Philip - I played Castle Stuart with Andrew Mitchell on Wednesday, May 19. We, too, had a beautiful day and, for the most part, the course all to ourselves.
My broad brush thoughts...
We had a wonderful time and enjoyed playing the course, but it was obviously designed and built to elicit the WOW factor. One can tell from your pixs that the course was created to photograph well.
The fairways are the widest, by far, of any I course I have ever played. I thought Mike Strantz created wide fairways, but they don't come close to the width at CS. In addition to wide, the fairways were very flat and smooth in the American fashion.
There is virtually no rough whatsoever at CS. And, according the the GM who we talked with after our round, that is by design "to increase the fun factor" for their guests. (his quote)
We found all the greens to be HUGH and extremely flat. Some had some internal contour leading from one level to another, but on the sections where the pins were located the greens had little on no movement at all. Again, according to the GM, that was by design to make scoring more fun and not frustrate their guests. Where the greens had some type of movement or "crumple" it seemed to be there for show (or photographs) rather than to challenge the golfer.
I agree that the par threes are excellent, and we particularly enjoyed the 4th with the Castle framed in the background.
The climb up the hill from 12 to 13 was a bit strange considering that the course was manufactured from scratch, ala Kingsbarns. But, they gave us a token to stop half way up the hill to get a "free" drink from the vending machine. I thought that was a creative way to get guests to break up the climb and not make it seem too severe. I wish they had a vending machine half way up Cardiac Hill at Cruden Bay!
Castle Stuart is a beautiful course that will please most golfers who are willing to pony up the 150 quid fee. But, at that price I'd rather play Dornoch twice.
The clubhouse is stunning. I hope you took advantage of the shower room. The showers would have to rank with some of the best in golf... especially since you can watch the action on the course while you rinse off the day's toil.
In talking with the GM we got the following tidbits:
1) They do not offer memberships to locals and have no plans to do so. Why? Because they do not operate on the membership model of most UK clubs in which membership fees are kept low. Castle Stuart is all about visitor play in same way as major American golf resorts. It's all about keeping the price high to impress corporate sponsor guests.
2) Their primary customer base is corporate. The only "members" are companies and the entire third floor of the clubhouse is reserved for corporate members and their guests.
3) According to the GM, the course was designed with wide fairways and flat greens so that guests of corporate clients would "have fun and not spend their day looking for golf balls or trying to tame wild greens."
For me, playing Castle Stuart was like dating a beautiful dumb blonde. It was a gorgeous course with stunning views... but, when you give it serious consideration there is not that much to bring you back.
To me, CS felt like an American interpretation of a faux links course. Sort of like a really wide Arcadia Bluffs without all the concrete cart paths where they tried to create 18 "signature" holes.
Even though this all sounds a bit harsh, I enjoyed my day at Castle Stuart and would love to go back... if I could go at half price!