A group of visiting golfers I know of asked in the bar before their first Dornoch round: "What's the hardest shot on the course?" An aged member, sitting by the window with a malt in hand, didn't hesitate. "The second shot to the 2nd hole," he said. The group headed off to play and when they got to the 2nd and saw it was a par three they thought the old bloke must have got mixed up. None of them hit the green. By the time they were walking to the next tee they understood!
Course name: Royal Dornoch (Championship)
Location: Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland
Four Word Course Review: A religeous golf experience
Dornoch is a cathedral of golf if ever I saw one.
I arrived in town the evening before my first round on the famous links, as the sun dropped low and cast long shadows through the town. I thought that was gorgeous enough, but then I made the walk up Golf Rd, past the bowling club and there it was.
The light was a rich gold by that late hour, and the shadows thrown across the 1st and 18th fairways were incredible, while the flowing gorse was a blaze of bright yellow. Overlooking it all was the humble clubhouse.
The feeling of Dornoch is unlike anywhere else I have been in the world of golf and I'm not sure I can adequately describe it, other than to say the feeling that washed over me from my first glimpse of the course to my last look back over my shoulder as I left three days later was very much like being inside London's St Paul's Cathedral or St Peter's Basilica in Rome, where you experience such a sensory overload, coupled with the weight of history and realisation of just how far many have come to worship at that location.
The course itself is filled with some of the most memorable shots I've faced.
The 2nd is a brilliant par three to a push-up green from which a par is almost impossible should you find sand or miss left or right, where steep banks make it hard to decide what type of shot to hit, let alone execute it. The fear of the ball stopping on the hill and then making its way back to your feet can easily cause a nervous jab that sends the ball into the same predicament on the opposite side of the green.
The gentle angle and slight blindness of the putting surface on the 5th secured it in my mind as one of the best short par fours I've seen, a hole similar to the 6th at Deal and 12th on The Old Course in that on the tee it seems a good chance to make birdie but 10 minutes later you're walking to the next hole feeling pretty good about having made par.
The 8th and 17th are similar holes in their topography: playing along a plateau that drops steeply at a 45 degree angle around 180 yards from the tee with the green set in a small punchbowl, but the small differences in strategy set them apart and convinced me there was room for both on the same course without repetition being an issue.
The angled green at the 12th, set between a front left mound and front right bunker showed me how subtle angles and features can make a hole play so much more difficultly than it seems it should. Yet another hole - and this might be my strongest lasting memory of Dornoch as a whole - that shapes up on the tee as a birdie chance before imposing its smarts on you and making you earn a par.
Foxy - the 14th hole - is another exercise in angles, calling for a long, drawn drive to even earn a shot at hitting the massive green in two, before insisting you reverse your shot shape for the approach. That is poses such challenges without a single bunker is a testament to the wonderful land.
Following Foxy is one of Dornoch's unsung heroes. The 15th is a reachable par four with a rough-covered dune in the middle of the fairway about 200 yards from the tee. Once past the dune, either by flying it, squeezing down the left or using the wide fairway to the right that can't be seen from the tee, the approach to a slightly domed green is much more difficult than an 80-yard shot should be.
Those seven holes had probably the strongest effect on me, but that's not to discount the other 11, which all offer something unique and bring new and different challenges to the table.
So massive are the greens that there seems to be an infinite number of pin positions that change the holes completely, especially when changes in wind strength and direction are added to the mix. Those enormous greens coupled with ideal golf land made me think that more than any other, Royal Dornoch is a course that could have all its bunkers removed and lose very little of its charm and challenge.
Getting to Dornoch is not the easiest thing in the world. It is a long way from pretty much anywhere. But few pilgrimmages are more worthwhile.
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