What's so great about Dornoch?

[William_G]

from the the Fried Egg:


"Donald Ross was born in 1872 in Dornoch and got into the game of golf by caddying at Royal Dornoch. Later he became a club maker and met Old Tom Morris when he visited Dornoch. Ross served as an apprentice to Old Tom and later became the head professional at Royal Dornoch. After 5 years as the professional, he decided to take his talents to the United States."


https://thefriedegg.com/donald-ross-biography/


Having just gotten back from Dornoch myself, it is readily apparent how Mike Keiser was inspired to build links golf at Bandon Dunes....gorse, ocean, sand, wind, rain


both Bandon Dunes and Royal Dornoch are must plays if you love links golf


cheers

[Niall C]

the linkage of Royal Dornoch, Donald Ross and his design concepts particularly at P #2 are irrefutable and undeniable



given that Ross had nothing to do with RD except learn from it, it makes sense that it is a source of inspiration rather than a direct product of Ross' work. thus the point TD makes is so boring about the lack of similarity between P2 and RD


one in the sand hills and pine trees of Pinehurst and one on the beach in the Scottish Highlands, LOL


"I don't really believe anyone would make that connection if it wasn't so widely known that Ross is from Dornoch. You will pay for missing greens wide left or right on your approach shots, more so on those two courses than almost any other in the world . . . but they don't look much alike."[/font][/color]
[/font][/color]
[/size]always needing to be the smartest person, yawn [/color]   come on man


cheers[/size][/size]

I'm not sure I agree with Tom D regarding RD/P2 being more penal than any other for missing wide left or right with approaches, in fact I'm sure I don't at least in respect of RD. What I'm less sure about is what physical or playing characteristics the two courses share (I've never been to Pinehurst) that William seems to think is obvious to all. 

Niall

ps. I tried to fix the font size issue but being a techno numpty failed miserably

[Dan_Callahan]

Dornoch is easily my favorite course in the world. There were only two holes that I thought were sort of pedestrian. The 7th wasn’t bad, but it was certainly a notch below the rest. And now it’s been redesigned. And 18 wasn’t much of a finisher, but the green is spectacular. Hitting into that green late in the day with the sunset highlighting all of the ridges and valleys around the putting surface, with the clubhouse glowing behind it, is an unforgettable experience.

[William_G]

Dornoch is easily my favorite course in the world. There were only two holes that I thought were sort of pedestrian. The 7th wasn’t bad, but it was certainly a notch below the rest. And now it’s been redesigned. And 18 wasn’t much of a finisher, but the green is spectacular. Hitting into that green late in the day with the sunset highlighting all of the ridges and valleys around the putting surface, with the clubhouse glowing behind it, is an unforgettable experience.

yes

[David_Tepper]

"I'm not sure I agree with Tom D regarding RD/P2 being more penal than any other for missing wide left or right with approaches, in fact I'm sure I don't at least in respect of RD."

Niall -

Which courses do you think pose more challenging recovery shots around the greens than RD?

DT

[William_G]

Seminole is another course where you have to hit the proper shot to the green, or face the challenging recovery.


Clearly a Ross design characteristic.

[William_G]

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/new-seventh-hole-begins-to-take-shape-at-royal-dornoch


the new 7 and 8 will be fantastic, no doubt


also the front bunker on 10 was moved toward the tee by about 10 yards to allow for more front hole locations


fun

[John Emerson]

I am currently en route home from Scotland.  My caddy at Crail happened to be 9 time club champion(CGS).  He’s played all over Scotland and he said without a hesitation that Dornoch was his favorite.

[Niall C]

David


If you look at a lot of the classic courses in the UK, an awful lot of them rely on wing hazards around the greens and in addition have a number of holes where to be a number of yards off to the side can easily be a lost ball. In that respect RDGC is in that vein but IMO no worse than a lot of others. To use as examples a course I've been members of, at Gailes you have a couple of holes that hitting it wide could lead to OB and a few others where you could be in the gorse. Even when you are lying open in a good lie you might have a wicked recovery shot. Same could be said at Silloth and Moray.


Niall

[Jeff_Brauer]

A lot of those old Scottish courses had perched greens and short cut on all the downslopes, so many near misses got catapulted further from the green.  I sometimes wonder if the old Scots were the first to yell "Get in the bunker!"

Not sure how they play now with many courses having at least some irrigation.

[Thomas Dai]

Isn’t there a golf-cliche about the 170 yd-ish 2nd hole at RDGC with its steep sided raised narrow green being a great par-4 and that the best tee shot is usually a lay-up?
Atb

[Niall C]

Just to follow up on my previous post, it should also be said that the degree of trouble beside the green is far from uniform and it varies quite a bit from hole to hole and indeed depending on what side of the green you miss on. For instance you wouldn't want to miss right at the 6th RDGC but that might be far preferable to missing left.

Niall

[Rich Goodale]

Isn’t there a golf-cliche about the 170 yd-ish 2nd hole at RDGC with its steep sided raised narrow green being a great par-4 and that the best tee shot is usually a lay-up?
Atb

Not really Dai.  As a "par-4" 2 it's a PW or SW to 25 short of the green and then an easy pitch and run to the hole.  It's used mostly at the Carnegie Shield to insure a safe enough two-day medal score or in the knockout stages if your opponent has made a serious boo-boo off the tee.


Also, William G., Donald Ross did in fact return to Dornoch in 1921 and helped John Sutherland improve 1 and 2 (which were then 220 and 240 yard holes).  Ross did a great job on the 1st as did Sutherland on the 2nd (where Ross argued for a punch bowl green and Sutherland fortunately was over-ruled by his mentor).


As for the topic of greatness, it is personal and ephemeral.  Dornoch's only weakness to me is the fact that it is nowhere nearly as great as it used to be......


Rich

[Lou_Duran]

As for the topic of greatness, it is personal and ephemeral.  Dornoch's only weakness to me is the fact that it is nowhere nearly as great as it used to be......
Rich

Yes it is.  On another thread there's a heated argument about one of my favorite Tillies, The Black.  The range of opinion varies from "great" to "horrible".  Really, I think the site has been invaded by Martians!  There is even an insinuation that for a course to be great it must be fun for Tom Doak's mother. 


As to the second comment above, what has happened?  Too many visitors?  Modern ball and club technology?  Irrigation?  Maybe the quality of new members?


You know, I remember a round 17+ years ago when a couple guys shot a best ball round on a pretty good course that would have been in the running in a high-level tournament.  Neither of those two are nearly as great (using the word loosely) today as they were back then. 


I suspect that after this summer I will have the background to arrive at an informed opinion of RD's "greatness".  Of course, if I play Trump Balmedie and like it better, I will keep it to myself.

[Thomas Dai]

Dornoch's only weakness to me is the fact that it is nowhere nearly as great as it used to be......

I kind of think the same about a whole bunch of courses in the North or NE of Scotland before they were 'discovered'. Perhaps back in the days when they had less money, less players and not such manicured levels of conditioning.
atb

[mike_malone]

I seem to miss the greatness of a few courses like Bethpage Black, WFW, Friar’s Head, and Royal Dornoch while honoring TOC, Oakmont, NGLA, and Royal County Down.


I don’t like to start my round with a goofy hole. Number two is too narrow and the short grass on both sides just creates a goofy back and forth that is just silly.
I don’t like repetition either. A couple of early holes have a similar dogleg left with a fairway that slopes right. The overuse of the rivetted left and right fronting bunkers is boring.
The fact that the club is rerouting a hole is self admission of inferiority which knocks courses off the top level.
Finally the 16th hole dulls me at the end.


I played the course four times in a few days with some great playing companions but it ain’t at that top 20 in the world. The gap between it and Pine Valley or Oakmont is gaping.


I just don’t get it.

[Jon Wiggett]

I have much the same take as Mr Goodale in that the course was better when I first played it 30 odd years ago. I find the course is like many of our top links courses over manicured to the great detriment of the links experience. Having said that what makes Dornoch great is the overall experience of the village combined with a golf club that outside of the tourist silly season is still a truly wonderful members' club and long may it remain so.

[Niall C]

Mike

I like RDGC well enough but not nearly as much as the majority on this board and certainly don't agree with it's ranking by a long way so in some respects I agree with you, however (you just knew there was going to be a however  ) I think you are well off the mark in describing the 2nd as goofy golf.

It might be a high tariff tee shot if you go for the green but it is eminently reachable by most levels of golfer and it does offer a safer option to play it ie. play short to the front of the green. I also greatly like the fact that it is at the start of the round rather than being conventionally further into the round due to its difficulty.

Now if you had criticised Foxy I might have agreed with you 

Niall

ps. am I alone that thinks the first hole is a lovely simple hole that takes a bit of playing, especially with the hole tucked into the back left corner ?

[Niall C]

Rich/Jon

In what respects do you think the course is not as good as it was ?

Niall

[Mark Fedeli]

Interesting that the ranking came up. Wasn't it ranked 2 or 3 in the world on some major list? This was the talk of the other 3 blokes in my group who are not as interested in architecture. They all, to a man, came away disappointed and felt the course was quite literally overrated. It's not that they didn't enjoy themselves, I think they were just expecting... "more".


I sympathized with them a bit. I don't believe all of its charms are immediately evident, hence the reason I started this thread. And I do think it lacks some of the more eye-catching features you'll find at Cruden Bay or North Berwick or Prestwick.


I wonder if Dornoch has so much of the language that's been used to build the thousands of courses that came after that portions of it just don't stand out as being so obviously special. Maybe there is a sense of "we've seen this before" for new visitors just looking to be wowed, especially if they've already played a bunch of spectacular oceanside courses.

[Niall C]

Mark

As a gross generalisation, I think that most links tend to have greens a lot more at grade than you get at RDGC. I've always imagined that had a bearing on Ross and his design and in some respects wondered if that is why Americans like RDGC so much ie. RDGC's influence on Ross and his subsequent influence on US golf design.

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Mark

As a gross generalisation, I think that most links tend to have greens a lot more at grade than you get at RDGC. I've always imagined that had a bearing on Ross and his design and in some respects wondered if that is why Americans like RDGC so much ie. RDGC's influence on Ross and his subsequent influence on US golf design.

Niall

Niall:


Sometimes the cause and effect stories about golf architecture are oversimplified.  The Dornoch that Ross knew did not have as many of those plateau greens . . . six of the original holes were on the Struie course, and I do not remember that any of them were built up in the same way as the majority on the big course.  For that matter, I doubt that all of the twelve greens on the big course date back to before Ross left for America, but I'm not fully versed on the history of the course.


But, as to your earlier point about Gailes or Moray being as penal to off-line second shots as Royal Dornoch is, there is a big difference:  the penalty at Dornoch is architectural, whereas at the others it sounds like it's more about committees that have let the gorse creep into play too much.

[Niall C]

Tom


Don't you know those greens have been there since 1616 ! 


Yes, even as I typed that post I did wonder if what was there pre Ross and George Duncan had quite as many plateaus. In mitigation, Dornoch was a big favourite of JH Taylor back in the day and he was very fond of his pitch shots so figured there might have been. A bit tenuous I know. Hopefully Rich will pitch in and let us know.


Re Moray and Gailes, I take your point about vegetation. However even without the gorse and allowing for an element of rough both provide challenges if you miss wide, and I say that as someone who is prone to missing greens. Gailes even has it's own version of RDGC #2 with its 8th hole while the 9th is even trickier. Then there is the wonder of the 15th green with it's deep and sharp drop off on the left. Scale also comes into it with RDGC's relatively larger greens being easier to hit even if you can't get it close.


As an aside, the last time I was down at Gailes about 2 years ago they had stripped out acres of gorse and removed hundreds of trees and I understand have since continued on in that vein.


Niall

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

Don't you know those greens have been there since 1616 ! 

Yes, even as I typed that post I did wonder if what was there pre Ross and George Duncan had quite as many plateaus. In mitigation, Dornoch was a big favourite of JH Taylor back in the day and he was very fond of his pitch shots so figured there might have been. A bit tenuous I know. Hopefully Rich will pitch in and let us know.

Niall
[/quite]


Niall


As far as I know, roughly 9 of the current 18 greens on the Big Course were built by Mother Nature and found by the locals and later on by OTM (before DR flitted to the Colonies in 1899), specifically:


3, 4, 5, 11 (which was a short hole played from today's 6th tee), 13 (moved on and off the rota several times, surely including todays green, and probably seen and played by DR prior to the the 20th C), 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.  Most were tinkered with over the past 120 years, and continue to be so now.  The best source for these are John MacLeod's history, published in 2000 and highly recommended to the golf history afficionado and I think it can still be bought at the RDGC clubhouse.


Rich

[David Davis]

Ok, I'm going to go against the grain here. I love the experience that is Dornoch as others have mentioned, the town, the club, the tie into the beach and sea, the blooming gorse (when I plan my trips there). The hotel right there, wonderful members etc.


Here's what I don't love and why in my opinion it's one of the most overrated courses I can think of, or at least that comes to mind when I hear the overrated courses question.


2nd hole - let's say it's very good, 6th hole slightly different setting, same hole very similar green, same death if you miss either side or long, same club off the tee for me.


8th hole and 17th hole, both very good, both play the same


10th hole and 13th hole, both short 3's almost same direction, same club every time I've played.


That's too much repetition for a World Top 50 course (I'm just using the ranking as a measurement tool here) There are tons of courses not ranked that are wonderful. However, as a course that is often seen as being in the world top 20, better by some, the golf course itself, the architecture for me doesn't justify it.


Where would it be if Tom Watson didn't love it so much back in the day. For starters no Americans would of went there. Well, except Rich perhaps.


The 7th hole is a runway, though I like the green (not sure how the changes will be but hard to do a lot worse than a half par dead straight runway with gorse on either side.


10 hole taken away from the sea wouldn't be special anywhere. Just a decent hole no more, no less.


So no bad holes if I'm being fair, but few that I would say are all world great holes either. Greens are very interesting and natural which I love but since we are picking at straws and nearly everyone loves every aspect of it, there's my two sense.


Would I love to play it again, yes, will I, yes but it would be unfair to offer no critique as well. After all it's still in my personal world top 100 courses and probably top 20 golf experiences as long as you stay there or in town for a few days.