Royal Dornoch Golf Club is a golf club in

Dornoch Dornoch (; gd, Dòrnach ; sco, Dornach) is a town, seaside resort, parish and former royal burgh in the county of Sutherland in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Dornoch Firth, near to where it opens into the Moray ...

, Sutherland, Scotland. It is generally referred to as Royal Dornoch. The club has two 18-hole courses: the Championship Course and the Struie Course. The older Championship Course is a links course located on the

Dornoch Firth The Dornoch Firth ( gd, Caolas Dhòrnaich, ) is a firth on the east coast of Highland, in northern Scotland. It forms part of the boundary between Ross and Cromarty, to the south, and Sutherland, to the north. The firth is designated as a nat ...

. Royal Dornoch has never hosted any of the modern professional tournaments. The

British Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship (sometimes referred to as the British Amateur or British Amateur Championship outside the UK) is a golf tournament which has been held annually in the United Kingdom since 1885 except during the two World Wars, and in 19 ...

was held there in 1985 and the

Scottish Amateur The Scottish Amateur is the national amateur match play golf championship of Scotland. It has been played since 1922 and is organised by the Scottish Golf Union. It is a "closed" event with entry currently restricted to those who were either bor ...

in 1993, 2000, and 2012. The Women's and Men's Senior Amateur championships will be held at Royal Dornoch in 2022. The Championship Course was ranked No. 3 on the 2007 ''

Golf Digest ''Golf Digest'' is a monthly golf magazine published by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit under its Warner Bros. Discovery Golf division. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's competiti ...

'' list of Top 100 International (outside U.S.) courses. David Brice, of ''Golf International'', called it the "king of Scottish links courses". The internationally renowned Championship Course at Royal Dornoch Golf Club was named No. 1 in the world by the online golf reservation service golfscape.

History

Golf was played in Dornoch, over the extensive linksland there, in the early seventeenth century, circa 1616. Expenses covering the cost of a young aristocrat's golf clubs in 1616 have provided the earliest evidence so far of the sport's presence in Dornoch. John, the 13th Earl of Sutherland, was sent to the town in Sutherland to be educated. The reference was uncovered by researcher Wade Cormack, who is a PhD student at the University of the Highlands and Islands. The current golf club was established in 1877, and was awarded its royal status in 1906 by King Edward VII. The design of the Championship Course is attributed to

Old Tom Morris Thomas Mitchell Morris (16 June 1821 – 24 May 1908), otherwise known as Old Tom Morris, and The Grand Old Man of Golf, was a Scottish golfer. He was born in St Andrews, Fife, the "home of golf" and location of the St Andrews Links, and died ...

. Several of the original holes were lost to the construction of an airfield during World War II. After the war, George Duncan was commissioned to restore and extend the course over newly acquired land. The work introduced the present 6th through 11th holes on the Championship Course. Tom Watson is an honorary member of Royal Dornoch, and is quoted as saying of Dornoch: "It's the most fun I've ever had on a golf course" which was the home of the course architect Donald Ross. Members of the club traveled to the

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

United States in September 2005 for a friendly international competition and cultural exchange with the

Coeur d'Alene Tribe The Coeur d'Alene (also ''Skitswish''; natively ''Schi̲tsu'umsh'') are a Native American nation and one of five federally recognized tribes in the state of Idaho. The Coeur d'Alene have sovereign control of their Coeur d'Alene Reservation, w ...

at their

Circling Raven Golf Club Circling Raven Golf Club is an 18-hole championship golf course in the northwest United States, located in northern Idaho near Worley. It was rated the third best public course in Idaho by '' Golf Digest'' in August 2015. Owned and operated by t ...

in northern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

Scorecard

Source:

References

External links

* Golf clubs and courses in Highland (council area) 1877 establishments in Scotland Sports venues completed in 1877 Sport in Sutherland Dornoch Royal golf clubs {{golfcourse-stub

History

Scorecard

See also

References

External links