Photo credit: Matthew Harris – Royal Dornoch Championship Course
A POPULAR US based sporting podcast has been waxing lyrical about the joys of teeing-up a golf trip to the Highlands of Scotland.
The “No Laying Up” team is encouraging American golfers to experience the world-renowned links at Royal Dornoch – and create enduring memories of visits to other courses across the region.
They rate the Championship Course among the best to be found anywhere on the planet and also highlight the lure of Brora, Cabot Highlands and Nairn for discerning visitors prepared to raise their sights and look beyond St Andrews and the Central Belt.
The 90-minute podcast forms part of a series highlighting the rich diversity of golf in Scotland, with travel and accommodation tips part of the package.
Hosts Chris “Soly” Solomon and “TC” Todd Schuster are joined by their “Scottish golf guru” and Cruden Bay member Ru Macdonald in promoting the joys of golfing in the north of Scotland.
While the US duo have travelled widely during trips across the Atlantic, they freely admit there’s plenty courses still on their wish lists, and Ru is happy to suggest a few more.
“I hope the listeners, when they close their eyes and think of Scotland,picture huge landscape, mountains and sea. That is what we see when we travel through the Highlands’” he says.
“This is a huge golf destination that more and more golfers are visiting.
“Slow down and give yourself enough time to see these places. Breathe it in – and there’s no place in the world better for breathing in clear air than the Highlands. It’s a beautiful part of the world with some great golf.
“There are courses which will live long in your memory beyond the ‘must plays.’ It depends on how much time you have and how adventurous you want to be.”
TC suggested that long weekends would appeal to Eastern Seaboard golfers if they could fly directly into Inverness, while Ru predicted that “exciting” plans to extend the golf offering at Royal Dornoch can only be good for the area.
“I have only scratched the surface, and I can’t wait to get back. It’s my favourite area of Scotland,” said TC.
The podcasters stress the James Braid “proper links land” at Brora should feature on any Highland golf trip but agree visitors are guaranteed a warm welcome from the locals wherever they decide to tee-up.
With Inverness buzzing these days, any groups keen on getting out and about after the golf have plenty options in the Highland capital, with any number of fabulous courses within striking distance – including the classic links of Nairn (with a special mention for the archive room and “one of the coolest halfway houses in golf”) – and nearby Cabot Highlands, which has added Tom Doak’s Old Petty to the original Castle Stuart Golf Links, which has played host to the Scottish Open.
But it’s not just the big-name courses which have enchanted the “No Laying Up” lads.
Boat of Garten, Grantown-on-Spey, Golspie, Tain, Fortrose and Rosemarkie, Bonar Bridge, Reay, Wick, Lybster, Thurso, Durness, Ullapool, Gairloch, Strathpeffer, Muir of Ord and the Isle of Skye all get a namecheck – and there’s plenty more waiting to give a warm Highland welcome to visitors from near and far.
Watch the full podcast below:
