Royal Dornoch Championship Course vs The Nairn Golf Club

Royal Dornoch is the reason people drive north. Old Tom Morris laid it out in 1877 and Donald Ross — who grew up in the village and learned the game on it — extended it in 1904; it is regularly ranked in the world top ten, and at 6,596 yards off the whites it is not a long course, which tells you the defences are elsewhere. The gorse, the raised greens and the wind off the firth do the work.

Nairn is twenty-five minutes from Inverness airport rather than fifty miles further north, and it is a genuine championship links in its own right: Archie Simpson in 1887, Old Tom Morris extended it in 1890, then James Braid and Ben Sayers had a hand in it. It hosted the 1999 Walker Cup. At 6,832 yards it is the longer of the two, and the opening holes run so close to the Moray Firth that a hooked drive is in the sea.

Dornoch is the better golf course and almost everyone who plays both says so. But Nairn is materially cheaper in winter and shoulder season, an hour less driving each way, and good enough that on a short trip it is the sensible anchor round. If you have four days, play both — they are ninety minutes apart and they are the two halves of Highland links golf.