Overlooking the North Sea, Cruden Bay is golf on the grand scale. (Image: Cruden Bay Golf Club)
I returned from Scotland torn like a confused lover between Royal Dornoch and Cruden Bay—and by having to choose between my two prized new souvenir head covers.
It’s always a tough choice, Royal Dornoch or Cruden Bay?
During my last trip to Scotland, I walked away from both clubhouse shops at the world-famous links the proud owner of a signature club head cover for my driver. Ever since, before every round, I’ve had the Solomonic task of selecting the one to take pride of place in my Banff Springs Golf Course golf bag, the iconic Rocky Mountain design being another of my golf passions.
I had played Royal Dornoch before, but this time, luckily arriving on a calm and sunny June day, I fell even more deeply in love with what is unquestionably one of the world’s greatest links.
“No golfer has completed his education until he has played and studied Royal Dornoch,” pronounced Herbert Warren Wind, the eminent American golf writer.
“No golfer has completed his education until he has played and studied Royal Dornoch,” pronounced Herbert Warren Wind. (Image: Royal Dornoch Golf Club)
Royal Dornoch is set high above Dornoch Firth, on the North Sea about an hour’s drive from Inverness. Visitors like me who tee off in spring or early summer are greeted by vast swaths of blooming gorse framing holes that hug an inland ridge before turning toward the sea.
Old Tom Morris laid out the original course in 1886. Gentle tweaking through the years has refined a layout that today seems to have emerged almost organically from the landscape. But what really sets Royal Dornoch apart are its signature raised and domed greens, a feature that makes approach play especially challenging. Donald Ross, who grew up in Dornoch and served for a time as the club’s green-keeper and head professional, famously copied the style of his home course’s greens when designing Pinehurst No. 2 after he emigrated to the United States.
Old Tom Morris designed both Royal Dornoch and Cruden Bay. (Image: St. Andrews Links Trust)
Since my visit, Royal Dornoch has unveiled a remodeling of its par-four seventh hole, known as ‘Pier,’ which was already one of the most beloved and photographed holes on the links. Tom Mackenzie, of the renowned architectural team of Mackenzie and Ebert, oversaw the pivoting of the hole to the right, so that the sea is now in view for the entire length of the hole. By all accounts, an already superb golf hole got significantly better. I can’t wait to see the changes.
The estimable Mackenzie also oversaw the upgrading of the ninth, tenth and sixteenth holes at Cruden Bay back in 2014. This magnificently dramatic links, which I had somehow never played before, was the most wonderful revelation of my trip.
Set on the east coast of Scotland, 23 miles north of Aberdeen, Cruden Bay is golf on the grand scale. Old Tom Morris, who left his giant footprints throughout the length of Scotland, built a links that twists through sand hills that tower as high as 60 feet. Fairways jump burns, climb dales and disappear into hidden nooks. When the rains lash and the winds howl, Cruden Bay becomes a cruel test of endurance. The Himalayan-like climb to the ninth tee—famous for its jaw-dropping outlook across the Bay of Cruden—could prove fatal to the unfit. But what a way to go!
Royal Dornoch or Cruden Bay? No wonder my choice of head cover inevitably comes down to a flip of my souvenir Old Course ball marker.
