Tain Golf Club

Tain Golf Club sits on the south shore of the Dornoch Firth, directly across the water from Royal Dornoch, and occupies a Tom Morris layout from 1890 that has evolved over the following century without losing the essential character of the original routing. The course runs along a strip of links ground between the town of Tain and the firth, with views across the water to the Sutherland hills on every outward hole.

At par 70 and around 6,000 yards, Tain plays as a proper links test — tight fairways, fescue rough that penalises the wayward, and greens that sit into the natural fall of the land in the way Morris consistently achieved on his northern designs. The 6th, played along the firth shore with the water immediately right, is the photographic hole; the 14th and 15th are the ones that decide most cards.

Green fee is £55–75 — around a third of the Royal Dornoch rate for a course on the same stretch of coastline. Visitor access is straightforward; book by phone or online. A Dornoch Firth day works well as a morning at Tain followed by an afternoon at the Royal Dornoch Struie — two rounds for a combined fee of £105–150, covering different interpretations of the same Highland links landscape.

Tain town has a decent pub and restaurant provision for an overnight stop, and the drive north from Inverness on the A9 passes through some of the most attractive Easter Ross countryside in the region. For visitors building a Highland golf week with Dornoch as the centrepiece, Tain is the most logical supporting course.