North to the Links of ... Castle Stuart!

[Ran Morrissett]

Those are some of Herbert Warren Wind’s words, part of his epic piece for the New Yorker extolling the virtues of Dornoch, at the time a remote, little known paragon of links golf. My visits to Castle Stuart remind me of that illuminating article and rouse the same emotions that Wind so eloquently expressed. Castle Stuart's profile is now posted under Courses by Country and Architecture Timeline.

I first visited Castle Stuart with Joe and his son May last year and did what so many lame Americans do: played it once, had a great time and hustled off to our next destination. We expect our hero architects to live and breathe a course during construction and then we breeze in and out – THE HYPOCRISY IS PATHETIC. The lighting on that May day was not ideal for course photography. While the beauty and pleasure of the course was still readily apparent, I had only scratched the surface of gleaning much about this nuanced design. The manner of Michelson’s thrilling win there last July fortified my opinion that this was 'a GCA kind of course.’ It became my #1 must-see for 2014 and a November visit with my girlfriend, Fritz, was scheduled.

As you know, the latitude of the Scottish highlands enables one to play 54 or more holes during those endless summer days but the same geometry extracts a toll in the late fall and winter when daylight becomes stingy. Hopeful that the fates would be kind, I took a 7:30 AM stroll up the 18th to the high spot of the property and awaited sunrise a few weeks ago. Would the Golfing Gods cooperate? You tell me! If any Castle Stuart devotee wants one of my photos, email me at rmorrissett@cabotlinks.com and I'll send you the 2mb jpeg.  My favorite depicts the rumple before the 13th green but Joe prefers the 3rd green, my brother John the 6th, Chris the 11th and Fritz the 18th - you get the idea.


No matter which way you turn at Castle Stuart, you’ll like what you see. Looking back down the fourth with the third flag at attention.

Some sniff that the design puts aesthetics first. That’s preposterous, this is one of the world’s most strategic courses and the golfing quality matches the aesthetics step-for-step. I hope its profile conveys that; if not, I failed. Its inimitable design is a very tall hurdle for Mark Parsinen & Co. to build a companion course that will pry people away from the original. If anyone can, they will.

To me, the litmus test of any course in this go-go world is when and if you are planning a return visit. If you're not, don't dare call the course 'world class' or 'great.' For me, the sooner, the better! How about you?

Best and Happy Thanksgiving,

[Ronald Montesano]

I paid no attention the Scottish Opens at CS beyond scores, principally because I don't have Golf Channel. Those greens dropped my jaw to the ground. I attempted to ratchet it back into position, but then the fairway undulations returned it to the basement. Thanks for this course review, Ran.

[David_Tepper]

Ran -

As one of earliest proponents of CS on this board, I am glad you have now had the opportunity to fully appreciate its charms. Nice photos and a wonderful writeup of the course.

DT

[Padraig Dooley]

Despite having watched a little of the coverage of the Scottish Open, I find Ran's review a far more compelling insight into the golf course and way more persuading of a golfer to head north to play this course.

[Rich Goodale]

Superb profile, Ran.  When I first saw and then played Castle Stuart several several times several years ago I wondered if I had found the first 3*** course of the modern age, but I controlled myself, gave it 2** and decided to wait to see how things turned out.  Later reports on this website complaining about its relative "easiness" as well as my initial concerns about the severe two-tier landform led me to keep that rating, but your photos and comments have made me rethink my experiences of the course and move towards my first impressions.

For one thing, from your photos I can see and remember in my mind's eye every single one of the holes on that course and how they lead and follow each other over the landscape, even though I have walked/played that course less than a handful of times.  My limited depth of experience on most of the other highly regarded courses of the past 15 years (i.e. all of Bandon, all of Mullen, Renaissance, Kingsbarns, Trump Aberdeen, etc.) has never led me to such intimate memories.  I smile when I see each of the holes you have photographed, and am now planning to go back again to see if my instinct is right.

Until then, I now think that Castle Stuart is the best of the modern lot.  In fact, I think that technically it is as good as Dornoch, which I would not say of any of the other courses I mentioned above (or few if any other courses in the world).  Experience-wise, it lacks Dornoch's links to history and its human ambience, but if pure golf is what you are after, Castle Stuart has it all.

Thanks for the enlightenment

Rich

[Thomas Dai]

Sensational stuff. A great read with wonderful photo's, espcially the low level ones. Well done.

atb

[Michael Graham]

A fantastic tour as always Ran. I played 36 holes over consecutive days at Castle Stuart in October 2013 and can just about recall every shot I played let alone each hole. It's a special course in a special part of the world. I'm looking forward to my return visit in June and your wonderful photographs have only increased the anticipation.

Michael

[Kyle Henderson]

Sadly, I could only the tour the course and was not able to play it, as it opened a month after my only visit to the U.K. Should I ever get back over the pond, CS is right at the top of my list of places to play. It truly looked sublime.

[Ash Towe]

A wonderful tour and magnificent photos. Truely wetted my appetite for my trip there in July next year.

[Niall C]

"Some sniff that the design puts aesthetics first. That’s preposterous, this is one of the world’s most strategic courses and the golfing quality matches the aesthetics step-for-step."

Yep, I was one of those. They moved heaven and earth to create the aesthetics while the course is a long, long way short of being the strategic masterpiece that Ran suggests. A very nice course and a pleasure to play for sure, particularly how well Chris and his team keeps it but one of the world's most strategic ? I don't think so.

It's an old argument about this course but acres of width doesn't automatically produce strategy, at least not in the meaningful sense. It just encourages the ignorant blooter. Why ? Because often it makes very little difference as to which side you come in from for your next shot. The obvious exceptions to that are the 3rd and the 6th which basically present the same problem. A narrow green (both of which have the same alignment) and a bunker 50-70 yards short of the green in the spot you'd want to place your ball to make the approach. A nice idea, so good in fact they did it twice.

Another narrow green is the 14th that Ran suggests you need to be down the left for the favoured angle for approach. Can I suggest that is correct if you hit the ball well over 300 yards as to be able to play down that green with any kind of run you need to be 20-30 yards short of it. For the rest of us ordinary mortals who will likely be hitting a full iron in, it's an aerial shot. A very challenging shot and good fun for sure but maybe an example where the built reality didn't quite match the design intent.

Another example of that is the 17th. I spent a week marshalling at that hole at the Scottish Open, watching some of the best golfers on the planet trying to make sense of it. I spent equal time at the green as I did standing on the tee, and frankly after a week, none of us, the other marshalls included, had no idea whether a shot was going to be good while it was in the air. Some took the left to right bounce others didn't and eventually we came to the conclusion it was a hit and hope.

As for the 18th, well if you didn't know to aim for the flagpole off the tee there's no way you'd intuitively know where the fairway was from the tee set up (maybe that's a cunning plan to get players to use caddies  ). Then unless you're a big hitter and you've hit a very long drive where you've got a choice of going for the green then it's a punt down to the left followed by a short iron in. Nice enough hole with, yes I'm going to say it, very nice aesthetics but one of the great finishing holes ? eh, actually no.

Now you might think from the foregoing that I'm not a fan of Castle Stuart or indeed Mark Parsinen. In fact I like the course well enough and from the one time I met Mark he was a very gracious, intelligent and interesting host. I'd definitely go and play any new courses of his in a hurry and I certainly wish more power to his elbow. However the praise for this course is IMO not only over the top but misplaced in terms of its supposed strategic properties but then who am I to judge  .

Niall

[David_Tepper]

Niall -

You must be feeling better!

DT

[Jon Wiggett]

Niall,

I have to disagree with you here. The course offers lots of choice in how to play nearly every hole. Having played it 4 times so far I found it to be a different challenge each time and a course that is just as playable for a beginner as a challenge for a low handicapper. In fact the only hole I don't like is the much photographed 11th which I find to be very one dimensional.  I agree whole heartedly about 17 being a lottery from the back tees but it is great playing from the front tees with a medium to short iron using the slope to feed it in from the front left.

Jon

[Mark Pearce]

Jon,

Niall isn't saying there isn't plenty of choice.  He's saying (as I read it anyway) that those choices aren't really strategic choices.

[Jon Wiggett]

Mark,

I think you and more importantly Niall need to define strategic choice. To use his own phrase Niall appears to be somewhat sniffy about 14.

Another narrow green is the 14th that Ran suggests you need to be down the left for the favoured angle for approach. Can I suggest that is correct if you hit the ball well over 300 yards as to be able to play down that green with any kind of run you need to be 20-30 yards short of it. For the rest of us ordinary mortals who will likely be hitting a full iron in, it's an aerial shot. A very challenging shot and good fun for sure but maybe an example where the built reality didn't quite match the design intent.

Niall

What is he saying? Is there really no difference on 14 from the right side or left side of the fairway. Anyone claiming such has clearly not looked properly at the hole. At 250 yards off the tee from the left side you are coming in down the length of this green which runs away from you. You can land it short and let it run on or long and let it come back of the slope acting as a backstop and still be putting. Where as playing from the right side requires a shot to be landed on the first few yards of this raised green to have any hope of staying on the green. To short or too long will leave you with a tricky shot up a steep slope to the green. Where is the similarity here?

When stood 80 yards short of the putting surface, left side of the fairway you can hit a lofted wedge, a chip and run with a mid iron or even a putter (I have hit all three). Having played with Niall on several occasions I know he is not overly enamoured with CS but am surprised he thinks it holds little variation in challenge and choice.

I must have misunderstood but for me the best combination of your playing ability strengths to over come the challenges the hole sets you is the strategy you use to play. The only hole that has NO strategy is one that is unplayable as far as I understand so I will wait your reply with interest.

Jon

[Matt MacIver]

For context you can look at Ran's ratings in the new CG: he gives CS an 8 along with nearly three dozen others with only a select few ranked higher: TOC and RCD; and Dornoch, Ballybunion, RSG, Lahinch and Prestwick.

I for one have loved the television coverage and pictures and it might be the tie-breaker on me choosing to visiti the region next, vs say Muirfield et al.

[Mark Pearce]

Jon,

As I understand Niall he is disagreeing with you.  He is saying that where in the wide fairways you leave your ball makes no difference to the difficulty of your approach.  I'm not commenting on whether that is right or not.  Where you are clearly wrong is in suggesting that the only hole with no strategy is unplayable.  A hole with a 100 yard wide fairway and a large circular green with circularly symmetrical hazards is clearly playable but has no strategy.

[Jon Wiggett]

Mark,

it is difficult to know what you mean as you have not answered what you think strategic choice is. For me the way a player choses to tackle a hole is the strategy ergo only a hole that cannot be played is without strategic choice. Your example is of a hole where all routes offer a similar challenge yet choice of club and direction still need to be made.

In effect, the hole does not have strategy but how the player choses to play it is the strategic choice. Therefore, in effect the lesser the ability of the player the lower the players strategic choice is.

As for Niall's position of it not mattering where you approach the green from my experience of the course that is clearly not the case and so I do not believe this to be what he means.

Jon

[Ryan Coles]

I loved Castle Stuart and have it in my top 3.

But I agree with Niall. Most fairways are simply too wide and removes part of the challenge of golf. Ie the ability to drive the ball somewhere near where you're aiming. On most holes it makes little difference which side you come in from unless you're looking for nuance or subtlety that frankly isn't there.

I can't split CS and KB but I think the latter has more interest from the tee, even if the gathering slopes effectively make it equally as wide. As with funky greens, that much width outside of the old course is just not very british.

[Mark Pearce]

Jon,

A hole where the design of the hole itself does not impact on the strategic choices a player is making is not a hole with a strategic design.  In the example I gave the player may be making strategic choices but they are facile and entirely unsatisfying.  It may have strategy but, to quote Niall, not in a meaningful sense.

[Thomas Dai]

Wasn't there some talk about a second course at CS? Any news?
atb

[Greg Taylor]

I loved Castle Stuart and have it in my top 3.

But I agree with Niall. Most fairways are simply too wide and removes part of the challenge of golf. Ie the ability to drive the ball somewhere near where you're aiming. On most holes it makes little difference which side you come in from unless you're looking for nuance or subtlety that frankly isn't there.

I can't split CS and KB but I think the latter has more interest from the tee, even if the gathering slopes effectively make it equally as wide. As with funky greens, that much width outside of the old course is just not very british.

I agree too.

I enjoyed CS and the width off the tee made if an easy-ish ride... but somehow I felt it lacked something and as Niall points out it may be that the width doesn't deliver strategy... it's pretty much smash it as hard as you can within reason.

I'm all for width so long as there is a strategy which in turn makes a challenge... otherwise, what's the point?

I should say I have only played it once... And yes #3, #11 etc... are great holes - no question.

And the overhead showing the tenth green - wow!

[Jon Wiggett]

Mark,

IMO a hole cannot be strategic as the hole in itself has no choice. It is what it is and cannot in itself change so can have no real influence on strategy. The hole sets the player a challenge which the player has to solve as best he can using his playing abilities and the conditions at the point of playing to set his strategy.

Greg, Niall, Mark and the rest saying that CS width is meaningless. I do wonder if you have looked at the holes properly when playing.

On 2 if you are on the left of the fairway off the tee shot you can see the putting surface and you are playing down the line of the green where as on the right you face a semi bling shot where a left to right shape is required. Are you really saying that there is no advantage to seeing the shot you are trying to hit?

On 5 hitting the left side leaves a shot into the upslope of the green whereas being right will get you down the slope and the extra distance but leaves you playing across the shoulder in front of the green and across the slope of the green. Two very different challenges in my opinion where as the same to you boys.

On 7 right side of the fairway leaves you with a blind shot to a green that is sloping away from you from that angle where as the left side leaves a straight forward shot to the visible green.

On 9 being down the right leaves a tricky, uphill shot to the green whereas left leaves a longer shot but one where you are at the same level as the green. Standard wedge/ 9 iron to a visible putting surface verses a lofted wedge to a blind putting surface hardly the same shot you suggest it to be.

The back 9 is a similar story though I would be interested to hear why Greg thinks 11 is such a great hole as it is the one disappointment in the round to me. Yes, it is top notch in the eye candy league but I find it very one dimensional. To me it gives you one option and if you fail your stuffed so I do wonder what makes it a great hole as I am missing it at the moment.

If someone could give multiple example that stands up as to a hole where left and right side of the fairway leaves the same shot.

Jon

[Rich Goodale]

Jon,

A hole where the design of the hole itself does not impact on the strategic choices a player is making is not a hole with a strategic design.  In the example I gave the player may be making strategic choices but they are facile and entirely unsatisfying.  It may have strategy but, to quote Niall, not in a meaningful sense.

Mark

Jon is right.  Golf holes do not have "strategy" anymore than do battlefields.  People playing golf or fighting a war or trying to dominate a market have strategeis, no matter how interesting (or bland) the playing field might be.

Rich

[Mark Pearce]

Rich,

I do admire your love of the obtuse.  Jon may, literally, be correct.  However, his approach, taken to the extremes he appears to want to take it, would require any discussion about strategy in golf to contain more words than anyone could possibly wish to see.  Some holes ask difficult strategic questions of the golfer, others do not.  This discussion started because Niall quoted Ran's piece, describing CS as "one of the World's most strategic courses".  If a hole cannot be strategic then certainly a course cannot be.  I understand Ran to be using that expression to mean "one of the courses in the World that asks the most interesting strategic questions of the player".  Do you understand him to be using the phrase differently?

Jon,

I haven't commented on CS and the strategic questions it asks because I haven't played it.  I'd love to one day but, for now, it remains more expensive than I am willing to pay.  You equated choice to strategy.  Now strategy involves strategic choices but not all choices are strategic ones.  Niall did not say that CS did not provide choice, he said (as I think you well understood him to say) that he did not consider those choices to be strategic ones, since little benefit or detriment attached to any particular choice.  I don't know whether he is right or wrong but you are better (as you did in your post at 12.37 yesterday) to address whether it is right that certain choices (such as the ones on 14) do attract benefits or detriments.

[Rich Goodale]

Rich,

I do admire your love of the obtuse.  Jon may, literally, be correct.  However, his approach, taken to the extremes he appears to want to take it, would require any discussion about strategy in golf to contain more words than anyone could possibly wish to see.  Some holes ask difficult strategic questions of the golfer, others do not.  This discussion started because Niall quoted Ran's piece, describing CS as "one of the World's most strategic courses".  If a hole cannot be strategic then certainly a course cannot be.  I understand Ran to be using that expression to mean "one of the courses in the World that asks the most interesting strategic questions of the player".  Do you understand him to be using the phrase differently?

Jon,

I haven't commented on CS and the strategic questions it asks because I haven't played it.  I'd love to one day but, for now, it remains more expensive than I am willing to pay.  You equated choice to strategy.  Now strategy involves strategic choices but not all choices are strategic ones.  Niall did not say that CS did not provide choice, he said (as I think you well understood him to say) that he did not consider those choices to be strategic ones, since little benefit or detriment attached to any particular choice.  I don't know whether he is right or wrong but you are better (as you did in your post at 12.37 yesterday) to address whether it is right that certain choices (such as the ones on 14) do attract benefits or detriments.

Mark

You're a lawyer.

Could you please give me your off the cuff ranking of the 10 most "strategic" laws that you have had to deal with in your practice?

Vis a vis Ran et. al. and their (mis)use for the word "strategic," I think that it all started with the impenetrable prose of Maxie Behr, who was trying to think of a word more interesting than the word "interesting" when describing golf courses and or golf holes he liked.

Rich