Nairn Golf Club
A modern clubhouse with a traditional club atmosphere and modern standards of care. A great combination as too often you find a traditional atmosphere wedded to boorish service. A delicious Cullen skink set me up for the afternoon: a quick warmup (felt good), a putt or two (completely disorientating) and we were away.
My playing partner’s card was rather more elegant than mine so I shall defer to him. Sunshine was notable in its absence along the foreshore and glimmered as rarely as I hit a decent shot. I must admit to being in a cold hearted funk sometimes as cold as my fingertips in the squalls of icy rain whilst my partners metronome kept ticking.
Much as I was loving the course it wasn’t giving anything back excepting a long putt from the edge of the green on 12. A lovely hole which starts the famous three hole swing through the least linksy part of the course where the holes divert you up the hill on 13 through the trees and climb up to a raised and tiered green.
Exhausted from the climb up 13 you find yourself on the next tee. A nice downhill par three with the view to the Black Isle. Take an easy breath, take it all in and choose your club. Have you anything longer than a driver? Might be your first thought. Rarely, can it be anything less and there is no obvious option to make it a regulation four either.
So often the least linksy holes on a course seem like fillers. These are not they. They are stubborn handsome and with extensive views to the Black Isle. Though it has to be said pretty much everything was looking black by that time of day.
The pressure eases on the closing holes even if the familiar swing and ease did not return to my game as it often does as the round closes, a mixture of pressure off and the mind uncluttering.
In my funk I did not truly describe the nature of so many of the foreshore holes going out. Some large greens in natural depressions some upturned bowls but all offering precise routes in but only imaginative ways to escape from any errant swing. Glorious natural golfing country.
Rain was not absent which made the break in the unadorned halfway hut all the more welcome. Unfortunately, the Norwegians ahead of us thinking this one of the glory days of summer strode on after a cursory glance inside. Do they not respect the traditional Scots hospitality and allow me a prolonged break from my agonies?
My impressions were clouded but there is a lot of sunshine golf to be found here. And the courtesy green fees allowed us to make a substantial donation to Alzheimer’s Society for which enormous thanks
