Tartan treat: Inspired by driving the courses on Scotland’s north coast

IN 2014, Failte Ireland launched the spectacular 2,500 kilometre coastal route known as the Wild Atlantic Way. It was promoted on a global scale, confirming what we’ve always known in our hearts… that we are blessed with some of the most dramatic and inspiring scenery on the planet.

Of course, we are not alone in laying claim to such beauty, and Scotland launched its own coastal drive in 2015. Known as the North Coast 500 (NC500), this route has one key advantage over our Wild Atlantic Way: it is a circuit of 500 miles, starting and finishing in the Scottish Highlands capital city of Inverness.

The NC500 follows the coastline around the northern Highlands, stretching from Inverness up to John O’Groats, the most northerly point on the British mainland.

From there it switches west for 90 miles to the isolated and beautiful Durness, before weaving south through a mountainous landscape to the equally remote village of Applecross.

There is an air of wild mystery and romanticism to the Scottish Highlands, and this coastal drive promises mist-enshrined mountains as far as the eye can see, curling, golden beaches, bays, cliffs and castles…. and dunes. And the Scots have been playing golf in those dunes for centuries.

Royal Dornoch is on the NC500… and so is Brora. They are two of the world’s best, with Royal Dornoch celebrating its 400th anniversary in 2016. As a golf writer, what more inspiration could I ask for! A little more digging revealed that the route possesses 27 golf courses in all, and while the north and west coasts offer scant golfing opportunities, the east coach has a rich vein which makes it a links lover’s paradise.

Inverness is a buzzing city on the Moray Firth, and there are several golf courses nearby, including Inverness and the heathland Muir of Ord. The acclaimed Castle Stuart is only 30 minutes to the east, but the NC500 route I was on took me north, to the pretty Alness Golf Club in the hills.

Alness is a lesson in what golf should be… in Ireland we have become spoiled with the quality of courses we play, week in, week out. Alness is not top quality by any means but golf here is about the spirit of the game, hitting a ball in the company of friends and switching off for a while. I had forgotten that spirit and it wasn’t for another week, when I played Reay Golf Club on the north coast, that it all came back to me.

Reay’s rough links fairways took me back to when I was a boy, trampling over similar fairways at Barley Cove in Cork… and loving every minute of it. There are a dozen such courses on this 500 mile route and while most golf travellers will not grace their fairways, they remain a reminder of what makes the game we love so special.

Fortrose and Rosemarkie is the first of the serious courses. Laid out by James Braid, it is a low-lying links on a small peninsula which slashes into the Moray Firth like a knife blade. Established in 1888, someone recently found proof in their attic that golf has been played here since 1702. It makes it the 15th oldest golfing site in the world.

At the peninsula’s tip, beside the 5th tee, stands the Chanonry Point lighthouse. It has become a tourist attraction in recent times as a pod of dolphins appears daily. The dolphins haven’t been around as long as Dingle’s Fungi, but this pod performs yards from the beach.

To the north, the royal burgh of Tain is home to a charming Old Tom Morris links. Tain Golf Club markets itself as Old Tom’s ‘Northern Jewel’, a title it richly deserves with fairways squeezed by gorse and broom.

I drove over Dornoch Bridge the following morning to play one of the world’s greatest links. Royal Dornoch has 400 years of golfing history ingrained in its fairways and it is blissfully beautiful. It possesses a wedding cake feel… three delicious tiers tumbling down through the gorse from a high ridge that curls around Dornoch Firth.

The golf is superb but so too is the total experience. ‘Royals’ can be rather stiff and formal but the staff here couldn’t have been more welcoming. It was as friendly a Scottish reception as anyone could ask for and it was something I encountered everywhere I went. And I don’t just mean at the golf courses.

A golf trip to Scotland is about so much more than the little white ball. This is where the NC500 comes into its own. It can’t seriously market itself as a golf route as the golf is concentrated too heavily on the east coast. There are courses all along the route, for sure, but not of the scale and quality (Durness excepted) that will lure golfers from overseas. By the time you reach the north and west coasts, however, you will be lapping up the scenery, the solitude and, I suspect, the whisky. They’re not short of distilleries up this way, and each town has its own. Tain has two of the best: Balblair and Glenmorangie.

On my journey north the Hill o Many Stanes, Sinclair Castle, Dunrobin Castle, Whaligoe Steps and the sea stacks at Duncansby Head all stole my time before the road turns west. Once I passed Thurso, heading for Durness, the scenery became ever more enchanting. First came the beaches and the dunes, then came the lakes, the mountains and the peaks of Ben Loval and Ben Hiel… said to have inspired Mordor, in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

But it is the west coast that will take your breath away, where your urge to stop the car to drink in the views will come on every bend and crest. Here the mountains roll forever into the distance, the heather and bracken paint their colours across the landscape and the lochs slide in gracefully from the ocean.

Back on the east coast, my love affair with Scottish golf courses was set to continue. The road took me from Dornoch to Golspie and Brora, both designed by the Scot, James Braid. Golspie is a combination of adventurous links and colourful heathland holes, watched over by the 100ft statue of the Earl of Sutherland, atop Ben Bhraggie. It’s a contentious statue, reminding everyone of the despicable Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries. The similarities with the Great Famine will not be lost on any Irish visitor.

James Braid designed five of the courses along this 27-course route, but Brora is probably the greatest of all his creations. The links embraces the gentle flow of dunes around Kintradwell Bay, in a classic out and back routing, and the greens may well be the best you ever play on.

For a golfing odyssey, the five courses of Fortrose & Rosemarkie, Tain, Royal Dornoch, Golspie and Brora will prove more than satisfactory. You could leave it at that but the North Coast 500 has already been nominated as one of the best driving routes in the world. It deserves to be seen, explored and enjoyed.

Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.