Royal Dornoch Golf Club

Although it is located North of the usual centres of golf in Scotland, Royal Dornoch has a devoted following, including Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson, who made sure to get in a couple rounds here whenever they came to the country for the Open Championship. Students of golf in the US revere the club for having launched Donald Ross on the career that had such an influence on American course design; Ross was the professional and greenkeeper at Royal Dornoch in the late 1800's. There is evidence for golf at Royal Dornoch as early as the 1600s, though it wasn't until 1886 that the first eighteen were clearly laid out by Old Tom Morris. Elevated, "plateau" greens are one of the course's defining features, which Ross later made famous with his design of Pinehurst #2.