Scottish Highlands Golf: Hidden Gems for the Adventurous Golfer

Most visitors to Scottish Highland golf drive to Royal Dornoch, play the Championship Course, and drive back. Dornoch deserves the pilgrimage. But the road north from Inverness passes a string of courses — Fortrose, Tain, Dornoch, Brora, Golspie, Helmsdale, Brora, Reay — that collectively represent one of the great undiscovered golf routes in the world.

These are not famous courses. Several charge under £50. Several are nine holes. Some are genuinely remote in the sense that you'll arrive to find the pro shop unmanned, a note on the door, and an honesty box for your green fee. That informality is not a drawback.

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The royal heartland: Dornoch and the Dornoch Firth

Royal Dornoch Championship Course (£215–£360)

The one most visitors make the journey for, and the journey is justified. Tom Watson, who played Dornoch while on honeymoon in 1981, called it the most fun he'd ever had on a golf course. The ranking — consistently in the world's top ten — reflects a course of genuine quality, not marketing.

The course was originally laid out in 1877 by Old Tom Morris and evolved over the following decades, with Donald Ross contributing significant work in the early twentieth century before emigrating to the US and designing Pinehurst No. 2. Ross's understanding of green complexes is credited in the Dornoch greens, which are more subtly contoured and more severely punishing to the wrong approach angle than they appear from the fairway.

Visitor access is good by the standards of a top-ten world ranking — online booking, no member introduction required, handicap certificate needed (24/36). Summer tee times sell out quickly; book months ahead.

Royal Dornoch Struie Course (£75–£95)

The secondary course at Royal Dornoch, separate membership, same quality of maintenance, £75 entry. For those who can't get on the Championship Course or want a second day's golf at a fraction of the price, the Struie is the answer. Shorter and less celebrated, but built on the same links ground with the same conditioning philosophy.

Tain Golf Club (£55–£75)

A Tom Morris 1890 design on the south shore of the Dornoch Firth, directly across the water from Dornoch itself. The course runs along a strip of coastal links with the firth views on one side and the Ross-shire hills on the other. Tain is significantly underplayed relative to its quality — it regularly features in lists of Scotland's hidden gems and is significantly underpriced relative to what it offers.

Visitor access is good; book by phone or email. The town of Tain itself is pleasant and has enough pubs and restaurants for an overnight stay.

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The Sutherland sequence: Brora, Golspie, Helmsdale

Brora Golf Club (£80–£180)

Brora is Scotland's most relaxed major golf course — and when I say relaxed I mean it in the technical sense that the course shares its fairways with sheep and cattle via an ancient grazing rights arrangement. Electric fences protect the greens. Cows wander through the rough. None of this is metaphorical.

The course is a James Braid design from 1923 on a stretch of coast north of Golspie, and the combination of the setting — wide links, the sea, the hills — and the farming practicalities is entirely characteristic of the far north. The 6th hole, played along the beach, is the photograph. The 16th, around a natural inlet, is the one that wins. Dogs are welcome.

Green fee: £80–£180 depending on season. Most visitors who know Brora make the journey specifically for it, then add Golspie as the second half of the day.

Golspie Golf Club (£50–£120)

Immediately south of Brora, 20 minutes by road. James Braid again, 1904. The course is slightly shorter and simpler than Brora but occupies the same coastal strip and is priced significantly lower. Green fee of £50–£120 depending on season — the shoulder-season rates for a round in this setting and condition are exceptional value.

Golspie is the last town on the A9 before it turns inland for the last 30 miles to Wick and Thurso. As a golfing stop on the route north, it's the obvious one.

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The Black Isle and Moray Firth south shore

Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club (£45–£60)

A James Braid layout on the Chanonry Point peninsula — a narrow finger of land that juts into the Moray Firth at the eastern tip of the Black Isle. The course is famously narrow; the peninsula is perhaps half a mile wide at its widest and the golf uses most of it. Chanonry lighthouse stands at the point, and the strip of beach below the lighthouse is one of the best places in Scotland to see bottlenose dolphins close to shore.

The 14th, played along the edge of the firth with the lighthouse in the background, is the hole that gets talked about. Green fee: £45–£60. Visitors welcome. A 30-minute drive from Inverness via the Kessock Bridge.

Inverness Golf Club (£65–£85)

The city's main private golf club — a parkland course on the edge of Inverness with good facilities and comfortable visitor access. Not a links and not in the same category as the coastal courses, but useful for visitors based in the city who want a round without a long drive.

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The far north: Reay and Durness

Reay Golf Club (£30–£70)

Caithness. The road goes past the Dounreay nuclear decommissioning site on the way to the course, and the reactor dome is visible from several fairways — an involuntary piece of industrial context that no other Scottish links can match. The course itself is a proper links, founded 1893, overlooking the Pentland Firth. Par 69, 5,832 yards. Day fee £30–£70. Honesty box.

Durness Golf Club (£30–£70)

Nine holes on the Balnakeil headland before Cape Wrath — the club's own claim, and a sound one, is Britain's most north-westerly course on the mainland. The last hole is played across a natural sea inlet to a green on the other side: a genuine par 3 in the literal sense, in that you play across the Atlantic to reach it. The fees have crept up with the course's reputation — £30 for nine holes, £55 for eighteen, £70 for the day — but the setting remains extraordinary and the accolades (Scotland's best nine-hole course, 2025) are now official.

Getting there: three hours from Inverness, mostly single-track road. The village of Durness has a craft village, a hotel, and a pub. You'll need a car and a full day, but golf does not get more north-westerly than this on the British mainland.

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Practical notes for a Highland golf trip

Drive north: The A9 from Inverness to Wick, with diversions to the courses listed above, covers the main Highland golf corridor. Allow five to six days for a serious exploration.

Stay in Dornoch: The town provides the best base for the Dornoch Firth cluster — Championship Course, Struie, Tain, and Golspie are all within 45 minutes. The Royal Golf Hotel and several B&Bs cater to golfers.

Booking: Many Highland courses accept walk-in play. The rule of thumb is: the smaller and more remote the course, the less you need to book ahead. Royal Dornoch Championship Course requires advance booking months ahead in peak season; Durness requires nothing.

Season: May through September. The Highland courses close or reduce hours in winter. June and July give the longest daylight (up to 18 hours this far north); September offers quieter courses and often the best weather.

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For Royal Dornoch in detail: Royal Dornoch — Is the Journey Worth It?. For the Ayrshire links equivalent: Ayrshire Golf Guide — Playing the Open Coast for Less.