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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