus incurring a penalty. After much thrashing and cursing I finally got the ball on to the putting surface and after three putts I had scored a 10. After the round we were welcomed into the clubhouse and treated like members, maybe better.

NGC hosted the Walker Cup in the late 1999 and this is documented in the clubhouse with plenty of photos of the teams. Jonathan Byrd, Luke Donald and Bryce Molder were among the competitors. Nairn is scheduled to host the Curtis Cup in June of 2012. Who knows, maybe Natalie Gulbis will be there playing a practice round when we’re in Scotland. Natalie’s presence make no difference to an old timer like me, but you young fellers might be interested.

DLux of Maine


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