A little slice of golf heaven: Why the pilgrimage to Royal Dornoch is one you will never regret

Posted by & filed under Golf Courses, Golf Travel.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer

Think of the road to Royal Dornoch like a pilgrimage. It can be long. It can be arduous. It can feel like it’s never going to end. True believers, though, know what’s at the end of the journey.

Some of the finest golf you’ll ever play.

Believe me when I tell you, if you truly love the game, this is a trip you simply must make. For in this corner of the Highlands is a remarkable collection of courses, and you can experience some of them as part of the NCG Top 100s Tour.

There are so many delights on this special stretch of coastline: Golspie, Tain, Nairn, and Castle Stuart to name just a quartet.

But golf and Dornoch are inseparable. It’s believed the game was first played here in 1616 and it is no surprise it has such a rich history. The stunning coastline, brooding mountains beyond, and wild scenery are perfect for the sport. There are few better places to arrive with a pencil bag over a shoulder and a child-like enthusiasm to get straight out onto the fairways.

In summer, you can keep going almost until midnight. Plenty do.

Royal Dornoch is many people’s idea of the best course in Great Britain and Ireland. And when you’re there, bumping your way carefully through plateaued greens, almost impossible run-offs, and sea views, you find yourself agreeing with every word.

Where do you start in measuring its brilliance? The short 2nd, with its deep bunkers guarding the green and sharp banks on each side that make par almost impossible for anyone who misses the putting surface? Or is it the wonderful 4th and the fairway that slopes seawards?

The 6th, Whinny Brae, is simply magnificent – the three bunkers on the left of the putting surface drawing your ball, like a magnet, away from the superb green and the severe slopes behind.

Tom Mackenzie has re-worked the 7th, which slides across breath-taking views of Dornoch beach to a skyline green that has taken what was considered an ordinary hole and lifted it to the standards of its siblings.

The wonderful moments continue throughout, and you could list every hole with justification, but the 14th, Foxy, is probably the best known. Royal Dornoch’s signature is an anomaly on a links course. It has no bunkers and is a double dogleg.

The magic extends far beyond the course. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in many clubhouses. At few have I been welcomed with the warmth extended by the locals. It’s very easy to let the Guinness flow and the afternoon slip by.

That extends to the accommodation. Links House, found right next to the 1st tee, offers five-star, award winning rooms and fine dining. It is simply stunning – rightly described as the “perfect Highland retreat”.

The Main House was built in 1843 and the heritage oozes out of every pore. The two restaurants, Mara and The Courtroom, offer a varied and pleasurable dining experience to cater for all tastes.

As a vegetarian, I often struggle for options when eating out. Links House is a welcome exception.

There are 15 individually designed rooms, spread out across the Main House, The Mews, and the Glenshiel building, where I stayed.

Luxury isn’t a word that can adequately describe what you’ll find if you stay here. Excellence emanates from every nook and cranny. It is quite simply the finest accommodation I’ve ever seen.

If your trip to the Highlands must centre on Royal Dornoch, it would be a mistake to make it the only focus.

Twenty minutes up the North Sea coast is brilliant Brora and the most northerly memorial to James Braid is a course that almost became a victim of the coronavirus pandemic.

But a worldwide appeal raised a six-figure sum to secure the club’s future and it would have been a travesty had this masterpiece between allowed to close.

With bent grass, amazing conditioning, burns, holes that hug the contours of the bay amid the shadows of the Sutherland foothills, and the odd engagement with some cattle, a round here is a quite remarkable experience. 

It’s links golf at its most natural, and it’s got the holes to compete with the backdrop. Like the phenomenal par 3s, all of which play in different directions and harbour a series of incredible green sites.

Don’t let the length, just under 6,000 yards from the yellow tees, determine whether you visit. If you let the scorecard alone determine your thinking, you’ll be missing out on delights like the Sea Hole 9th, and the quite sensational 16th, with its green that sits on top of a hill at a right angle to the fairway.

If Dornoch might the reason you go to the Highland in the first place, Brora must be the reason you stay another day.

Nairn Dunbar, further down the Moray Firth, might be in the shadow of its more illustrious near neighbour but there are compelling reasons to ensure you drop into this outpost at the start of the journey home.

Picking up a series of plaudits and awards for their environmental work, the club is a shining example of how golf clubs need to be run in the age of climate change.

New sand areas and dunes are being re-established at various points on the course and the huge scrape that separates the 10th and 11th holes has wowed visitors.

Underneath that effort, though, is a seriously good golf course. The 7th, in particular, is spectacular. A huge bunker barely 175 yards off the tee should never come into play but it sits there unsettlingly in the eyeline. It feels like the fairway leans around it and the green, with another large sandy area sitting to its right, is tough to hit and contains three separate slopes.

The short 8th, with a narrow green set at an angle against four front bunkers, is down on the card as Nairn Dunbar’s easiest hole. Be assured it is not.

And the 13th, Long Peter, enjoys a linksy tee-shot that wouldn’t be out of place at any of its Highland rivals.

The journey may be long, the road may be winding, but if you make the effort to embrace Dornoch and the Highlands, you’ll return with memories to last a lifetime. That’s what a pilgrimage is all about, isn’t it?

 

Factfile

Travel

Strap yourselves in. There’s no getting away from it, it’s a trek to the Highlands. Google will tell you it’s nearly 11 hours from Central London and a whopping 612 miles to Dornoch. For those who take to the air, Inverness is the nearest airport and is 50 miles away from the Dornoch fairways. But it’s only a 15-minute run from the plane gates to Nairn Dunbar.

 

What you didn’t know

You might think Dornoch is just about golf, and its heritage with the sport stretches back hundreds of years. But the town has a cathedral which has held services for more than seven centuries. If you’re a fan of castles, and particularly the TV show Outlander, there are 24 of them to wander around in Sutherland, including Dunrobin, in nearby Golspie.

 

Where to eat and drink

There are two restaurants to choose from at Links House: Mara and The Courtroom. The former is described as one of the “finest dining experience in the Highlands” and focuses on seafood and Highland fayre. The Courtroom, meanwhile, is a buzzing bar and brasserie.

 

Must do

Golf and whiskey go hand in hand in this part of the world so make sure to pop in to the world famous Glenmorangie Distillery, and spend some time on the tour learning about mashing and fermenting – before buying out the shop!

 

Must see

Culloden was where the 1745 Jacobite Rising came to a tragic end and you can see the site of the confrontation between the British and those seeking to restore the Stuarts to the throne. The battlefield is close to Inverness and an hour drive from Dornoch.

How Sounder are changing the way we think about golf

Posted by & filed under Interviews.

The article below was written by Alex Perry, Digital Editor of National Club Golfer

What do you get when the founder of Urban Golf – the UK’s first and best indoor golf venue – and the founder of award-winning fashion label Folk team up to form a new golf brand? Sounder Golf is the brainchild of James Day and Cathal McAteer, who have created a range that is stylish and functional both on and off the golf course.

But this edition of the All the Gear podcast isn’t just about clothing. The team at Sounder have a vision of a game that is more accessible, inclusive, and fun – and they have plenty of exciting plans in the pipeline.

I sat down with James and Cathal to hear all about how they came to acquire the Sounder brand, what’s next, and much much more…

The All the Gear Podcast with Sounder Golf

You can listen to my fascinating conversation with James and Cathal about all things Sounder Golf by searching ‘The NCG Podcast’ on your preferred podcast platform.

What’s in Jin Young Ko’s bag?

Posted by & filed under Interviews.

The article below was written by Hannah Holden of National Club Golfer

Jin Young Ko has cemented herself as one of the best players in the world with six wins in her last 10 tournaments of the season – a run that has seen her break TWO astonishing LPGA records.

Jin Young Ko WITB

Ko doesn’t currently have an equipment deal. Instead she has a mixed set of golf clubs featuring numerous different brands.

We asked the two-time major champion in a recent interview why she is a free agent and she said she “likes the freedom to choose what’s best for me”.

She added: “The equipment must fit me well and give me a certain peace of mind. It also must satisfy my standards in terms of technical results.”

So what does she opt for?

 

Jin Young Ko WITB 2022

Driver: Titleist TSi3 (9°)

Fairway woods: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero (15° and 18°)

Hybrid: Titleist TSi2 (23°)

Irons: Bridgestone Tour Prototypes (Steelfiber proto shafts)

Wedges: Ping Glide Forged (50°, 52°, 60°)

Putter: Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

 

Jin Young Ko WITB 2021

Driver: Titleist TSi3 (9°)

Fairway woods: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero (15° and 18°)

Hybrid: Titleist TSi2 (23°)

Irons: Bridgestone Tour Prototypes (Steelfiber proto shafts)

Wedges: Ping Glide Forged (50°, 52°, 60°)

Putter: Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

 

Jin Young Ko WITB 2020

Driver: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero (9°)

Fairway woods: Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero (15° and 18°)

Hybrid: Titleist 818 H1 (23°)

Irons: Bridgestone Tour B X-CB, (Steelfiber proto shafts)

Wedges: Ping Glide Forged (50°, 52°, 60°)

Putter: TaylorMade Spider X

Golf Ball: Titleist Pro V1

 

‘Club membership should be fair for all’: Are the days of playing whenever you want coming to an end?

Posted by & filed under Debates.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer

I pay more than £1,000 for golf club membership. That might seem like small beer to some of you living down south, but it’s apparently grim up north – it really isn’t – and it remains a chunk of my salary.

For that not insignificant outlay, I get a seven-day membership and the ability to largely play when I want. I can probably tee it up every day if I wish.

That’s what we shell out for. The freedom of choice. But could times be changing? If we revisit this discussion in a decade, will we still have the option to play whenever we choose?

The issue of fair use is a debate dimly echoing around some golf clubs and there are those predicting it will only get louder in the months and years to come. While the pandemic brought a spectacular intake of new players to clubs, for many it also brought a problem they’d never seen before.

These new members all wanted to play – frequently in fact – and alongside the demands exhibited by existing players they squeezed the tee sheet.

Suddenly, it was fastest finger first to get a precious competition spot and some players were left empty handed and grumbling.

Such was the unprecedented demand in the immediate period after lockdown that many clubs rationed the number of rounds players could book.

Some, like Royal Norwich, have kept those provisions in place. Inspired by a move to a new course and a pandemic push to the fairways, the club have more than 1,200 members and a significant proportion of those take advantage of a points option.

A free-for-all on their tee sheet wouldn’t keep a fraction of everyone happy. So members can only have four priority bookings on the system in any 13-day period at the Weston Park club. That doesn’t stop them playing more, but they can only book extras on the day of play and if tee times are free.

“There are some members that will say it’s a terrible thing,” said Royal Norwich chief executive James Stanley when explaining the policy. “But it’s only because they can’t play millionaire’s golf.

“This will only make it a better golf club, because they have more opportunity to engage with it over the time that they are a member.”

If players are unhappy with fair use at Royal Norwich, they don’t seem to be voting with their feet. Membership is still buoyant.

But easing the pressure on a crammed tee sheet is just one part the equation. Another question is whether membership as it stands represents value for all members.

In an opinion piece for the Golf Club Managers’ Association, their former national captain, David O’Sullivan, asked whether current membership structures offered all golfers the same opportunities.

He branded golf club membership “a good deal for some”, making the obvious point – but one largely unconsidered – that while retired golfers and working players are paying the same fees one is probably playing far fewer rounds than the other.

“Perhaps it is time to ask exactly what we are offering for the cost of annual membership,” he wrote.

O’Sullivan suggested a fee that covered up to a certain number of rounds per year, with any additional charged on top. Having established that base, it would be far simpler, he argued, to be fairer in introducing other memberships that would be attractive to different groups.

He concluded: “Membership fees of a golf club set at a price regardless of the number of rounds played only suits the retired.

“It’s time to remind ourselves that private members’ golf clubs are custodians of sporting venues that enjoy generous tax advantages. We should therefore set membership fees that are fair to all and not favouring a certain age group.”

There will be golf clubs who might have some issues with that idea, given how the working player can prop up their yields. There would also be a debate about the premium of peak weekend use but, even so, the debate seems to be getting louder.

Those points memberships, once considered part of the race to the bottom, anecdotally seem to be proving ever popular. If more members begin to migrate to those options, because they fit in easier with their lives and represent better value, clubs will have to focus more upon them.

Perhaps the participation boom is at its peak and the overall demand for golf, which has shown no signs of dipping yet if Sports Marketing Surveys’ latest review of rounds played in Great Britain and Ireland is any judge, will begin to fall back towards pre-2020 levels.

But if they do not, and demand for tee times remains busy, clubs will be well aware there’s not much that sends a golfer to the exit door quicker than frustration at not being able to play at the times they want.

Are we about to see a shift in the dynamics of membership? Like many things with golf post-Covid, the future looks very interesting indeed.

What can (and can’t) you do if your ball is in a bunker?

Posted by & filed under Playing Tips.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer

The pros make it look simple. For the rest of us, though, the mere sight of a bunker is enough to send our scorecards all of a quicker.

A skirmish with the sand is just a regular fact of a life during a round but, even if you do have trouble extricating yourselves from them, do you know how the Rules of Golf treat a bunker?

Of course, you all know not to ground your club either right in front, or behind, of the ball and I’m sure you don’t need telling not to take some sand with you on your backswing.

But there’s plenty more to know about bunkers and Rule 12 in the Rules of Golf reveals all. So get your bucket and spade ready and ensure you’ll never fall foul again when you’re ball falls into the yellow stuff…

When is my ball in a bunker?

Let’s kick off with something that should, you might first think, seem obvious but I get quite a lot of questions about this and, thankfully, Rule 12.1 provides a full definition.

You can say your ball is in a bunker when any part of it either “touches sand on the ground inside the edge of the bunker” or, is inside the edge of the bunker and rests “on ground where sand normally would be”.

That would include an area where the sand had been either blown away or washed away. If your ball lies on a loose impediment, a movable obstruction, is in abnormal course condition, or an integral object that is either touching the sand, or is on ground where the sand would normally be, then your ball is also in the bunker.

It’s not in the bunker, though, if it is in the wall or face or if it lies on either soil or grass – or another growing or attached object – that’s inside the edge of the bunker without touching sand.

So, to put that in plain English for you, if you find your ball on one of those grassed areas that are sometimes found inside a trap, in that instance it would not be in the bunker.

Can I remove loose impediments and movable obstructions?

Yes you can, but be careful when shifting loose impediments under Rule 15.1. If the ball moves while you’re doing so, you’ll incur a one stroke penalty.

Removing either loose impediments or movable obstructions allows you to “reasonably touch” or move the sand while doing so under Rule 12.2a.

There is an interpretation to this rule that goes into some detail about what would be classed as reasonable, including a pretty good example involving a pine cone.

In this situation, the player drags the cone away and removes some sand from their area of intended swing. In this case, the interpretation says the player would get a penalty, under Rule 8.1a for improving the conditions of the stroke.

Why? Did they need to drag the cone away, or could they have just picked it straight up? The rule judges they could have used a “less intrusive” way to do it.

Remember that just because you can take an action that allows you to do something that might otherwise breach a rule, don’t take it to extremes.

What can’t I do in a bunker?

We’ve just shown you an example of where you can fall foul. Rule 12.2b – Restrictions on Touching Sand in Bunker – outlines many more.

You’ll be aware of most. You can’t make a practice swing that touches sand, for instance, and neither can you touch sand in your backswing.

You can’t touch the sand with a club either in the area right in front or right behind the ball (unless you’re looking for a ball or removing a loose impediment or movable obstruction).

And you also can’t either use a club, your hand, or really any other object to test the condition of the sand to help your next shot.

But aren’t there occasions where I can touch the sand?

There are indeed. The 2019 rules changes loosened some of the restrictions that had previously been in place and you no longer were penalised for generally touching the sand in a bunker. That means you can lean on a club to rest, to balance yourself or prevent a fall, you can place objects (including your clubs) in the bunker and you can even chuck them in if you want.

You already know you can dig in with your feet to make a stance either for the shot itself, or a practice swing. And you can even have a strop in the sand and won’t be penalised for striking it in anger.

Smoothing the sand to care for the course and taking actions under a Rule – such as marking, lifting and replacing – will also be sanction free.

But the spectre of Rule 8.1a is always hanging over to you to an extent here. Your actions in touching the sand can’t improve the conditions affecting the stroke. If they do, it’s the general penalty (two shots or loss of hole in match play) for you.

What happens once the ball is out of the sand?

Touch the sand, or smooth it to care for the case. That is the case even if you have to drop a ball in the bunker, by taking stroke-and-distance relief, or if the sand in the bunker is on your line of play and you are taking your next shot from outside the trap.

But – there’s always a but, isn’t there? – if you played a bunker shot, and it comes back into the bunker, or if you drop the ball in the bunker, all those restrictions you’ve seen in Rule 12.2b or 8.1a are now back in play.

That’s why you’ll sometimes see a player who has hit a bunker shot, and knows it’s coming back into the trap, feverishly cleaning up before the ball gets there.

What is AI design in golf clubs?

Posted by & filed under Golf Equipment.

The article below was written by James Somerside of National Club Golfer

A key part of Callaway Golf’s product launches since 2020 has been the involvement of artificial intelligence, or AI. Despite being something more usually associated with Sci-Fi movies, Callaway claim that the utilisation of AI has revolutionised how they build their clubs – notably the faces on their metalwoods. 

But what is AI design, and how does it work?

What is AI design in golf clubs?

The short answer is that the R&D team at Callaway feed some information about the way certain types of golfers strike the ball into a super computer, and let it whizz away to spit out the formula for making a clubface which best helps to suit those golfers – be it Tour Pros or higher-handicap amateurs. This face is then built into the design of the golf club, and hey presto! You’ve got yourself a snazzy new Driver! 

However, as you might expect, there’s slightly more to it than this. In order to produce the faces suggested by the algorithms within the computers, Callaway’s designer and developers had to totally change the way they went about building clubs, with new manufacturing processes needed to actually create the super-thin titanium faces required for the product design. This also included finding an entirely new titanium alloy that was strong enough to be used in golf clubs when coupled with these unique designs!

The good news for Callaway was that the use of AI actually sped up a lot of their day to day development. For the debut of their ‘Flash Face’, first seen in the Epic Flash drivers, the company used machine learning to cycle through 15,000 designs, something which would have previously been wholly unrealistic in the building of a new club.

The company also found assistance from the AI in the overall designs of the clubs too, not just the driver faces themselves, helping to develop their full golf club offering – helping with aerodynamics, launch, spin, feel, and forgiveness. This allows them to more quickly test new theories or designs, helping to hone in on the final version more easily.

What’s more, with decades of data from golfers of all ability, Callaway Golf have been able to use AI to more easily build differences into the design of their products to suit different types of golfer – even within the same product family. 

In their current lineup, whilst the naming of the Rogue ST MAX, MAX D, MAX LS and Triple Diamond LS may be similar, the products themselves differ greatly, and have been created for differing golfers. The low spin models (LS) are generally designed for the better player, helping to manage unwanted spin, with the MAX and MAX D (draw) models generally offering a touch more forgiveness for those that may not always find the centre of the face…

However, even after just a couple of years, the AI innovation is not limited to metalwoods, with the company using it to help develop their iron lineup too. 

The Rogue ST iron range features an AI-designed Flash Cup Face, designed to maintain ball speed across the face of the club, helping to get your approaches pin-high, even on  poorer swings. Additionally, the AI technology has been used in Callaway irons to create more optimised launch, loft and spin throughout the set. Although all of the major brands will now tailor their lofts according to the wider designs of their irons (and the needs of the intended customer), Callaway claim the use of AI maximises performance, enabling their designers to make minor adjustments which maintain consistency, and forgiveness, throughout their sets. 

One last, but important, point to mention is how AI is helping Callaway create and refine separate technologies within their products. The most pertinent example being their much-discussed ‘Jailbreak’ technology. Whilst this was first seen in their 2017 Epic range of metalwoods, AI has helped the company to tweak the initial design from two bars which joined the crown to the sole of the golf club, to the new ‘Jailbreak Speedframe’ – something which spreads this forgiveness wider across the clubface and helps increase ball speed. 

So, the next time you fly your new Callaway driver past your playing partners, flush your fairway woods or manage to hit the green on a slightly missed iron shot, you can thank the kind folk in Callaway R&D for adding a team of super-computers brimming with AI to their already impressive team!